13/10/2022

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
MSC Onderwijskunde / Educational Sciences
2022-2023

Prof. dr. Jerich Faddar

Today
 Introduction

 Course information

 Practicalities

 Exploration of curriculum & approaches

 Manifestations of curriculum

 Approaches to curriculum

 Assignments

 Next lecture(s)

jerich.faddar@vub.be

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PERSONAL STORIES
ABOUT YOU

• Who are you?

• What is your background?
• Where do you think your
learning journey might bring
you?
• Do you have plans?

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PERSONAL STORIES
ABOUT ME

• Trained as a secondary education teacher (Frech,

economics and biology) (UAS Kempen, 2008)
• Msc Training and Education sciences (University of
Antwerp, 2012)
• PhD Educational Sciences (University of Antwerp,
2018)

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PERSONAL STORIES
ABOUT ME

• Worked in private financial sector

• Policy advisor – Pedagogical policy (Pedagogical support service)
• Academia
• Co-National Program Manager TALIS 2013 in Flanders
• Special Research Fund (University of Antwerp): doctoral fellowship
“School Self-Evaluation: Self-perception or Self-deception? Studies on the validity of School
Self-Evaluation results” (+ visiting scholar at Dublin City University, Ireland)
• National Research Coordinator TIMSS 2019 in Flanders
• Project leader in Flanders for Erasmus+ project on DEAPS (Distributed Evaluation And
Planning in Schools) – Flanders, Ireland, Turkey and Portugal
• Feasibility study regarding Centralised Testing in Flanders (Flemish Government)
• Researcher at the Centre of expertise Learning and Innovation (University of Applied
Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands)

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CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT

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COURSE INFORMATION

• Study fiche

• Study guide  asap available on Canvas

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COURSE INFORMATION
DESIGN

• 6 lectures

• Individual assignments
• Submit in preparation of the lectures

• Individual assignment (paper)

• By the end of the semester

• Study material:
• Reader on Canvas
• Ornstein & Hunkins (2018) Curriculum: Foundations, Principels, and Issues. 7th edition

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COURSE INFORMATION
EVALUATION

• Permantent evaluation – individual assignments by session(s)

• 10% of the total mark
• Individual assignment (paper) – by the end of the semester
• 40% of the total mark
• Oral exam
• 50% of the total mark

• Second examination period

• PE automatically transferred to second examination period
• Assignment automatically transferred to second examination period if pass
• Oral exam can be retaken in second examination period

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PRACTICALITIES

• Interrupt, ask, wonder, question, share insights …

• Respectful regarding others

• Deadlines are fixed and hard

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TODAY’S LECTURE

Objectives:

- Get familiar and gain insight in the concept of curriculum

- Explore different approaches towards curriculum

- Understand factors that are affecting or influencing curriculum

- Gain insight in different manifestations of a curriculum

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Are you who you are because of your education?

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...or in spite of your education?

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Or...somewhere in between?

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DISCUSSION

HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

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WHAT IS CURRICULUM?

Divide yourselves into groups of 5

Share your ideas on what could be a definition or description of a curriculum

Go to www.menti.com

Enter passcode 6722 1769

Fill in your definition or description you came with in your group

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WHAT IS CURRICULUM

DEFINITION

Since you all went through your primary and secondary education trajectory…

How would you describe < curriculum > ?

Does anyone agree?

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CHILDHOOD IS NOT A GIVEN

Middle Ages

• Children were evil  needed to be educated through instruction

17th century

• Children are innocent – needed to be protected

• Childhood = separate stage of life

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: nature is good, society is evil

• Children have own perspectives, should be left to develop as nature

intended, a lot of freedom (but girls were obliged to obey, could be punished)
18th – 19th century

• Children deeper wisdom than adults

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WHAT IS CURRICULUM?

