Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Book 2
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
AND
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Dr. M. P. Chhaya
ii
Preface
This book attempts to explain a rationale for viewing, analysing and interpreting the
curriculum and instructional programme of an educational institution. It is not a textbook,
for it does not provide comprehensive guidance and readings for a course. It is not a
manual for curriculum construction since it does not describe and outline in detail the
steps to be taken by a given school that seeks to build a curriculum. This book outlines
one way of viewing an instructional programme as a functioning instrument of education.
The teacher is encouraged to examine other rationales and to develop his own conception
of the elements and relationships involved in an effective curriculum.
The rationale developed here begins with identifying four fundamental questions,
which must be answered in developing any curriculum and plan of instruction. These are:
1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
2. What educational experiences can be provided those are likely to attain these
purposes?
3. How can these educational experiences be effectively organised?
4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?
This book suggests methods for studying these questions. No attempt is made to
answer these questions since the answers will vary to some extent from one level of
education to another and from one school to another. Instead of answering the questions,
an explanation is given of procedures by which these questions can be answered. This
constitutes a rationale by which to examine problems of curriculum and instruction.
This book does not suggest any one approach to curriculum research and
development, but to put a great deal of diverse material into a new overall framework.
The aim is to give teachers an initial ‘sense’ of the field of curriculum studies and a ‘feel’
for its concerns and complexities. It provides a springboard for further study and
reflection rather than a definitive all-encompassing account. The purpose is to provide
teachers with a mode of inquiry that will allow them to explore curriculum designs and to
consider how these influences might be used to achieve educational purposes.
Our goal is to have classroom teachers become expert designers in their own right;
because it is the classroom teacher who converts curriculum blue prints into classroom
instruction. School committees and superintendents set policy and manage the curriculum
enterprise from a distance, but it is the teacher who is at the hub of activity. It is the
classroom teacher’s leadership, which determines the realisation of curriculum in fact.
Curriculum plans are most effective when they are made and applied from the bottom up
rather than from the top down.
To me, a curriculum consists in: ‘the planned structuring of the educational ideals of
a school in accordance with the psychological needs of the pupils, the facilities that are
available, and the cultural requirements of the time’.
M.P.Chhaya
iv
Content
Preface...............................................................................................................................iii
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT..................................................................................i
AND......................................................................................................................................i
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT.....................................................................................i
Preface ..........................................................................................................................iii
Content...............................................................................................................................iv
Chapter 1............................................................................................................................1
The Scope and Purpose of Curriculum Studies..............................................................1
Introduction....................................................................................................................1
..............................................................................................................................................8
Chapter 2............................................................................................................................8
Conceptions of Curriculum...............................................................................................8
Traditionalist conceptions and functions of curriculum............................................8
Progressivist conceptions and functions of Curriculum...........................................11
The collateral curriculum or hidden curriculum......................................................13
A unitary conception of curriculum...........................................................................14
Influences on curriculum conceptions.......................................................................14
Ideologies of education................................................................................................15
............................................................................................................................................18
Chapter 3..........................................................................................................................18
Curriculum Development................................................................................................18
Planning modes............................................................................................................19
Steps used in planning.................................................................................................20
............................................................................................................................................24
Chapter 4..........................................................................................................................24
Curriculum Design...........................................................................................................24
The objectives model and its variants........................................................................24
2. The Process model....................................................................................................28
3. The Situational Model.............................................................................................29
............................................................................................................................................32
Chapter 5..........................................................................................................................32
Organising Learning Experiences for Effective Instruction........................................32
What is meant by Organisation..................................................................................32
Criteria for effective organisation..............................................................................33
Elements to be organised.............................................................................................34
Organising principles...................................................................................................35
The organising structure.............................................................................................36
The process of planning a unit of organisation.........................................................37
............................................................................................................................................40
Chapter 6..........................................................................................................................40
The Curriculum in Operation and in Context..............................................................40
Time and its allocation.................................................................................................40
Time and curricular intentions...................................................................................42
Organisation of subject matter...................................................................................42
v
Curricular milieu................................43
Schemes of work and syllabuses........43
Teaching and the operational curriculum.................................................................44
............................................................................................................................................46
Chapter 7..........................................................................................................................46
Curriculum Evaluation...................................................................................................46
Basic notions regarding evaluation............................................................................46
Evaluating a curriculum project................................................................................47
Sample evaluation models...........................................................................................48
Making an evaluation design......................................................................................51
Using the results of evaluation....................................................................................55
............................................................................................................................................57
Chapter 8..........................................................................................................................57
Improving the Curriculum..............................................................................................57
Factors affecting curriculum improvement...............................................................57
............................................................................................................................................65
Chapter 9..........................................................................................................................65
Paths to School Improvement.........................................................................................65
The magic bullet approach..........................................................................................65
The comprehensive-connected approach...................................................................67
Segmental approaches impede renewal.....................................................................68
Impact of effective schools research...........................................................................69
Improving teaching and learning...............................................................................69
Creating support for curriculum change...................................................................71
Continuous curriculum development.........................................................................71
............................................................................................................................................73
Chapter 10........................................................................................................................73
Classroom management..................................................................................................73
Managing inappropriate behaviour in the classroom .............................................73
Honour levels and positive recognition......................................................................75
Some classroom techniques.........................................................................................78
Appendix 1........................................................................................................................83
How a school staff may work on curriculum building.................................................83
Appendix 2........................................................................................................................85
What preparation do curriculum practitioners need?.................................................85
References.........................................................................................................................88
1
Chapter 1
Introduction
Recent years have seen a great interest in what is taught in schools and what ought to be
taught there. This interest has arisen for a number of reasons. There have been changes in
society, in its attitudes and values. There have been moves towards greater social equality
and away from social discrimination of all kinds, whether on the grounds on sex or colour
or creed. Social relationships are now less constrained and less authoritarian than once
they were. Alternative, and less conventional, ways of living together in society have
become acceptable.
Changes in society and in people’s views about what is permissible and what is not
are only two areas of change which affect what people think should be taught in schools.
Economic and technical changes also influence what people think the content of
education should be. This century, developments in science and technology have been
largely responsible for the rise in material prosperity, which most Western countries have
enjoyed, and on which they continue to depend. Because of this knowledge of science
and very recently, technology has come to be considered as essential an ingredient in the
education of most children as reading, writing and mathematics.
Science and technology have not only brought prosperity, they have also brought
problems – problems of pollution and the potential destruction of the world in which we
live. At the heart of such problems lie moral issues about how man should use his
knowledge and the resources of the world in which he lives, and how he should treat his
fellow men. ‘Should we not teach the young how to confront such problems?’ has been a
2
question raised by many educationists in recent years. This has been behind the
attempts to have social studies and moral education taught in schools, and has
influenced the development of humanities courses.
