Republic of the Philippines

Tarlac Agricultural University

College of Education- Graduate Program

Program Planning and Curriculum Development

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT: RALPH TYLER’S MODEL

LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the lesson, the students, teachers or managers are able to:

● Understand how to formulate educational objectives

● Define what is curriculum, Curriculum Development and Models of Curriculum
● Brief background Ralph Tyler
● Identify the Rationale/Principles of the Curriculum model
● Discuss the Tylers Model of Curriculum Development.

CURRICULUM

- It is the combination of instructional practices, learning experiences, and students' performance

assessment that are designed to bring out and evaluate the target learning outcomes of a particular
course/area.
- Curriculum often a format, guidelines, content of "what to teach," and "what the student needs to
learn."
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

- Curriculum is a dynamic process involving many different people and procedures. The word
development connotes changes which is systematic. A change for the better means of alteration,
modification, or improvement of existing condition.
- Teachers need to have knowledge of curriculum development.
- Generally, curriculum development involved 3 main stage the Planning (what to teach),
Implementation (how to teach), and Evaluation (how to evaluate).
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT MODEL

- A model is really the first step in the curriculum development because curriculum model determines
the type of curriculum used; encompasses educational philosophy, approach to teaching and
methodology. It is important that the educators are familiar with the models used in their school.

RALPH TYLER BACKGROUND

- Originally, he wrote down his ideas in a book Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction for his
students to give them an idea about principles for to making curriculum. His model was one of the
first models and it was and still is a highly simple and used by many educators today.
The Rationale

- Tyler identified four fundamental questions which he suggested to be answered in developing any
curriculum and plan of action. These are the following:
 What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives?
How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?
How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?

- These questions may be reformulated into a four-step process: stating objectives, selecting learning
experiences, organizing learning experiences, and evaluating the curriculum. The Tyler rationale is
essentially an explication of these steps.

STATING THE OBJECTIVES: The progressive emphasizes the importance of studying the child to find out
what kinds of interests he has, what problems he encounters, what purposes he has in mind. The progressive
sees this information as providing the basic source for selecting objectives.

SELECTING LEARNING EXPERIENCES: Tyler believes that students learn through exploration. Like his
mentor, John Dewey, Tyler believes teachers should encourage children to become actively engaged in
discovering what the world is like.

ORGANIZING LEARNING EXPERIENCES:

Central to Tyler’s Model is effectively organizing the learning objectives. Students need concrete
experiences to which the readings are meaningfully connected. Three major criteria are required in building
organized learning experiences: continuity, sequence and integration

EVALUATING CURRICULUM: The process of assessment is critical to Tyler’s Model and begins with the
objectives of the educational program. The process of evaluation is essentially the process of determining to
what extent the educational objectives are actually being realized by the program of curriculum and
instruction.

CURRICULUM PLANNING IN TYLERS MODEL

SELECTING OF OBJECTIVES

Tyler recommends that curriculum planners should identify general objectives by gathering data from three
sources.

STUDENT- Tyler observations by teachers, interviews with students and parents, questionnaires, and test as
techniques for collecting data about students. The curriculum designers his/her search for educational
objective by gathering and analyzing data relevant to students needs and interest such (educational, social,
occupational, physical, including the psychological)

SOCIETY – analysis of contemporary life in both local community and in society helps to know the needs
of the society which plays an important role in formulating general objectives.

SUBJECT- The curriculum planners formulate the objectives on the basis of requirements of the particular
discipline or subject.

After identifying numerous general objectives, the planners refine them by filtering through two screens.

PHILOSOPHICAL-Tyler advised teachers of particular school to formulate an educational and social

philosophy and to outline values by emphasizing democratic goals.
Recognition of importance of every individual human being regardless of race, national, social or economic
status etc.
PHYCHOLOGICAL – knowledge in the psychology of learning enables us to distinguish changes in human
beings that can be expected to result from a learning process from those that cannot.

Screening process is necessary to eliminate unnecessary or contradictory objectives. The two general
objectives that successfully passed through two screens are known as Instructional Objectives.

SELECTION OF LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Tyler defined learning experiences as “the interaction between the learner and external conditions in the
environment to which he can react”. He suggested that teachers must give attention to learning experiences.
-that will develop skill in thinking, will be helpful in acquiring information, and also helpful in developing
social attitudes and lastly learning experiences that help to develop interest.

ORGANISATION OF LEARNING EXPERIENCES

This involves the way in which experience can be organized logically.

Should the teachers demonstrate first or should the students learn by writing immediately?
Either way could work and preferences is determined by the philosophy of the teachers and the needs of the
students.

EVALUATION

This is the last step in which curriculum designers decides the ways to evaluate the learning.

This could be in form of written exams, oral test, interviews or many others ways on the basis of formulated
educational objectives.

Evaluation gives evidence that whether the students have achieved the objectives or not.

Tyler proposed a comprehensive linear model for curriculum development which starts from objectives and
ends with evaluation. One of the highlighted features of this model is philosophical and psychological
screening which plays an important role in eliminating unimportant and contradictory objectives. After that
selection, organization and evaluation of learning experiences helps to attain educational objectives in most
effective way.