Different approaches to curriculum up to now

 Behaviorist
Dominant approach to curriculum
A plan – objectives and goals specified – efficiency

 Managerial
focus on relationships and arrangements within their organisation/school – ‘getting
things done’ – steering on processes – supervision – hierarchical

 Systems
The whole – interrelatedness – curriculum engineering – all stages of curriculum –
curriculum structure (subjects, courses, unit plans and lesson plans) – TQM (client-
driven, self-monitoring) – profound knowledge

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APPROACHES TO CURRICULUM

 Academic
‘Traditional’ or ‘knwoledge-oriented’ – historical & philosophical focus on curriculum –
“fear of knowledge” – postmodern academic perspective: attention for construction,
deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge

 Humanistic
Missing the personal and social aspects of curriculum and instruction + overlooking
sociopsychological dynamics of classrooms and schools
- progressive philosophy and child-centered movement – student’s natural
development and curiosity – whole child, not only cognitive domain

 Postmodern
in extension to humanistic – focus on change and reform – larger ideological issues
(investigating society’s social, economic, and political institutions) – curriculum
development = open system – communal conversation – no one precise, certain way
to create curricula

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DEFINITION OF CURRICULUM

- ‘plan for achieving goals’

- ‘dealing with the learners’ experiences’

- Eisner: a “program that a school offers to its students”, “preplanned series of educational
hurdles and an entire range of experiences a child has within the school”
- Marsh & Willis: “experiences in the classroom[that are] planned and enacted”

- ‘a field of study with its own foundations, knowledge domains, research, theory,
principles, and specialists’

- ‘defined in terms of subject matter or content’

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CURRICULUM MANIFESTATIONS

Ronald Doll:
Planned

Unplanned

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CURRICULUM MANIFESTATIONS

The hidden curriculum …

Eisner: the null curriculum = omitted content and values – deliberate choices based on
objective criteria

Focus is often on agreed-on content – rest (too) easily omitted

Also criticism on the emphasis for what is [relatively easily] being measured or evaluated

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CURRICULUM MANIFESTATIONS

Intended

Implemented

Evaluated

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CURRICULUM MANIFESTATIONS

Intended

Implemented Alignment?

Evaluated

Attained

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ISSUES REGARDING CURRICULUM

Who decides on the content of the curriculum

How relates a common core curriculum to free choice options?

How much emphasis on facts and figures compared to deeper understanding and
discussion?

To what extent are teachers having a role in the defining the curriculum compared to
central policy- and curriculum-makers?

To what extent is curriculum a student, professional or parental choice?

 Curriculum expansion

 Curriculum overload

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DOMAINS OF CURRICULUM

External boundaries: what affects the field of curriculum

Internal boundaries: knowledge within the field of curriculum

• not popular according to curricularists  - much unread

• No concensus

• Development and Design = crucial

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CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

= traditional and most common to the field

• How is curriculum planned, implemented, and evaluated?

• What people, processes, and procedures are involved in constructing the curriculum

• Development ~ plan

• Different models present different steps (4, 7 or more) + relationships between

decisions and steps

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CURRICULUM DESIGN

= how the curriculum is conceptualised & arrangement of major components (subject

matter or content, instructional methods and materials, learner experiences or activities)

• Guidance and direction

• Most often not ‘pure’

• Design  room for individual differences (a writer’s view, background, view on the
world, values and beliefs about education, etc)

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FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

Philosophical foundations

Historical foundations

Psychological foundations

Social foundations

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SELF STUDY TASKS

Self Study Task 1

• Will be published on Canvas

• Philosophical and historical foundations of curriculum

• Deadline = November 8th, midnight

• Submitting through Canvas

UAT SSS Fluid

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FINAL ASSIGNMENT

• Two options
• Option A: curriculum development
• Option B: research proposal regarding curriculum

• 40% of final mark for the course

• Submission deadline is December 23rd, midnight

• Submitting through Canvas

• Addtional information next lecture

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QUESTIONS?

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