Interest in the content of education, in the curriculum, is not simply a contemporary
phenomenon. It has many historical counterparts. Over 2000 years ago Plato was
interested in what the leaders of an ideal state should be taught, and so have been many
philosophers and statesmen since, when they came to consider the educational problems
of the society. The reason for their interest is simple: the content of education, the
curriculum, is at the heart of the educational enterprise. It is the means through which
education is transacted. Without a curriculum education has no vehicle, anything through
which to transmit its messages, to convey its meanings, to transmit its values. It is mainly
because of the crucial role, which the curriculum plays in educational activities that it is
worthy of study.
‘curriculum’ includes more than this. For example, HOW you teach content can
drastically affect what is taught. Also, the extent to which the students are sufficiently
prepared and motivated to study particular content will affect very greatly what is learnt.
Curriculum is quite often defined as a product – a document that includes details
about goals, objectives, content, teaching techniques, evaluation and assessment,
resources. Sometimes these are official documents issued by the government or one of its
agencies and which prescribe HOW and WHAT is to be taught. Of course, it is important
to realise that a curriculum document represents the ideal rather than the actual
curriculum. A teacher may not accept all aspects of a written curriculum and/or be unable
to implement a curriculum exactly as prescribed due to lack of training and
understanding. There can be gaps between the intended, ideal curriculum and the actual
curriculum. It may be that the level and interests of the students, or local community
preferences, may prevent a teacher from implementing a curriculum as prescribed.
A curriculum is defined as a ‘set of performing objectives’ or student learning, which
is a very practical orientation to curriculum. This approach focus upon specific skills or
knowledge that it is considered should be attained by students. Proponents of this
approach argue that if a teacher knows the targets which students should achieve, it is so
much easier to organise other elements to achieve this end, such as the appropriate
content and teaching methods. Few would deny that strength of this approach is the
emphases upon students. After all, they are the ultimate consumers and it is important to
focus upon what it is anticipated that they will achieve and to organise all teaching
activities to that end. Yet it must also be remembered that this approach can lead to an
over emphasis upon behavioural outcomes and objectives which can be easily measured.
Some skills and values are far more difficult to state in terms of performance objectives.
Also, a curriculum document, which is simply a listing of performance objectives would
have to be very large and tends to be unwieldy.
To define curriculum as ‘that which is taught both inside and outside school directed
by the school’ indicates that all kinds of activities that occur in the classroom, playground
and community comprise the curriculum. This emphasis has merit in that it demonstrates
that school learning is not just confined to the classroom. However, it should be noted
that the emphasis is upon ‘direction’ by the school, which seems to indicate that the only
important learning experiences are those which are directed by school personnel. Few
would accept this statement and so it is necessary to look at other definitions.
To define curriculum in terms of ‘what an individual learner experiences as a result
of schooling’ is an attempt to widen the focus. The emphasis here is upon the student as a
self-motivated learner. Each student should be encouraged to select those learning
experiences that will enable him/her to develop into a fully functioning person. However,
it should be noted that each student acquires knowledge, skills and values not only from
the official or formal curriculum but also from the unofficial or hidden curriculum. The
hidden curriculum is implicit within regular school procedures, in curriculum materials,
and in communication approaches and mannerisms used by staff. It is important to
remember that students do learn a lot from the hidden curriculum even though this is not
intended by teachers.
The definition, which refers to curriculum as ‘everything that is planned by school
personnel’ is yet another orientation, which emphasises the planning aspect of
curriculum. Few would deny that classroom learning experiences for students need to be
4
planned although unplanned activities will always occur (and these can have positive
or negative effects). This definition also brings to bear the distinction between
curriculum and instruction. It may be argued that curriculum is the WHAT and
instruction is the HOW, or another way of expressing it – ‘curriculum activity is the
production of plans for further action and instruction is the putting of plans into action’
The definition presupposes that some conscious planning is possible, and indeed
desirable, and there are some important elements, which are common to any planning
activity, regardless of the particular value orientation. It also assumes that the learning
activities experienced by students in classroom settings are managed and mediated by
teachers so that intended outcomes can be reconciled with practical day-to-day
restrictions.
development. Language and literacy have a role to play in the achievement of all these
aims.
More than change is responsible for differing views of education. There are the
beliefs, strongly held, about what aims education should serve. There is the belief that in
essence education is the transmission of culture –the means where by a society ensures
the continuity of values from one generation to the next and so conserves itself. A
contrary belief holds that it is not the function of education to help conserve society but to
enhance to the maximum the individual’s potential. There are other beliefs too, for
example, the function of education in servicing the ‘expert’ society with skilled
manpower.
It is these beliefs about the nature of education and its aims, which set the context for
decisions about what to teach, and even about how much to teach it. This is because
beliefs about what education is encompass beliefs about what knowledge is, about
knowing, about meaning and about how learning takes place.
One ideology prominent in primary education asserts that knowing is an active
process in which the child must be caught up; that knowledge is what has meaning for the
child at the child’s stage of development; and that learning takes place by a process of
exploration and discovery. In contrast a very different ideology, especially dominant in
traditional middle school education, asserts:
a) that knowledge is organised in subjects;
b) that knowing is the acquisition of the ordered information within these subjects;
c) that meaning is acquired from an understanding of the principles which govern ways
ordering the information within specific subjects;
d) and that learning takes place by submitting oneself to the discipline of the subject.
Moreover the best kind of learning is that which requires ‘depth’ and comes from the
study of a few subjects.
Curriculum development
In theory, at least, the curriculum is developed from particular views as to what education
is. In practice, beliefs about the nature of education are mixed – more a matter of relative
emphasis than complete reliance on one view to the exclusion of others – and much a
matter of habit and history. What was taught yesterday tends to be taught today unless
conscious efforts are made to change it through developing alternatives.
The planning and creation of alternative curricula is what curriculum development is
about. Its end products are a range of intended curricula comprising proposals for what
ought to be taught in schools. The processes of curriculum development range from
small-scale modifications of current practices to large-scale innovations in which new
curricular possibilities emerge. The development of this project begins with a general
point of view about what should be taught and proceeded to develop the means to give
these ideas a practical realisation. This happens through the employment of some media.
This material becomes the focus of teaching and learning of skills and capabilities,
attitudes and values which are considered worthwhile in that they will lead to a better
understanding of mankind’s problems.
The development of new points of view about what should be taught is surrounded
by contention. New curricular possibilities have to compete with already established
6
assumptions about what should be taught in the schools. From the time when a new
curricular possibility emerges to its implementation in the schools may be as
long as fifty or more years. It is also the case that some potential curricular innovations
are never realised, as was the case with the movement to establish Citizenship as a
subject in the secondary school curriculum.
Understanding the issues involved in activities concerned with curriculum
development is a crucial area of the curriculum studies. Without an understanding of the
issues teachers remain at the mercy of events, of unnoticed assumptions, of unrecognised
influences and of the prejudices of habit and practice. Equally important to an
understanding of the process of curriculum development is an understanding of what
happens to intended curricula as they are worked upon in schools and classrooms.
Curriculum evaluation
curricula, comparing this with the intentions embedded in intended curricula. It has
tended to deal in quantifiable evidence, more than in values.
However, more recently, the centrality of values in evaluation has been stressed.
