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Curriculum Studies

EDUC 5220-01 Curriculum Design

Master of Education, University of the People

Dr. Brian Legg

20 April 2022
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As the need of a better quality human resource increase, the education system also

change. The demand of more modern education system is getting higher. A lot of people realize

that the old system is not really suitable and does not fully relate into modern life problem. Thus,

many schools now offering more modern curriculum that can fill the demand to solve modern

life problem.

The old curriculum study was filled with traditionalists who focused on the school and

schools teachers (Pinar. 2006). In this era, curriculum focused on the teacher as the one who

knows the knowledge and students as the one who receive the knowledge. Even though it has

been decades, this practice in education still can be found anywhere, but there are also many

different curriculums that are focus more to the students’ personal development and practical life

skills rather than to be a teacher-centered practice. Modern curriculum studies focuses not only

to the present’s problems but also the future. A lot of modern curriculums offer the learning

strategies and outcome as someone who is ready for the present and future life situation, this is

what we called as 21st century skills.

The demand of human resource with 21st century skills change the education system more

into personalities development, social skills, technology awareness and critical thinking rather.

So more and more schools adapt and change their curriculum to fulfill this needs. According to

UNESCO (2016) the objective of a quality curriculum is to make the students able to acquire and

develop the knowledge, value and skills that will lead them into meaningful and productive lives.

By this description, the nowadays curriculum is expected to be more into learner-centered, not

more focus on teachers or schools like Pinar stated before.

Another thing that could be discuss on the development on the curriculum studies is the

choice to focus on the content or the goal. Wahlström (2018) mentioned that the previous
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curriculum study on Journal of Curriculum Study focused more into the content rather than the

goal of the education. These days, in contradiction, people can find many curriculums focus on

the goal of the learning rather than the content.

For example, in where I work, the curriculum allow the teachers to make the syllabus to

review and repeat the same lesson materials in different delivery ways. The review and repetition

are meant to make sure that the students have achieve the goal before moving to the next lesson

or level. The review is done in a certain time like 2-4 weeks after the material is delivered for the

first time. The goal is to make sure the students really understand what they have been taught. If

there is any sign that the repetition is needed, then the teacher could do it immediately.

Pinar (2006) also mentioned about curriculum development is political. But this is

accordingly to how people see on what is political. Wahlström (2018) stated that “the political”

in education follows four situations: first is the fact that school is embedded to society as its

function to reproduce the cultural, social and economic life in the society. The second is about

the constant stress in education between social reproduction and social transformation. The third

is the educational change is closely related to the conflict on the definition of what a good

education is to a certain society, and the last is an ethical questions to address in education and

the ways in which they can be addressed.

It is a matter of fact that curriculum in education generally has changed a lot. People now

are demanding to make sure that they and the future generation are getting the benefit from the

education, for their personal and social life. As an educator, being aware of the current problems

and the suitable curriculum to face and solve the problem would be very beneficial. A good

curriculum would allow the space for flexibility instead of being rigid and should be able to

answer current problems and also ready for the future situation.
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References

Pinar, W. F. (1978). The reconceptualization of curriculum studies. Journal of Curriculum

Studies, 10(3), 205-21. http://daneshnamehicsa.ir/userfiles/file/Resources/8-

2%29%20Ideologies/ARTICLE_William%20Pinar.pdf

Stabback, P. (2016). What Makes a Quality Qurriculum?. UNESCO Digital Library.

Wahlström, N. (2018). Where is ‘the political’ in curriculum research?, Journal of Curriculum

Studies, 50:6, 711-723, DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2018.1537375