Curriculum Development (Education Dept.

BS-II 4th sem) Topic: Hilda Taba

Submitted To: Miss Sadia

Submitted by: Romana Umar Roll No. 798

Date: 27-03-2012

The Hilda Taba Model

Another approach to curriculum development was proposed by Hilda Taba in her book Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice published in 1962. She argued that there was a definite order in creating a curriculum. She believed that teachers, who teach the curriculum, should participate in developing it which led to the model being called the grass-roots approach. She noted 7 major steps to her grass-roots model in which teachers would have major input. She was of the opinion that the Tyler model was more of an administrative model. The Tyler model involved too much top-down decision making, the greater portion of curriculum decisions were made by administrators in the Central Office or the Ministry of Education. Taba felt that a curriculum should be designed by the users of the programme. Teachers should begin the process by creating specific teachinglearning units for their students. She advocated that teachers take an inductive approach to curriculum development. This meant starting with the specifics and building toward a general design this was just the opposite to the more traditional deductive approach which starts with the general design and then working toward the specifics.

Teacher Input

Evaluation

Diagnosis of Needs Organisation of Learning Activities

Formulation of Objectives

Teacher

Input

Selection of Selection of Content Organisation of Content Learning Activities

Teacher Input

Taba proposed 7 major steps to her grass-roots model in which teachers would have major input throughout the curriculum development process:

1. Diagnosis of need: The teacher who is also the curriculum designer starts the process by identifying the needs of students for whom the curriculum is planned. For example, the majority of students are unable to think critically.

2. Formulation of objectives: After the teacher has identified needs that require attention, he or she specifies objectives to be accomplished.

3. Selection of content: The objectives selected or created suggest the subject matter or content of the curriculum. Not only should objectives and content match, but also the validity and significance of the content chosen needs to be determined. i.e. the relevancy and significance of content.

4. Organisation of content: A teacher cannot just select content, but must organise it in some type of sequence, taking into consideration the maturity of learners, their academic achievement, and their interests. [We will discuss curriculum design in more detail in Module 6].

5. Selection of learning experiences: Content must be presented to students and students must be engaged with the content. At this point, the teacher selects instructional methods that will involve the students with the content.

6. Organisation of learning activities: Just as content must be sequenced and organised, so must the learning activities. Often, the sequence of the learning activities is determined by the content. But the teacher needs to keep in mind the particular students whom he or she will be teaching.

Evaluation and means of evaluation: The curriculum planner must determine just what objectives have been accomplished. Evaluation procedures need to be designed to evaluate learning outcomes. Taba model has much merit. However, some argue that teacher involvement throughout the process assumes that they have the expertise and, perhaps more importantly, the time to engage in such an extensive and intensive curricular activity. Teachers being involved in the early stages of curriculum development may not necessarily be an advantage as it will not necessarily guarantee an effective curriculum since it is a highly specialised process.