Values enter into the determination of curricular aims and objectives, into the means
proposed to achieve these and into the interpretation of any measurement process that
may be employed. Values are involved in the understandings, meanings, interpretations
and motivations of those concerned with curriculum development and operational
curricula. A particularly important aspect of evaluation is congruence or the
establishment through judgement of the extent to which values embodied in conceptions
of education are incorporated in intended curricula. This is a more reflective process than
a measurement process. It is usually less deliberately exercised than the process of
measurement and tends to be overlooked.
Another important form of evaluation judgement is ‘curriculum appreciation’ which
takes into account both facts and values. It aims to make a judgement about whether what
is taking place is what is wanted, to consider the worthwhile ness of the educational
process (including the role which the curriculum plays in it) and to decide whether or not
to propose changes.
Curriculum theory
There are two types of curriculum theory – prescriptive and scientific. The aim of the first
one is to provide guidance for curricular practices. The aim of the second is to provide
description, explanation, understanding and, if possible, prediction. The second takes
curricular practices as they are. The first strives to move curricular practices toward a
desired pattern. Prescriptive curriculum theory draws on the findings of scientific
curriculum theory if it finds them useful. In turn scientific curriculum theory may take
prescriptive curriculum theory as an object of theorising if it promises to enhance the
understanding of what the curriculum is and how it comes about.
Chapter 2
Conceptions of Curriculum
Curricula embody perspectives from human culture considered important enough to merit
systematic transmission. But unlike oral transmission of culture in technologically
‘primitive’ societies, curricula are found in specific institutional settings such as schools,
colleges and universities. They are part of educational systems. As such they also
embody beliefs about education; they invest the educational enterprise with different
kinds of meaning. Embedded in them are conceptions of education – of what the
enterprise is about and how it often taken-for-granted, these embedded conceptions give
form to curricula, result in different curricular emphases and lead to very different
practices in school and classroom. Such conceptions constitute an input into the
curriculum development. An examination is made of the conflicting conceptions and
functions of the curriculum as reflected in conflicting educational ideologies or
philosophies.
reveal what the body of subjects or subject matters should consist of is meaningless.
Adding to the confusion, such terms as course of study and syllabus were also
being used synonymously with curriculum.
The perenialist position holds that the curriculum should consist principally of the
‘permanent studies’ – the rules of grammar, reading, rhetoric and logic, and mathematics,
and literature. The three R’s rightly recognise and state the studies, which are proper in
elementary education, because they require no special knowledge or experience for their
comprehension. The perennialist or classical humanist devalues the dynamic nature of
knowledge, the modern scientific studies, and the practical application of knowledge.
Another problem with perennialism is its fundamental premise that the sole purpose of
education should be the cultivation of intellect, and that only certain studies have the
power. Grammar disciplines the mind and develops the logical faculty. Correctness in
thinking may be more directly and impressively taught through mathematics than in any
other way and the permanent studies cultivate the intellectual virtues.
Essentialists believe that the mission of the school is ‘intellectual training’ and this is
to be accomplished through a curriculum concentrated on ‘the fundamental intellectual
disciplines in five great areas:
1. Command of the mother tongue and the systematic study of grammar,
literature and writing;
2. Mathematics;
3. Sciences;
4. History; and
5. Foreign language.’
Although the essentialist, unlike the perennialist, recognises the place of the modern
laboratory sciences in the curriculum, the essentialist places the modern social sciences,
vocational education, physical education, art, music, and other non-academics studies at
the lowest priority levels in the curriculum. The first duty of the school is to provide a
standard programme of intellectual training in the fundamental disciplines.
The need for a radically new conception of curriculum was the inevitable result of a
number of forces:
1. changes in the conceptions of knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge;
2. changes in the knowledge of the learning process as a result of the child-study
movement;
3. and the need to link formal school studies with the life of the learner and
the changing demands of the larger social scene.
Nevertheless, in the process of rejecting traditional conceptions of curriculum,
progressive educators were far from universal agreement as to how curriculum should be
defined. Moreover, traditional conceptions of curriculum have remained influential to this
day.
Curriculum as experience
Dewey wrote: The scheme of a curriculum must tale account of the adaptation of studies
to the needs of existing community life; it must select with the intention of improving the
life we live in common so that the future shall be better than the past.
In their battle to make the curriculum more relevant to the life experience of the
learner, some romantic progressivists went so far as to advocate that virtually all school
learning activities be centred around the felt needs and the interests of the child. Dewey
stressed the need to develop and conceive of various studies as exemplifying the
reflectively formulated human experience. He observed that when personal fulfilment is
severed from intellectual activity freedom of self expression turns into something that
might better be called self-exposure.
A definition by Caswell and Campbell states that the curriculum is composed of all
the experiences children have under the guidance of teachers. The curriculum is now seen
as the total experience with which the school deals in educating young people.
These emerging definitions were a sharp break from the traditional conception of
curriculum. The recognition that what pupils learn is not limited to the formal course of
study but is affected, directly and indirectly, by the total school environment, called for a
broad definition of curriculum as guided school experience. The implication was that
everything that influences the learner must be considered during the process of
curriculum making. The concept of curriculum had broken loose from its academic
moorings and moved on out into the total programme of activities that was to serve the
individual learner while under the guidance of the school.
Another problem with such broad definitions is that they do not differentiate between
educative and other kinds of experience (non-educative and mis-educative) that students
have in school setting. Most significantly, the concept of curriculum as guided learning
experience conceives of the teaching learning process as integral to curriculum. However,
13
In recent years education has given increasing attention to the hidden curriculum, or the
discrepancy between what is intended and what is actually experienced. The tendency has
been to couch the hidden curriculum negatively, although its power may indeed be
positive. It appears to be more productive to use the term collateral curriculum rather than
hidden curriculum.
The collateral learning will have a more powerful and enduring impact on the
learner’s present and future behaviour than the target subject matter. Indeed, most of the
factual information learned in school is readily forgotten soon after the examination,
whereas collateral learning as connected with attitudes, appreciation, and values can be
far more enduring.
Collateral learning must not be regarded as something outside the curriculum or as
merely an incidental or accidental outcome of the curriculum. Desirable collateral
learning is much more apt to occur if it is treated as integral to the planned and guided
learning experiences that comprise the curriculum.
Similarly extra class activities should not be considered as outside the curriculum. If
the curriculum is so conceived as to correlate such activities with those more directly
connected with the formal course of study, the possibilities for realising the desired
14
The emergence of the curriculum field as a distinct subject of study has given rise to
many conflicting conceptions of curriculum. No single definition can satisfy all parties
concerned because the different definitions reflect the different schools of thought in the
curriculum field—as well as changing conceptions of organised knowledge, the learner,
the educative process, and the larger social situation.
Curriculum has been variously defined as:
(1) the cumulative tradition of organised knowledge,
(2) the instructional plan or course of study,
(3) measured instructional outcomes (technological production system),
(4) cultural reproduction,
(5) knowledge selection/organisation from the culture,
(6) modes of thought, and
(7) guided living/planned learning environment.
