CURRICULUM AND ITS DEFINITIONS

I. Types of Curriculum Definitions

● Prescriptive
○ provides us with what “ought” to happen
○ takes the form of a plan, intended program, or some kind of expert opinion about
what needs to take place in the course of study
● Descriptive
○ goes beyond the prescriptive terms as they FORCE THOUGHT about curriculum
“not merely in terms of how things ought to be,” but how things ARE in
classrooms.
○ EXPERIENCE; experienced curriculum provides glimpses of the curriculum in
action

Coming Up with a Definition

1. It should reflect the general understanding of the term as used by educators
2. …should be useful to educators in making operational distinctions.

Instruction is viewed here as an aspect of curriculum, and its function & importance change
throughout the several types of curricula.

II. Types of Curricula

1. Recommended
2. Written
3. Taught
4. Supported
5. Assessed
6. Learned
7. Hidden

III. Characteristics of a Good Curriculum

1. It is continuously evolving
2. It is based on the needs of the people
3. It is democratically conceived
4. It is a result of a long-term effort
5. It is a complex of details
6. It provides for the logical sequence of subject matter
7. It complements & cooperates with other programs of the community
8. It has educational quality
9. It has administrative flexibility
DISTINCTION BETWEEN CURRICULUM AND OTHER
RELATED TERMINOLOGIES

Curriculum - Wider in scope

Course of Study - An educational program leading to the

award of a certificate at the end for a
particular set of learners
- Ex: Teacher Certificate in Education is
a course of study
- Refers mainly to a program of learning
that is offered to students with various
course contents.

Syllabus - Is part of the curriculum, but is NOT

the curriculum
- The content of the school subjects
offered in the school; and is a subset
of the curriculum (ex: Math, English)
- Normally contains what the students
will learn in the various school
subjects in a year, or a longer period
of schooling leading to certain
certification
- Long-term plan of work for students
normally prepared by teachers

Lesson Note - Or lesson plan, is a guide for teachers

to assist them in the orderly
presentation of a lesson to the
learners in order to facilitate learning
- Teachers draw the plan for teaching a
particular lesson from the scheme of
work*

* scheme of work is the breakdown of the

syllabus
* lesson note/plan is the breakdown of the
scheme of work into daily lessons

Scheme of Work - Breakdown of contents of what the

students are expected to learn in a
given period
- Systematic arrangement of subject
matter and activities within a given
time period, term or semester, broken
down into instructional units
Curriculum cannot be said to have been presented until objectives, contents, evaluation
procedures are clearly specified.

NATURE OF CURRICULUM IN A SCHOOL

(R. Tyler, 1949)

1. Objectives
2. Activities, subject matter
3. Teacher or student-centered learning
4. Assessments, tests, performance observations, evaluations

IMPORTANCE OF CURRICULUM IN SCHOOLS

- The heart of the school system, reason for existence of the school
- It is developed by schools sometimes from the existing planned curriculum to meet its
own peculiar needs
- Plan used by the school to implement its educational program, and is the very vital
software without which buildings and other facilities will have nothing to do in the school.

CURRICULUM AS A PROCESS & PRODUCT

- Curriculum processes are the procedures involved in creating, using, and evaluating the
curricula represented in various documents or products (guides, syllabi, etc).

I. PROCESSES
● Curriculum process is a collective term that encapsulates all of the considerations about
which curriculum workers provide & ultimately use to make choices in the development
and evaluation of a curriculum project.
● Involves change that is either welcomed or resisted
● Whether generating a brand new curriculum or revising an existing one, curriculum
development means recreating or modifying what is taught
● Curriculum development: a process implying a wide range of decisions concerning
learning experiences

II. TOP-DOWN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

● Can be defined through 4 phases
1. Curriculum presented by teachers
2. Curriculum adopted by teachers
3. Curriculum assimilated by learners
4. Evaluated Curriculum

A majority of centralized countries follow this type of curriculum development process

IV. BOTTOM-UP PROCESS
1. What society/the parents want
2. Responses provided by teachers in the schools
3. Collection of these responses and the effort to identify some common aspects
4. Development of common standards and their evaluation
– followed by a majority of decentralized countries, which are carried out in each school
in the context of its community, but without necessarily taking into consideration the
developments adopted by other schools or institutions.

– Curriculum Use involves arrangements for and using curriculum projects in school settings for
the purpose of school program development
– encompasses IMPLEMENTATION and enactment used with technical and non-technical
processes; sometimes technically-developed curricula are tested in a few classrooms.

V. CONSIDERATIONS IN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT USE

- Scope and complexity of the curricular change, communication among all involved
participants, professional development, and resources.

