Glatthorn, Curriculum Leadership, 5e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

Lecture Notes

Chapter 1: The Nature of Curriculum

Chapter Questions

1. What is the concept of curriculum?

2. What are the types of curriculum?
3. What are the components of curriculum?
4. What are mastery, organic, and enrichment curricula?
5. What is meant by the hidden curriculum?

Chapter Summary

This chapter provides an overview of curriculum with its set of concepts for analyzing the
field of curriculum. It defines the concept of both curriculum and standards while reviewing
the types of curricula, its components, and the fundamental concepts essential to the
understanding of the field of curriculum.

Further, this chapter explores how curriculum components have changed. It will review
what mastery, organic, and enrichment curriculum are, as well as the roles they play in
developing curriculum and why they are so important for school success.

I. The Concept of Curriculum: The definitions for prescriptive and descriptive curricula
vary in their breadth and emphasis, but either type should reflect the general
understanding of the term and should be useful to educators making operational
distinctions. The curriculum is the total learning experience for students and should
focus on both the curriculum and the instruction or how teachers teach what has been
written.
a) Curriculum includes both the plans made for learning and the actual learning
experience provided.
b) Curriculum perspective--what ought to happen in terms of a plan, an intended
program, or some kind of expert opinions about what should be studied, that
is, timeline of thinking about perspective curriculum:
c) Timeline:
- 1902--John Dewey--Continuous reconstruction as a result of experiences
- 1957--Ralph Tyler--All experiences both planned and directed by the school
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SAGE Publishing, 2019
- 2010--Indiana Department of Education--Curriculum means the planned
interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and
processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives.
d) Curriculum = descriptive, that is, forced thought about curriculum in
classrooms or the experiences that occur timeline of thinking:
-1935--Caswell and Campbell--All experiences under the guidance of teachers
-1960--WB Ragan--All experiences where school accepts responsibility
-2013--Ebert II, Ebert, and Bentley--Curriculum is only that part of the plan
that directly affects students. Anything in the plan that does not reach the
students constitutes an educational wish, but not a curriculum.
II. Types of Curricula:
a) Intentional Curriculum:
i. Recommended curriculum
ii. Written curriculum
iii. Supported curriculum
iv. Taught curriculum
v. Tested curriculum
vi. Learned curriculum
vii. Hidden curriculum
b) Recommended Curriculum: This curriculum is the one recommended by
individual scholars, professional associations, and reform commissions; it also
encompasses the curriculum requirements of policymaking groups, such as the
federal government with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and state
governments suchlike the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
and the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). Recommended
curricula are typically formulated at a rather high level of generality; they are
most often presented as policy recommendations, lists of goals, suggested
graduation requirements, and general recommendations about the content and
sequence of field of study, such as mathematics.
i. Tip: Recommended curricula are typically formulated at a rather high
level of generality; they are most often presented as policy
recommendations, lists of goals, suggested graduation requirements,
and general recommendations about the content and sequence of a
field of study, such as mathematics.
ii. The Role of Professional Associations
i. Serve as the public voice for the numerous academic
disciplines.
ii. Provide vision, leadership, and professional development to
support teachers.
 Glatthorn, Curriculum Leadership, 5e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
iii. Dedicated to ongoing dialogue and constructive discussion
with all stakeholders about what is best for students
a. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
b. Council for Exceptional Children
c. National Council of Teacher Quality (NCTQ)
d. American Association of School Administrators
(AASA)
e. National Associations for Secondary School Principals
(NASSP)
f. Middle School Principals (NAMSP)
g. Elementary School Principals (NAESP)