Each definition reflects a particular and often conflicting perspective and fails engender a
full meaning of curriculum. Some definitions are so narrow that they convey a restricted
and only partial meaning of curriculum. Other definitions are so broad that they fail to
distinguish between the function of the school from that of any other agency having some
sort of educative function. Nevertheless, curricularists may utilise a definition to describe
the orientation of the work in the field.
Dewey offered a definition of education as “that reconstruction or reorganisation of
experience, which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to
direct the course of subsequent experience.” We can define curriculum as: that
reconstruction of knowledge and experience that enables the learner to grow in exercising
intelligent control of subsequent knowledge and experience.
The fact that certain conceptions of curriculum occur widely in some countries and to a
much lesser extent in others, can be traced to the influences that various individuals and
groups can exert on educational decision-making. The term ‘group’ is often used to
indicate that individuals or groups consider that they have the expertise and/or are
directly affected by certain decisions and must be part of the decision-making process.
Many groups could be cited but major ones include:
• Political leaders
• Religious leaders
• Head office officials
15
• Teachers
• Business groups/employees
Political leaders are very concerned about schools and the curriculum in that
they expect children to understand their country’s rules and institutions and to be
committed participants when they attain adulthood. They exert control over the
curriculum of schools using such measures as establishing academic standards and
examinations, providing national curriculum guidelines, and requiring training
programmes for teachers.
Religious leaders can have an enormous influence over the types and levels of
schools that are provided for children and the nature of the curriculum practised in
these schools. Religious beliefs can influence in particular the amount of effort that
students are prepared to devote to their studies and the extent to which families
encourage and promote intensive study and commitment to learning in their children.
Most education systems retain head office or central administration divisions to
enable strategic policy decisions to be about such matters as staffing, buildings,
curriculum and standards. The degree of centralisation/decentralisation varies
enormously from one system to another. In a highly centralised education system,
curriculum documents and syllabus statements are specified in great detail and
implementation procedures in schools are explicitly stated and systematically monitored.
In such a situation a head office is obviously a very important stakeholder.
Teachers are also major stakeholders. The majority of teachers have chosen teaching
as a career and take very seriously their responsibilities to provide for the intellectual,
emotional, social and spiritual growth of their students. They receive some training in
curriculum planning skills but they are constantly under pressures of time due to the daily
demands of the classroom situation.
Where there is intense competition for goods and services, employers expect their
employees to be not only literate and numerate, but also to have well developed problem-
solving and social skills. The media often criticise the basic skills levels of newly
employed youth. Employers tend to be extremely critical of schools and maintain that
insufficient rigour and standards are required.
Ideologies of education
every individual concerned with education can be identified exclusively with one
ideology. Frequently individuals’ conceptions contain elements from more
than one ideology, often in uneasy association with one another, but with one being
predominant. Four-fold classification of major educational ideologies – conservative,
revisionist, romantic and democratic – is adopted here.
1. Conservative ideology: It values stability, continuity with the past and the
transmission of the nation’s cultural heritage. It stresses the centrality of
initiating the young into this precious inheritance and the necessity of elite to
preserve and extend culture excellence. It employs concepts such as standards,
high culture, folk culture; it uses metaphors such as structure, inheritance, and
apprenticeship. It takes a hierarchical, differentiated view of knowledge with
some aspects such as pure mathematics, the study of literature and classics being
regarded as far more worthwhile than others. It does not take such knowledge
equally accessible to all but support a differentiation of curricula for the elite and
non-elite. It favours a subject-centred curriculum for the able, an emphasis on
‘basic skills’ in the primary school, a teacher dominated pedagogy and a
conception of ‘objective knowledge’ to which children have to accommodate.
2. Revisionist ideology: It values modernisation, efficiency and the expansion of
education to produce a skilled labour force. Educated manpower is regarded as
one of the nation’s greatest assets in international economic competition. An
effective up-dated curriculum is seen as an essential component of the nation’s
ability to compete. Vocational relevance, efficiency, evaluation and renewal are
some revisionist key concepts. Metaphors such as pools of ability, untapped
resources and wastage are used to argue for an expanded educational system,
which will make the maximum use of the nation’s resources. This ideology
values scientific and technological studies and aims to make these available to
any pupil provided he has the ability. Childhood is essentially a preparation for
later roles in society. Children’s achievements are the result of IQ plus
motivation. Knowledge structures are objective and teaching is to be adult
managed.
3. Romantic ideology: It centres on the individual rather than the nation, on the
present rather than the past or the future, on the child rather than the adult. It
stresses the importance of the young coming to understand themselves and their
environment in their own terms; it stresses spontaneity, variety of first hand
experience and diversity of response. Its key concepts include self expression,
play, creativity, active involvement, children’s needs and interests, and learning
by experience. It employs a rich variety of metaphors such as growth, harmony,
discovery, and cultivation. It does not recognise a hierarchy of knowledge forms
and takes a subjective view of knowledge with children as constructors of their
own reality. It advocates teaching as a process of mutual exploration between
near-equals; it views childhood as valuable in its own right and children as
seekers after their own meanings.
4. Democratic socialist ideology: It values equality, and supports change in
education (and the wider society) in order to realise this. It stresses the
importance of creating a common culture and a genuine democracy in which all
17
social classes can participate on equal terms. Its concepts include equality
of educational opportunity, relevance, continuing education and
democratic participation. It talks of opening doors to knowledge, providing
access to the higher culture for all and building on a common core of meanings.
Common schools and a common curriculum feature prominently as part of its
platform. Teaching is seen as open to negotiation between teacher and pupil;
knowledge is objective but needs constant reinterpretation in contemporary
terms. All pupils require access to these knowledge structures, though the
importance of their everyday experience and common sense knowledge is also
acknowledged.
Such ideologies encapsulate the views of different groups, each seeking to make
its particular view of education. The meaning accorded ‘education’ in any society
varies according to the salience of ideologies and their ability to attract public and
professional support. The relative prominence of any one ideology is not simply the
result of the inherent persuasiveness of its views nor the activities of its adherents.
Ideological factors interrelate in very complex ways with social, technological and
other cultural factors. As these factors and their interrelationships change so does the
salience of ideologies and views as to what and how the young ought to be taught.
The struggle among ideologies can be viewed as a ‘political’ one in the sense
that it influences the distribution, exercise and justification of power in society. It is a
struggle for power to define education and to transmit particular beliefs and values to
the young. It represents a struggle for control over the educational system, which is
itself a major agency for controlling social groups. Curricula are seen, then, as not
concerned with transmitting part of the cultural stock, but as helping control people
through exposing them to particular vales and beliefs.
Curricula, then, are more than inert bodies of information; they have
considerable cultural and political significance. As society changes, so proposals are
put forward by individuals or groups for changes in what ought to be taught the
young. Such proposals are created from scratch but are based on understandings,
beliefs and values shared by those according roughly similar meanings to
‘education’. In the process of translation into more detailed proposals for intended
curricula they are inevitably changed, distorted or elaborated; they are subject to
constraint and compromise. Yet despite this they shape the form and direction taken
by proposals for new course of study or pattern of educational activity.