VI. EVALUATION
● Encompasses the process used in the systematic investigation of the worth or merit of
programs of study.
● Intent of these processes is to improve school programs through delineating, obtaining ,
and providing descriptive and judgmental information about the worth and merit of
curricula.
● Guides decision-making serves the need for accountability, and promotes understanding
of the curriculum
● Evaluating existing curricula for the purpose of determining strengths and weaknesses
may occur as the first step in curriculum revision.
○ “Needs assessment”
○ Revised curricula developed for use in classrooms are also evaluated in at least
two ways: whether it was actually used in classrooms, and how well curricula
satisfy their intended purposes.

VIII. PRODUCTS
● Results from curriculum development processes and provide the bases for instructional
decisions in classrooms
● Projects include curriculum guides, courses of study, syllabi, resource units, lists of goals
and objectives, and other documents that deal with the content of schooling
● Curriculum Guides - usually include details about the topics to be taught,
predetermined teaching goals and suggestions for instructional strategies
● Curriculum Guidelines - furnish information about predetermined learning outcomes
and are generally less complete
● Courses of Study or Syllabi - usually specify content, learning outcomes, and time
allocation for various topics
 ● Resource Units - include learning outcomes, suggestions for teaching, sources of
information, and prepared instructional units
● Others - lists of curriculum goals and objectives, and rationales

Curriculum may be said to be a total package of what schools do to make learners become
what society expects them to become (good citizens) who are fully integrated individuals that
are able to fit into society, and can contribute their share as well to its progress.

EDUCATION POST-COVID (ZHAO/WATTERSON ARTICLE)

- Link here

I. 3 BIG CHANGES EDUCATION SHOULD MAKE POST-COVID

A. Curriculum that is
a. Developmental
b. Personalized
c. Evolving
B. Pedagogy that is
a. Student-centered
b. Inquiry-based
c. Authentic
d. Purposeful
C. Delivery of Instruction
a. Capitalizing on the strengths of both synchronous and asynchronous learning

CURRICULUM: What to Teach?

● Traditionally valued skills and knowledge will become less important and a new set of
capabilities will become more dominant & essential
● IN DECLINE: repetition, pattern-recognition, memorization, or any skills connected
to/related to collecting, storing, and retrieving information due to AI & related
technologies
● ON THE RISE: a set of contemporary skills including creativity

CAREERS & TRADITIONAL EMPLOYMENT PATHWAYS

● Will become obsolete or replaced
● Schools can no longer pre-impose all that is needed for the future before students
graduate & enter the world.
● Practical skills are a constant but education should be about development of humanity in
citizens of local, national, and global societies.
WHAT NEW CURRICULUM SHOULD RESPOND TO
1. It needs to help students develop the new competencies for the new age
● Curriculum needs to focus more on developing students’ capabilities
● Globally-connected & environmentally connected education experience
● Gradual disappearance of school subjects such as history & physics. The
CONTENT is still important, but it should be incorporated into a
competency-based curriculum.

2. It needs to allow personalization by students

● True personalization comes from students’ ability to develop their unique learning
pathways; students can follow their passions and strengths
● Should be a minimal suite of essential knowledge & skills for basic competencies
● Enabling students to co-develop part of the curriculum …gives them the
opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination
● Help develop life-long learning habits; go meta - above what they learn, and help
them understand WHY

3. Consider the curriculum as evolving

● Although system-level frameworks have to be developed, they must
accommodate changes within time & contexts.
● Should enable the capacity for schools to contextualize & make changes as
deemed necessary.

PEDAGOGY: How to teach?

Call for learners to be more actively engaged in their own learning.

1. Students are diverse and have different levels of abilities and interests that may
not align well with the content they are collectively supposed to learn.
● Teachers are encouraged to pursue classroom differentiation.

2. The movement towards personalized learning - needs students to become more

active in understanding & charting their learning pathways.
● Consider enabling students to make informed decisions regarding their own
learning pathway.
● Schools should use discretion to start relaxing the intense requirements of the
curriculum.
● Being digitally connected & tech-savvy: they access information instantly & daily,
and have strengths & weaknesses, different passions.

SCHOOLS CAN START BY:

● Allowing students to negotiate part of their curriculum instead of requiring all students to
learn the same content.
 ● Should have to be enabled to have certain levels of autonomy over what they want to
learn & how they want to be assessed
● When students have such autonomy they are more likely to be less constrained by the
local contexts they are born into.
● Schools & everything in the school environment should incorporate & serve the students;
schools need to create these conditions through empowering students to have a genuine
voice in part of how they operate, if not in its entirety.
● Environment, rules, regulations, curriculum, assessment, and the adults in the school
● Self-determination, co-ownership, not just of their learning enterprise, but co-owners of
the school community
● With ubiquitous access to online resources & experts, students do not necessarily need
teachers to continually and directly teach them. Instead, the teacher serves more
important roles.
● Direct instructions should be cast away for its “unproductive successes” or short-term
successes but long-term damages. In its place should be new models of teaching and
learning; it can have different formats & names but should be:
○ Student-centered
○ Inquiry-based
○ Authentic
○ Purposeful
● Should focus on student-initiated explorations of solutions to authentic and significant
problems.