c) Written Curriculum
i. Written curriculum is intended primarily to ensure that newly adapted
educational goals of the system are being accomplished and that the
curriculum is well managed. This enables all students, regardless of
ethnicity, cultural background or challenges, be able to graduate from
respective high schools and be prepared for postsecondary education
and careers. It is often specific and comprehensive with goals to be
accomplished, objectives to be mastered, and sequence of objectives
and the kinds of learning activities to be used.
ii. Chief functions:
i. more specific and comprehensive than recommended
curriculum and is authentic,
ii. standardizing expectations for all, and
iii. controlling what is taught.
iii. Generic curricula are those written for use in various educational
setting (often produced by educational and state labs)
iv. Site-specific written curricula are often influences by federal and state
legislation such as PL94-142
v. Principal leadership responsibilities--Exhibit 1.3
d) Supported Curriculum: This is the curriculum reflected in and shaped by the
resources allocated to support and deliver the curriculum. A harsh reality lies
with school leaders having minimal guidance when facing continued budget
cuts for supported curriculum.
i. First, early studies indicate time is an important factor. Stallings
(1980) concluded “the body of knowledge emanating from the
research on teaching in the 1970s suggests teachers should allocate
more time to academic subjects while minding ability levels and
student engagement in tasks.”
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SAGE Publishing, 2019
ii. Second, NEA (2011) noted a class size of 15 students in regular
programs and even smaller in programs for students with exceptional
needs is a key to success.
iii. Third, the quality of the textbook and other learning resources as an
aspect of the supported curriculum seems to play a central role.
iv. Fourth, advent of Common Core State Standards--Impact textbooks by
setting higher expectations for students in the areas of reading, writing,
speaking, and listening.
v. Role of supported curriculum in the stages of curriculum cycle:
First--Developing curricula
Second--Implementing the curriculum
Third--Aligning the curriculum
Fourth--Finally, evaluation of the curriculum
e) Taught Curriculum: The taught curriculum is the delivered curriculum, a
curriculum that an observer sees in action as the teacher teaches.
f) Tested Curriculum: The tested curriculum is that set of learnings that are
assessed in teacher-made classroom tests, in district developed curriculum-
referenced tests, and in standardized tests. If we plan to use tests for purposes
of accountability, we need to know they measure traits that can be influenced
by instruction.
g) Learned Curriculum: The term learned curriculum is used to denote all the
changes in values, perceptions, and behaviors that occur as a result of school
experiences. Although assessment and accountability continue to be in the
forefront, the role of learning strategies is critical to student understanding and
success on assessments.
III. Components of Curriculum:
a) Curriculum Policies--The set of rules, criteria, and guidelines intended to
control curriculum development and implementation.
b) Curriculum Goals--Local district curricular goals are often generated from
individual state of Common Core Standards. The curriculum goals are
general, long-term educational outcomes that the school system expects to
achieve through its curriculum. They are the outcomes the school system
hopes to achieve through its curriculum.
c) Fields of Study--An organized and clearly demarcated set of learning
experiences typically offered over a multiyear period.
d) Programs of Study--The total set of learning experiences offered by a school
for a particular group of learners, usually over a multiyear period and typically
encompassing several fields of study.
e) Course of Study--A subset of a program and a field of study and is a set of
organized learning experiences, within a field of study, offered over a
 Glatthorn, Curriculum Leadership, 5e
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specified period of time (such as a year, a semester, or a quarter) for which the
student ordinarily receives academic credit.
f) Units of study--A subset of a course, it is an organized set of related learning
experiences offered as part of a course of study, usually lasting from 1 to 3
weeks. These units normally have phases: beginning, during, and end leading
to mastery.
g) Lessons--A set of related experiences typically lasting 20–90 min, focusing on
a relatively small number of objectives. Improving and differentiating lessons
based on current brain research and curriculum design is becoming a critical
component in the search for best practices as well as including strategies
found as best practice in the Marzano What Works in Classrooms.
IV. Mastery, Organic, and Enrichment Curricula (and Brain Research)--Three areas of
learning resulting from analytical steps. Curriculum leaders should distinguish
between the three types of learning in each field of study. The three types of learning
are mastery, organic, and enrichment.
a) Mastery--These are those things that are basic and structured and should be
determined by the district to the extent of specifying the objectives. Basic
learnings are those that are essential for all students. The Mastery Curriculum
should specify objectives.
b) Organic--These are those that are basic but do not require structuring. They
are learnings that develop day by day, rather naturally, as the result of
numerous interactions and exchanges, but do not require sequencing, pacing,
and articulation.
c) Enrichment--These are those the knowledge and skills that are interesting and
enriching, but are not considered essential, they are “nice to know.”
d) Brain research--Teachers should be aware of brain research and ho students
learn. Rearranging priorities and bringing brain research into teaching is at the
forefront of future schooling. Important areas to consider include instructional
strategies, enriched environments, deficit correction/cognitive enhancement,
and evaluation tools such as feedback because the key to enriching curriculum
is to involve students in real-life problem-solving scenarios.
V. Hidden Curriculum--Those aspects of schooling, other than the intentional
curriculum, that seem to produce changes in student values, perceptions, and
behaviors. Hidden curriculum might be seen as those aspects of the learned
curriculum that lie outside the boundaries of the school’s intentional efforts.
a) Constants of hidden curriculum:
i. The ideology of the larger society
ii. Classroom: Power, methods of learning, movement in the classroom,
and flow of discourse
b) Variables of hidden curriculum
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SAGE Publishing, 2019
iii. Organizational variables: Decisions about how teachers will be
assigned and students grouped for instruction, that is, team teaching,
promotion and retention policies, ability grouping, and curriculum
tracking. Other organizational variables include class size, libraries,
breakfast and lunch, non-categorical special help, assessment, and
community activities. Clearly the weight of the research suggests
educational leaders interested in improving organization should focus
attention on promotion policies and curriculum tracking as the key
variables. In this regard, they can ensure the general curriculum is
neither dull nor trivial.
iv. Social system variables: The concepts of school climate, social
networking, and culture are becoming a huge part of the standard
rhetoric in contemporary discussion of school effectiveness. School
climate can have major implications for curriculum. America’s
commitment to equity will determine our future (Darling-Hammond,
2010). Creating school to enable all children to learn requires the
development of systems that enable all educators to learn. Climate and
culture, teacher/student interactions, social and economic, and the
involvement of parents and community all become a portion of the
social system variables that can affect aspects of the hidden
curriculum.
v. Social and culture variables: Developing understandings involving
social, cultural, and gender bias is becoming increasingly important in
education. Although sometimes hidden or unseen, cultural differences,
gender bias, and individual socioeconomic circumstances often relate
to how student learning and academic performance, they also relate to
how children see themselves with others. Therefore, leaders must
carefully consider materials as they are selected to eliminate any bias.
Successfully teaching students from culturally and linguistically
diverse backgrounds--especially students from historically
marginalized groups--involves more than just apply specialized
teaching techniques. These aspects of the hidden curriculum can be
influenced by administrators and teachers working together.