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Chapter 3
Curriculum Development
“Let me show you our curriculum,” said the principal to the visitor in his school. Proudly
the principal removed from his desk a mimeographed document that told teachers what to
teach, subject by subject.
The visitor scanned the document and replied, “Now let me see your real
curriculum.” “What do you mean?” the principal asked.
“I mean that I must spend at least a few hours in your school. I need to visit several
classrooms at random. I want to stand aside in the lobby as the children move through it
and wander through the dining hall while children are eating and while they are talking
freely. I want to attend a school assembly and would like to visit the library and then
follow the children out to the playing field while they are under teacher’s supervision and
while they are on their own. By doing these things I will get at least a limited view of
your real curriculum.”
What does this dialogue between principal and a visitor suggest? It suggests a
number of ideas about a school curriculum:
1. The curriculum cannot actually be reduced to a lifeless sheet of papers.
2. The curriculum belongs in two categories: that of objective reality and that of mode
and style. The curriculum should be viewed as a product and also as process. The two
categories become interrelated.
3. A given curriculum has a life span, determined largely by its usefulness and
timeliness. A curriculum may be revised at intervals so that its usefulness and
timeliness may be increased.
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4. The real curriculum no matter how formally and carefully planned it is alleged
to be has aspects of the unplanned.
5. The curriculum, being of the human spirit, is active and changing. It is affected by
wishes, thoughts, and restraints.
Curriculum includes both formal and informal aspects of schooling, what one learns
(content) and how one learns (process), and products or outcomes in the forms of
knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes, appreciations, and values. Thus, the
curriculum involves what happens in classrooms, auditorium, gymnasium, dining hall,
and school lobby and school sponsored community service, field trips and work
experienced programmes.
Curriculum improvement refers not only to improving the structure and the
documents of the curriculum but also to stimulating learning on the part of all the persons
who are concerned with the curriculum. These persons include students, teachers,
classroom helpers, supervisors and administrators, and parents and community members.
Obviously, curriculum improvement deals directly with the improvement of the people.
Planning modes
of current courses of study with few new components but with a clearer articulation
of the various elements comprising the course.
Choice of modes can be influenced more subtly by the rationale that underlines an
attempt of curriculum improvement. The most common rationale relies basically on four
classical foundations of the curriculum – philosophy, learners and learning, society and
culture, and subject matter. Curriculum planners sometimes add interpretation, which
includes ways of knowing, thinking skills, decision making, problem solving, valuing,
and concept development.
Departing from traditional subject matter, a second rationale – the experimental –
features learner-centred ness and activities that especially develop the individual and
frequently are chosen by individual learners. This rationale has led to the planning of
Montessori schooling, open education systems, mini-courses, schools without walls, and
extensions of the humanities and the arts.
A third rationale – the technical is marked by terms like systems, production, and
management. A natural concomitant of similar perspectives in business and industry, the
technical rationale is analytical, systems-oriented, and behaviourally centred. From it
have arisen computer-assisted instruction, performance contracting, and competency-
based education.
A fourth rationale has its bases in pressure brought by school boards, local
administrators, influential community members, state legislators, professional
associations, givers of grants, the courts, scholars, business firms, and civic organisations.
The interaction of these groups with one another and with school systems results in many
kinds of curriculum plans, which differ from community to community.
These wisely differing rationales give rise to very different planning modes.
Assessing needs
Needs can be thought of in two ways. The first is singular: need for any change. The
second, or plural, form expresses the needs of pupils and teachers. Pupils have their
recognisable educational needs; teachers have needs related to performing their work
effectively and improving their own functioning.
21
Preparing designs
Designing that capitalises on the most promising proposals usually follows steps like
these: Stating programme or project objectives, identifying evaluation means,
choosing a type of design, selecting learning content, determining and organising
learning experiences, and evaluating the programme or project summatively.
The planning steps described above can be put into place only if an organisation is
developed for allocating and assigning people and material resources. Experience in
curriculum planning offers several guidelines that are helpful in organising people and
materials.
• Start small by involving only a few persons at first.
• Choose these people carefully. They should be interested, able persons who are
eager to see the schools improved.
• Hold planning sessions when they are needed, having due regard for the time
schedules of the planners.
• Give credit to the planners, rewarding them sensibly and openly.
• Provide the planners with necessary time, resources, and materials.
• Fix responsibility for the subparts of the planning operation.
• Establish time limits for completing the portions of the work, but do not rush the
participants.
• Help the planners see what is important by personally emphasising the important
as opposed to the trivial.
• Have some criteria for determining what is to be done. For example, the first
proposals should be of the right size and complexity to be pursued successfully.
• Encourage participants to get the job done well – without stress – remembering
that what happens during the first attempt will colour or condition subsequent
attempts.
Curriculum planning is most likely to succeed if certain expectations are kept in
mind:
• Person in local schools and school systems should accept responsibility for
planning. This responsibility should be distributed among numbers of people.
• Feelings of personal security and worth, as well as satisfactory interpersonal
23
Persons who undertake curriculum improvement should not accept that great
changes would necessarily occur within a period of a few months. Initially, growth may
come only in the form of people’s sensitisation to themselves, to one another, and to the
nature of the curriculum and its changes. Values, attitudes, and skills change to some
extent almost immediately, but progress of lasting significance takes time.
An interesting way of projecting the curriculum into the future is to raise questions
concerning how the curriculum is to be viewed. Answers to the questions may suggest
metaphors such as:
Chapter 4
Curriculum Design
The task of creating new courses of study or new patterns of educational activity for
pupils in schools requires curriculum design. The design of such intended curricula
involves a multitude of factors – ideological, technical, epistemological, and
psychological, to name but the some. Developing curricula in a systematic way, as
opposed to piecemeal, one-off modifications to current practice, is still relatively new and
in consequence is both tentative and primitive.
Three principal curriculum design models have been produced to further this
enterprise. It is important to note that these three – the objectives, the process, and the
situational models – do not describe how curricula are in fact designed but make
recommendations for design. Their recommendations or prescriptions involve differing
conceptions of the teaching/planning task, and all three are in need of further refinement
and elaboration. The following guidelines provide frameworks through which
conceptions of education can be given tangible form as curriculum proposals.
2. SELECTION OF
LEARNING EXPERIENCES
1. AIMS / OBJECTIVES
3. ORGANISATION OF
LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
4. EVALUATION OF
LEARNING EXPERIENCES
Since its formulation much work by educationists such as Popham, Mager and
Gronlund has been concentrated on making the first stage as clear-cut as possible in order
to provide clear goals towards which pupils and teachers can work and in order to
facilitate the measurement and evaluation of the results of the curriculum. Both of these
concerns have led to an emphasis on behavioural objectives which specify in terms of
observable behaviours what a pupil should be able to do, think or feel as a result of a
course of instruction. For the purpose of assessing whether or not they have been
achieved such objectives have to be specific, measurable and unambiguous.
