0.2 Curriculum theories

Overview

HOW TO BE AN ACTIVE READER:

The next few pages are challenging. They may require that you go back and re-read what you have read to fully take in what is beingsaid. You may even wish to take notes as you go along and/or ask questions at the TWB Learning Cafe to dialogue with your global colleagues.

The idea of curriculum is hardly new - but the way we understand and theorize about it has altered over the years, and thereremains considerable dispute as to meaning. Curriculum has its origins in the running/chariot tracks of Greece. It was, literally, "a course." InLatin curriculum was a racing chariot; the word, currere , was "to run."

Here, curriculum can be seen as: "All the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groupsor individually, inside or outside the school." This gives us some basis to move on - and for the moment all we need to do is highlight two of the keyfeatures:

• Learning is planned and guided. (We have to specify in advance what we are seeking to achieve and how we are to go about it.)
• The definition refers to schooling. (We should recognize that our current appreciation of curriculum theory and practice emerged in theschool and in relation to other schooling ideas such as subject and lesson.)

In what follows, we are going to look at 4 ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice:

• Curriculum as a Body of Knowledge/Product
• Curriculum as Process
• Curriculum as Praxis (practice)
• Curriculum as Context

Curriculum as body of knowledge/product

Many people still equate a curriculum with a syllabus. "Syllabus" originates from the Greek, and it basically means: a concisestatement, the contents of a treatise, the subjects of a series of lectures. In the form that many of us are familiar with it is connected with coursesleading to examinations.

Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus, they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content orthe body of knowledge that they wish to transmit.

Curriculum as Product

It used to be that there were certain skills to master and facts to know. Knowledge was seen as something similar to a product thatis manufactured. Generally, one starts knowing nothing, is taught, and one transmits that knowledge to action. For the most part, this point of viewworked for quite some time, as it organized learning quite neatly. There were a series of steps leading to the product, and curriculum could bedesigned accordingly. Those steps were:

Step 1: Diagnosis of need

Step 2: Formulation of objectives

Step 3: Selection of content

Step 4: Organization of content

Step 5: Selection of learning experiences

Step 6: Organization of learning experiences

Step 7: Determination of what to evaluate, and the ways and means of doing it.

Concern

One problem with the product orientation is that students are generally left out of the picture. The product model, by havinga pre-specified plan or program, tends to direct attention to teaching. For example, the focus is on: how the information is given.