ORGANIZATION: When & Where to Teach

● The pandemic has changed one of the most important unwritten school rules: all
students must be in one location for learning to take place.
● When students are not learning in classes inside a school, they are distributed in the
community. They can interact with others through technology. This can have a significant
impact on learning activities; if allowed/enabled by a teacher, students could be learning
from online resources & experts anywhere in the world.
● The time: when learning goes online and students aren’t/don’t need to be in schools,
their learning time vastly expands beyond the traditional school time.

Many possible ways to promote remote learning

- Simulate that schools are open with traditional timetables with the default model being
that all students attend lessons on-screen at the same time; but this has been ineffective
& unsuccessful, resulting in distress, disengagement, and much less personal interaction
& learning
- New and more effective models are being explored, innovatively developed, and
practiced.
- Well-balanced combination of both synchronous and asynchronous sessions that enable
more desirable ways of learnings
 - Inquiry-based learnings: the fundamental pursuit is that there is minimal benefit or
student engagement for teachers to lecture all the time when more interesting &
challenging instructional models can be developed
- Being disconnected physically can result in being more broadly connected virtually.

When learning is both online and face-to-face, students are liberated from having to attend class
at specific times. They are also no longer required to be in the same place to receive instruction
from teachers. When students are no longer required to attend class at the same time/place,
they can have much more autonomy over their own learning.

THE FIELD OF CURRICULUM

● We need to see curriculum as a broader context because it is the study of; theoretical &
more on background
● Approach and definition
○ Approach (an orientation or posture)

Curriculum Approaches (2)

Technical/Scientific Perspective Non-Technical/Non-Scientific Perspective

Traditional Some Experimental

- Key focus is content or the “what” is - Key focus is the learner
being taught - Subject matter in the development
- Learning outcomes are important process has importance only to the
(K-12) degree that a student can find
- Curriculum development is a useful meaning in it for themselves
blueprint for structuring the learning - Relevance is important
environment - Subjective, personal, aesthetic, and
- Efficient and effective in delivering focuses on the learner
education - Develops creativity
- Standardized, same competencies - Whole-child approach

● Curriculum as a plan/blueprint ● Learner-focused

● means/ends analysis ● Viewed as holistic
● Alignment with goals ● Students are part of the
● Emphasis on efficiency curriculum-development process
● Follows rational principles, logical steps
● Stresses subjective, personal,
● Control the sequence and pace of the
lesson aesthetic
● Identify observable/measurable behavior ● Questions universality/objectivity
● Arrange stimuli & consequences within
the learning environment to produce the
 objectives
● Behavior management
● Classroom management

Types Types
1. Behavioral 1. Humanistic
2. Managerial/Systems 2. Post-modern
3. Academic

1. BEHAVIORAL 1. HUMANISTIC
● Curriculum that is fixed on an
Formulating Curriculum uncertain (VUCA/BANI) future
● Relies on technical/scientific ● What is possible and what is potential
approaches ● Building student agency (ex:
● Includes paradigms, models, project-based learning)
step-by-step strategies with a focus ● It goes a long way to solve a
on efficiency fundamental problem of “much of
Examples: what is taught is not learned; what is
● Outcome-based education presented is not assimilated”
● Standards-based education ● Students like what they’re learning but
it is intrinsically rewarding,
- Students have to reach that standard contributing to personal liberation and
- True standards-based is that the development
teacher is accountable for the learning ○ Personal growth, integrity, and
of the student; keep giving formative autonomy
assessments so that everybody learns ● Self-Actualization - to grow as a
it. Establish & strengthen their person and discover who you are
foundation. ● Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and
- Need to make sure that everyone ASCD Whole Child Tenets
reaches the standard.

2. MANAGERIAL/SYSTEMS
Plans policies, programs, resources – more
administrative, documents-based

2. POSTMODERN
● Search for deeper understanding that
will lead to justice, compassion, and
ecological sustainability where the
boundaries between the center & the
margin are blurred, and all students
have access to the text.
○ More inclusive,
interdisciplinary, and
interspersed
○ Focus: political, economic,
social, and artistic courses
○ More like an open, communal
conversation about ideological
issues