26
Figure 4.2, Levels in the cognitive and affective domains and sample objectives
Cognitive Domain
Level 1 Knowledge
‘To make pupils conscious of correct form and usage in speech and writing’
‘Knowledge of a relatively complete formulation of the theory of evaluation’
Level 2 Comprehension
‘Skill in translating mathematical verbal material into symbolic statements and vice versa’
‘Skill in predicting continuation trends’
Level 3 Application
‘The ability to predict the probable effect of a change in a factor on a biological situation
previously at equilibrium’
Level 4 Analysis
‘Skill in distinguishing facts from hypotheses
Level 5 Synthesis
‘Ability to tell a personal experience effectively’
‘Ability to propose ways of testing hypotheses
Level 6 Evaluation
‘The comparison of major theories, generalisation and facts about particular cultures’
Affective Domain
Level 2 Responding
‘Finds pleasure in reading for recreation’
Level 3 Valuing
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‘Assumes responsibility for drawing reticent members of the group into conversation’
Level 4 Organisation
‘Forms judgements as to the responsibility of society for conserving human and material
resources’
Level 5 Characterisation by a value or value-complex
‘Readiness to revise judgements and to change behaviour in the light of evidence’
The influence of Tyler and the rational planning model is most clearly seen in a
design model offered by Wheeler. This model (Figure 4.3) has five basic stages. The first
of these is extremely complex as general aims embodying broad conceptions of education
are analysed into ultimate goals, mediate goals, proximate goals and specific classroom
objectives. These provide the direction required for the selection of learning experiences,
the selection of content, the organisation and integration of learning experiences and
content, and the final evaluation stage which enables the designer to determine the
effectiveness of the curriculum and hence to make modifications to it next time round. Its
close similarity to the basic Tyler model is obvious.
Kerr’s views are very much in tune with the rational planning approach. ‘For the
purpose of curriculum design and planning it is imperative that the objective should be
identified first, as we cannot, or should not; decide ‘what’ or ‘how’ to teach in any
situation until we know ‘why’ we are doing it.
Perhaps the most extreme elaboration of Tyler’s basic model is Merritt’s eight stages
AOSTMTEC, comprising: (1) aims, (2) objectives, (3) strategies, (4) tactics, (5) methods,
(6) techniques, (7) evaluation, and (8) consolidation.
2. SELECTION OF LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
divorced; certain ends presuppose certain means and vice versa. Content and learning
experiences cannot always be separated, nor can aims and content.
Of all the components in such models, objectives (especially behavioural objectives)
have attracted most criticism. The objectives can be classified as originating in general
philosophical considerations, specific discipline considerations, and practical
considerations. Perhaps the most telling general objection is that such important
outcomes of education as understanding, appreciation and knowledge cannot be fully
translated into clear-cut observable behaviours capable of measurement. Only low-level
mental operations such as the recall of specific facts or the performance of certain
physical skills can be unambiguously specified beforehand. The idea of translating
general aims into specific objectives runs into other philosophical difficulties, where this
involves specifying subsets of skills or items of knowledge. The ideal of no ambiguity is
also regarded as false; objectives cannot have exact, true and real meaning, because the
meaning of words depends on the way they are used, and the way they are used does
vary. Objectives have also been criticised for doing violence to the nature of teaching
which is an on-going activity has ends-in-view which are constantly changing, nor does
the notion of pre-specifying objectives before teaching take into account the autonomous
nature of teacher or pupil who inevitably interpret educational processes in an individual
way.
Even two of the foremost critics of design through objectives accept that behavioural
objectives have a part to play though necessarily a limited one. Eisner suggests that three
broad types of objectives can usefully be employed in curriculum design, only one of
which (instructional objective) specifies the outcomes of a curriculum in behavioural
terms. Expressive objectives can be used to describe learning situations intended to evoke
personal responses from pupils, and type three objectives used to detail problematic
situations, with the solutions to these problems being left to the pupil initiative and
justification. Stenhouse suggests that education in schools necessarily comprises at least
four processes: (1) induction into knowledge, (2) initiation into social norms and values,
(3) training, and (4) instruction. He argues that the objectives model is appropriate for
both training and instruction but breaks down when it comes to inducting pupils into
knowledge. The latter involves getting pupils on the ‘inside’ of the knowledge forms,
getting them to think creatively and to make considered judgements. According to
Stenhouse, knowledge is not something to regurgitate, but something to think with.
Education as induction into knowledge is successful to the extent that it makes the
behavioural outcomes of the students unpredictable. Improvement from education comes
not from teachers being more precise about objectives but from them analysing and
criticising their own practice.
Stenhouse developed the process model framework for curriculum design. He argues that
a process model is more appropriate than an objective model in areas of the curriculum,
which centre on knowledge and understanding. Basically he contends that it is possible to
design curricula rationally by specifying content and principles of procedure rather than
by pre-specifying the anticipated outcomes in terms of objectives. It is possible to select
29
If the objectives model has its roots in behavioural psychology and the process model in
philosophy of education, the third major framework for design has its roots in cultural
analysis. Skilbeck’s model locates curriculum design and development firmly within a
cultural framework. It views such design as a means whereby teachers modify and
transform pupil experience through providing insights into cultural values, interpretative
frameworks and symbolic systems. The model underlines the value-laden nature of the
30
design process and its inevitable political character as different pressure groups and
ideological interests seek to influence the process of cultural transmission. Instead of
making recommendations in vacuum it makes specific provision for different planning
contexts by including as one of its most crucial features a critical appraisal of the school
situation. The model is based on the assumption that the focus for curriculum
development must be the individual school and its teachers, i.e. that school-based
curriculum development is the most effective way of promoting genuine change at school
level. The model has five major components:
(1) Situational analysis which involves a review of the situation and an analysis of
the interacting elements constituting it. External factors to be considered are
broad social changes including ideological shifts, parental and community
expectations, the changing nature of subject disciplines and the potential
contribution of teacher-support systems such as colleges and universities.
Internal factors include pupils and their attributes, teachers and their knowledge,
skills, interests, etc., school ethos and political structure, materials resources and
felt problems.
(2) Goal formulation with the statement of goals embracing teacher and pupil
actions. Such goals are derived from the situational analysis only in the sense
that they represent decisions to modify that situation in certain respects.
(3) Programme-building which comprises the selection of subject-matter for
learning, the sequencing of teaching-learning episodes, the deployment of staff
and the choice of appropriate supplementary materials and media.
(4) Interpretation and implementation where practical problems involved in the
introduction of a modified curriculum are anticipated and then hopefully
overcome as the installation proceeds.
(5) Monitoring, assessment, feedback and reconstruction which involve a much
wider concept of evaluation than determining to what extent a curriculum meets
its objectives. Tasks include providing on-going assessment of progress in the
light of classroom experience, assessing a wide range of outcomes (including
pupil attitudes and the impact on the school organisation as a whole) and
keeping adequate records based on responses from a variety of participants (not
just pupils).
Skilbeck’s situational model is not an alternative to the other two. It is a more
comprehensive framework, which can encompass either the process model or the
objective model depending on which aspects of the curriculum are being designed. It is
flexible, adaptable and open to interpretation in the light of changing circumstances. It
does not presuppose a linear progression through its components. Teachers can begin at
any stage and activities can develop concurrently. The model outlined does not
presuppose a means-end analysis at all; it simple encourages teams or groups of
curriculum developers to take into account different elements and aspects of the
curriculum-development process, to see the process as an organic whole, and to work in a
moderately systematic way. Very importantly, it forces those involved in curriculum
development to consider systematically their particular context, and it links their
decisions to wider cultural and social considerations.