Criticism of the Tylers Model:

-time consuming
- very managerial and linear in its position on the school curriculum.
- the model is that it as outdated and atheoretical, suitable only to administrators keen on controlling the
school curriculum in ways that are unresponsive to teachers and learners.
- administrative since it is top-down approach

Study related to the Tylers Model:

Search: Considering Tyler’s Curriculum Model in Health and Physical Education.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1180613.pdf

CONCLUSION

Ralph Tyler was a visionary of education reforms. Many consider him to be the “grandfather” of the
implementation of learning objectives, as we know them today. Through his constant questioning, in which
his outcomes weren’t always correct and criticized, we put what we want our students to get out of a lesson,
first. Tyler’s Model, is just that, a model that enables a teacher, school, district to really think about what is
best for the children. Deductive or Inductive, Prescriptive or Descriptive, all models are there to serve as a
guide to better our students and help them achieve academic success.

Tyler believes the first source for determining educational objectives ought to stem from understanding the
varying needs and interests of learners themselves. In order to tap into this source of information, however, a
school needs to determine what behavior it would like to see from its students and then measure that desired
behavior against its student body’s current behavior. If there is a gap in what “is” and what “ought to be,”
the school has a basis for the development of educational purposes. Another consideration for learner-
derived objections for is in the assessment of student interests. Tyler examines the theory that students who
are interested in a given topic are more likely to participate than those disinterested, and that students who
actively participate in an experience have a much deeper learning curve than those who choose not to
participate. Therefore, it is to the school’s benefit to assess student interests and provide students with
experiences (provided those interests are determined to positively coincide with desirable norms) that will
enhance their experiential learning.

A second likely source for determining objectives comes from analyzing the student body’s
surrounding environment and contemporary life at large. Tyler argues that it makes little sense to formulate
school objectives based on outdated theories. Schools must be able to respond to the growing and changing
needs of contemporary life and must seek to enable students to meet the needs of that diverse environment.
Therefore, it is appropriate to determine what skills and opportunities the students will most likely encounter
outside of school (or upon graduating from school) and to assess what opportunities schools might offer to
enhance student’s readiness for such an environment.

The last source Tyler suggests to derive objective from is subject specialists. He contends that subject
specialists should ask themselves how their particular subject will educate students in a general sense—
especially those students who will not themselves become specialists in that particular subject area. Tyler is
very methodical in his approach to answering each of the four questions he poses for curriculum
development. After analyzing the potential sources for attainment of objectives, he warns against schools
taking on too much and therefore suggests two screens for narrowing the scope of objectives—educational
philosophy and the psychology of learning. Curriculum creation must be done with both screens in mind.

Finally, there must be continuity of learning objectives, a logical sequence of educational experiences, and
an integration of themes for the highest possible efficiency of a school’s curriculum. Each determined
objective must answer to the last test—evaluation wherein educators examine content areas against the
desired behavior in order to assess to what extent educators are indeed accomplishing what they intend to
accomplish through their specific content means.

SHORT REFLECTION

My reaction to Tyler is that his logic makes sense. He takes into consideration the learner, the
environment, determines obtainable parameters for objective formulation, and includes accountability
procedures with the insistence on evaluation. As a fellow teacher, although the book was relatively small, I
agree with Tyler that teachers and administrators should spend as much time evaluating their plans as they
do assess their students and curriculum planning is a continuous, cyclical progress, an instrument of
education that needs to be fine-tuned.

Tyler’s straightforward recommendations and model are sound and effective tools for educators like who’s
working to create a curriculum that integrates national objectives with our student’s needs.

The one thing I found particularly interesting and overlooked on my first reading was Tyler’s discussion
about the inadequacy of “transfer of training” theories (17). Tyler in 1949 is arguing that skills do not
transfer independently from the content and experiences in which they are originally derived! 1949! After
finding this gem, my mind seems determined to focus on this one element when thinking of Tyler.

REFERECES:

Denham, T.J. (2002). Comparison of two curriculum/Instructional Design Models: Ralph W. Tyler and Siena College
Accounting Class, ACCT205. Retrieved from ERIC Database. (ED 471734)

Northeastern Illinois University. (n.d.). Classical Model. Ralph Tyler, 1949, Book Summary. Retrieved from
www.neiu.edu/-aserafin/New%20Folder/TYLER.html

University of South Florida College of Education. (n.d.) Ralph Tyler’s little book. Retrieved from
www.coedu.usf.edu/agents/dlewis/publications/tyler.htm

Billings, D.M. & Halstead, J.A. (2009). Teaching in nursing: A guide for faculty. St. Louis, Missouri: Saunder
Elsevier

Keatin, S. (2006). Curriculum development and evaluation in nursing. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins.

Prideaux, D. (2003). Curriculum design: ABC of learning and teaching in medicine. British Medical Journal,
326(7383), 2680270. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1125124/?tool=pubmed

https://educationalresearchtechniques.com/2014/07/01/curriculum-development-the-tyler-model/

http://www.vkmaheshwari.com/WP/?p=1894

Submitted by:

RHEA ANN M. DELOS TRINO

Submitted to: DR. CLAIRE ANNE A. OLIVARES