Everything about Curriculum totally explained
In formal education, a
curriculum (plural
curricula) is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a
school or
university. As an idea,
curriculum stems from the Latin word for
race course, referring to the course of and experiences through which
children grow and mature in becoming
adults.
Historical conception
In
The Curriculum, the first textbook published on the subject, in 1918,
John Franklin Bobbitt said that curriculim, as an
idea, has its
roots in the
Latin word for
race-course, explaining the curriculum as the course of
deeds and experiences through which
children become the
adults they should be,
for success in adult society. Furthermore, the curriculum encompasses the entire scope of formative deed and experience occurring in and out of school, and not experiences occurring in
school; experiences that are unplanned and undirected, and experiences intentionally directed for the purposeful formation of adult members of society. (cf. image at right.)
To Bobbitt, the curriculum is a
social engineering arena. Per his cultural presumptions and social definitions, his curricular formulation has two notable features: (i) that
scientific experts would best be qualified to and justified in designing curricula based upon their expert
knowledge of what qualities are desirable in adult members of society, and which experiences would generate said qualities; and (ii) curriculum defined as the deeds-experiences the student
ought to have to become the adult he or she
ought become.
Hence, he defined the curriculum as an ideal, rather than as the concrete
reality of the deeds and experiences that form people to who and what they are.
Contemporary views of curriculum reject these features of Bobbitt's postulates, but retain the basis of curriculum as the course of experience(s) that forms human beings in to persons. Personal formation via curricula is studied at the personal level and at the group level, for example
cultures and societies (for example professional formation,
academic discipline via historical experience). The formation of a group is reciprocal, with the formation of its individual participants.
Although it formally appeared in Bobbitt's
definition, curriculum as a course of formative experience also pervades
John Dewey's work (who disagreed with Bobbitt on important matters). Although Bobbitt's and Dewey's idealistic understanding of "curriculum" is different from current, restricted uses of the word, curriculum writers and researchers generally share it as common, substantive understanding of curriculum.
Curriculum in formal schooling
In formal education or schooling (cf.
education), a
curriculum is the set of courses, course work, and content offered at a
school or
university. A curriculum may be partly or entirely determined by an external, authoritative body (for example the
National Curriculum for England in
English schools). In the
U.S., each
state, with the individual
school districts, establishes the curricula taught. Each state, however, builds its curriculum with great participation of national academic subject groups selected by the
United States Department of Education, for example
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
for mathematical instruction. In
Australia each state's Education Department establishes curricula. UNESCO's
International Bureau of Education has the primary mission of studying curricula and their implementation worldwide.
Curriculum means two things: (i) the range of courses from which students choose what subject matters to study, and (ii) a specific learning program. In the latter case, the curriculum collectively describes the teaching, learning, and assessment materials available for a given course of study.
Currently, a
spiral curriculum (or
tycoil curriculum) is promoted as allowing students to revisit a subject matter's content at the different levels of development of the subject matter being studied. The constructivist approach, of the
tycoil curriculum, proposes that children learn best via active engagement with the educational environment, for example discovery learning.
A crucial aspect for learning, understanding by stimulating the
imagination, is absent in the so-called "
neo-conservative curriculum" that stresses the ineffective aspects of knowledge amounts and of logico-mathematical thinking, for example rote learning.
Crucial to the curriculum is the definition of the course objectives that usually are expressed as
learning outcomes and normally include the program's assessment strategy. These outcomes and assessments are grouped as units' (or modules), and, therefore, the curriculum comprises a collection of such units, each, in turn, comprising a specialised, specific part of the curriculum. So, a typical curriculum includes communications, numeracy, information technology, and social skills units, with specific, specialized teaching of each.
Sample curricula
Further Information
Get more info on 'Curriculum'.
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