Sockett advocates a process of curriculum design through structure. He sees only
limited usefulness in the objectives model (mainly in the area of skill development), but
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does view the process model as valuable. He believes that curriculum design and
development have to be slow, piecemeal and uncertain, since there are multitudes of
interacting factors involved and since the activities of those party to the enterprise are
largely habitual. Curriculum design involves understanding the structure of the
curriculum as it presently exists (or in Skilbeck’s terms analysing the situation). A first
stage is to be clear about the focus of attention when anticipating change, for example, by
focussing on the science curriculum of the middle school. Then in the light of the
problem, information has to be gathered about current practices, attitudes, perceptions,
influences and constraints. In this way the shape or design of the curriculum is clarified.
Changes are introduced if current practices cannot be justified or if the proposed new
practices are considered to offer justifiable advantages. Such changes need not be
planned by objectives; they can be designed by paying attention to different aspects of the
structure, to principles of procedure or to content.
Conclusion
The models outlined here are all prescriptive, recommending how the activities of
curriculum design ought to be conducted. They constitute guiding frameworks through
which beliefs, values and assumptions concerning educational purposes, subject matter,
learning and teaching are combined so as to produce intended curricula. These models
point up the complexities of the enterprise and the varied purposes, perspectives, and
assumptions in curriculum studies.
Several needs and demands affect curriculum designing. Among them are an
insistence that the schools teach values, morals, and ethics; that children with a variety of
impairments be taught better than they have been heretofore; and that the children who
are gifted and talented be offered better programmes of instruction. Several terms now in
common parlance among curriculum workers suggest some of the possible future
emphases in designing:
• the systems approach,
• the humane school,
• educating a more diverse population,
• achieving equity with excellence in schooling,
• and restructuring schools so that they really improve.
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Chapter 5
We have been considering the kinds of learning experiences useful for attaining various
types of objectives. These learning experiences have been considered in terms of their
characteristics but not in terms of their organisation. Since learning experiences must be
put together to form some kind of coherent programme, it is necessary for us now to
consider the procedures for organising learning experiences into units, courses, and
programmes.
Important changes in human behaviour are not produced over night. No single
learning experience has a very profound influence upon the learner. Changes in ways of
thinking, in fundamental habits, in major operating concepts, in attitudes, in abiding
interests and the like, develop slowly. It is only after months and years that we are able to
see major educational objectives taking marked concrete shape.
In order for educational experiences to produce a cumulative effect, they must be so
organised as to reinforce each other. Organisation is thus seen as an important problem in
curriculum development because it greatly influences the efficiency of instruction and the
degree to which major educational changes are brought about in the learners.
33
There are three major criteria to be met in building an effectively organised group of
learning experiences. These are: continuity, sequence, and integration.
Continuity refers to the vertical reiteration of major curriculum elements. For
example, if in the social studies the development of skills in reading social studies
material is an important objective, it is necessary to see that there is recurring and
continuing opportunity for these skills to be practised and developed. This means that
over time the same kinds of skills will be brought into continuing operation. In similar
fashion, if an objective in science is to develop a meaningful concept of energy, it is
important that this concept be dealt with again and again in various parts of the science
course. Continuity is thus seen to be a major factor in effective vertical organisation.
Sequence is related to continuity but goes beyond it. It is possible for a major
curriculum element to recur again and again but merely in the same level so that there is
no progressive development of understanding or skill or attitude or some other factor.
Sequence as a criterion emphasises the importance of having each successive experience
build upon the preceding one but to go more broadly and deeply into the matters
involved. For example, sequence in the development of reading skills in social studies
would involve the provision for increasingly more complex social studies material,
increasing breadth in the operation of the skills involved in reading these materials and
increasing depth of analysis so that the sixth class social studies programme would not
simply reiterate the reading skills involved in the fifth class but would go into them more
broadly and deeply. Correspondingly, sequential development of a concept of energy in
the natural sciences would require that each successive treatment of energy would help
the student to understand with greater breadth and depth the meaning of the term energy
in its broader and deeper connotations. Sequence emphasises not duplication, but rather
higher levels of treatment with each successive learning experience.
Integration refers to the horizontal relationship of curriculum experiences. The
organisation of these experiences should be such that they help the student increasingly to
34
get a unified view and to unify his behaviour in relation to the elements dealt
with. For example, in developing skill in handling quantitative problems in
arithmetic, it is also important to consider the ways in which these skills can be
effectively utilised in social studies, in science, in shop and other fields; so that they are
not developed simply in isolated behaviours to be used in a single course but are
increasingly part of the total capacities of the student to use in the varied situations of his
daily life. Correspondingly, in developing concepts in the social studies it is important to
see how these ideas can be related to work going on in other subject fields so that
increasingly there is unity in the student’s outlooks, skills, attitudes and the like.
These three criteria, continuity, sequence, and integration are the basic guiding
criteria in the building of an effective scheme of organisation of learning experiences.
Elements to be organised
Organising principles
Thus far we have been considering the ways of putting experiences together so as to
provide for effective organisation. It is also necessary to consider the main structural
elements in which the learning experiences are to be organised. Structural elements exist
at several levels. At the largest level of the structural elements may be made up of:
(a) specific subjects, like geography, arithmetic, history, handwriting, spelling and the
like, or
(b) broad fields, like social studies, the language arts, mathematics, the natural science
and the like, or
(c) a core curriculum for general education combined with broad fields or with specific
subjects or
(d) a completely undifferentiated structure in which the total programme is treated as a
unit, as is found, for example, in some of the curricula of the less formal educational
institutions, like the boy scouts or recreation groups.
At the intermediate level, the possible structures are:
(a) courses organised as sequences, such as social science I, social science II, social
science III, when these three courses are definitely planned as a unifying sequence,
or
(b) courses that are single semester or year units without being planned or considered as
a part of longer time sequence.
In the later category would be ancient history in the eighth class, modern European
history in the ninth class and American history in the tenth class, when each of these
courses is treated as a discrete unit not having a part-whole relationship to the total
history programme. Correspondingly, typical ninth class algebra does not build upon
eighth class arithmetic, nor does tenth class geometry build upon ninth class algebra so
that we can think of these courses as discrete unit courses rather than viewing them as a
sequential organisation at the intermediate level.
At the lowest level of organisation, we have structures of several possible sorts:
(a) Historically, the most widely used structure at the lowest level was “the lesson” in
which a single day was treated as a discrete unit and the lesson plans for that day
were more or less separate from other lessons, which were plans for other days,
(b) A second common structure is the “topic”, which may last for several days or several
weeks,
(c) Increasingly, a third type of structural organisation is to be found at this lowest level,
commonly called “the unit”. The unit usually includes experiences covering several
weeks and is organised around problems or major student purposes.
So far as the present evidence is concerned, it appears that each of these different
organising structures may have certain values under different conditions. However, it
is possible to indicate some of the advantages and the disadvantages of each of these
organising structures. From the standpoint of the achievement of continuity and
sequence the discrete subjects, the discrete courses for each semester or year, and the
discrete lessons all impose difficulties that make vertical organisation less likely to
occur. There are too many boundary lines from one structure to another to assure of
easy transition. Vertical organisation is facilitated when the courses are organised
over a period of years in larger units and in a larger general framework.
37
Although a great many ways of attacking the development of organisation are now in use,
in genera, they involve the following steps:
(1) Agreeing upon the general scheme of organisation; that is, whether specific subjects,
broad fields, or core programmes are to be used.
(2) Agreeing upon the general organising principles to be followed within each of the
fields decided on. This may mean, for example, that in mathematics the general
scheme adopted involves an increasing abstraction of algebraic, arithmetic, and
geometric elements, which are treated together year after year in place of the principle
of treating arithmetic elements first then algebraic, and finally geometric. Or, it may
mean an agreement in the social studies on the developments of problems beginning
with the community and moving out into the wider world rather than the decision on
the use of organising principle bases upon purely chronological considerations.
(3) Agreeing upon the kind of low-level unit to be used, whether it shall be by daily
lessons or by sequential topics or by teaching units.
(4) Developing flexible plans or called “source units” which will be in the hands of each
teacher as he works with a particular group.
(5) Using pupil-teacher planning for the particular activities carried on by a particular
class. This general operative procedure is increasingly used by various curriculum
groups.
The development of preliminary flexible plans or so called “source units” has its
purpose the provision of a great deal of possible material from which the teacher can
select that to be used with any particular group. These plans are flexible enough so that
38
they permit modification in the light of the needs, interests and abilities of any group;
and they are inclusive enough to cover a wide range of possible experiences from
which those that are most appropriate for a given group may be selected. A typical source
unit includes a statement of major objectives expected to be obtained from the kinds of
learning experiences outlined, a description of a variety of experiences that can be used in
attaining these objectives, an outline in some detail of the culminating experiences that
can be used to help the student at the end to integrate and organise what he has got from
the unit, a list of source materials that will help in the development of the unit, including
books and other references, slides, radio programmes, pictures, recordings, and the like,
and an indication of the expected level of development of the major elements that operate
as the organising elements in this particular curriculum. This is necessary to prevent
duplication on the one hand, and to avoid undue omission or big jumps in student
development on the other hand, which are too great for the student to attain.
In outlining the suggested learning experiences it is very necessary not only to
consider experiences that are inherently related to the organising principle of the unit but
also to care for the varying needs and the interests of the individuals likely to be in this
grade and also to provide for each individual learner variety enough to stimulate
continuing interest and attention to prevent boredom. In listing source materials it is
essential to recognise the varied kinds of materials that can be used, not only the verbal
but the non-verbal ones, not only those that can be used at home, on field trips, in
community activities and the like. It is also important to recognise of culminating
experiences, which help to tie together the varied experiences provided throughout the
unit. This facilitates integration and aids the student in organising his own understanding,
attitude and behaviour generally.
It is difficult to suggest the possible schemes that may serve to organise source units.
Some source units are organised around big ideas, but in the main, the more successful
ones have been organised around problems, particularly in the sciences and the social
studies. In the aesthetics field, teaching units have often been organised around
something to be done, or in some cases, a series of appreciation experiences, which are
neither problems nor big ideas. There is still opportunity for a great deal of creative work
in developing highly effective schemes for constructing source units in the various fields
of the school curriculum.
As the source unit represents the preplanning that has gone on, so a great deal of planning
must also be carried on while the units are actually being used. Each group of children
may represent differences in background, in particular interests, in needs, that will
involve considerable variation from one group to another. The value of having pupils
participate with teachers in planning the more particular things to be done by that class is
largely in giving the student greater understanding and meaning to his learning
experiences as well as increasing the likelihood of his being well motivated. During such
pupil-teacher planning, selections of activities will be made from among the many
suggestions appearing in the source unit and there may also be additions made where
children see possibilities in the unit, which were not foreseen by those who planned the
original source unit. As a result, the particular plan followed by each group will represent
some variation from the original source unit and will never include all the possible
materials suggested in the source unit itself.
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Chapter 6
A curriculum, whether developed anew or remaining virtually unchanged over the years,
embodies educational intentions – knowledge to be introduced, skills to be learned and
attitudes and values to be acquired. For these intentions to be realised teaching and
learning have to take place – the intended curriculum resulting from curriculum
development has to be operationalised. The way in which teaching is done, the
psychological conditions under which learning takes place, together with the social and
institutional setting in which they are enacted, influence what curricular intentions are
achieved. Different teaching-learning ‘milieus’ affect the meaning acquired by pupils
from their curricular experience.
Curricular objectives may be pursued in practice not only through the allocation of time
but also by the decision to treat subjects as discrete entities (Geography, history, physics
and so on) or as larger wholes (the humanities, the arts and sciences). In the latter case
subjects are integral to an area of study and what matters are usually the problems or the
concepts rather than the specific information, which is provided. In an integrated course
such as humanities, the behaviour of the teacher as ‘neutral chairman’ is as important as
the thematic organisation of the subject matter around topics such as war, law and order,
and relation between the sexes etc.
Another, distinguishable approach is one where disciplines are chosen not to be
studied in themselves but for the light, which they cast on a topic. It must be an inter-
disciplinary approach.
43
The terms ‘integration’ and ‘inter- disciplinary’ have been used loosely by a
variety of writers, and much effort has been expended in discriminating what is meant
by the terms. It is clear that dissatisfaction with the conventional curriculum has arisen
and so schools have explored alternative organising principles on which to base their
curricular policies. Calls for ‘balance’, ‘breadth’ and ‘relevance’ in the curriculum are
other such principles. However, only a minority of schools uses the integration of
subjects to any substantial extent. What are needed are studies of how schools come to
adopt and implement policies based on integration or inter-disciplinary work.
Curricular milieu
Educational objectives of schools are facilitated not only by the allocation of time and by
the general organisation of subject matter but also by the curricular milieu created i.e. by
the curricular ways of life to be followed in realising particular emphasis of schools.
These two factors – curricular emphasis and way of life – are two major dimensions of
the operational curriculum. But schools tend to emphasise either pupils as individuals or
as members of society. In the first case stress may be laid on intellectual autonomy,
personal development, the cultivation of self confidence, spontaneity and openness to
experience – what has been termed ‘self-actualisation’. In the second case schools
emphasise instructional and social skills and attitudes such as punctuality, respect for
property and a readiness to accept social conventions. These differing emphases are not
new. They have a long history in education best summed up in the concern for character
development versus the concern for fitness for society.
Each emphasis calls for a particular setting for its achievement, a specific milieu in
which it may be realised. The first setting is monastic, set apart from the world and
subject to a higher discipline – that of academic subjects or of the teacher as an authority.
The second is within the world, focussing on the technical and moral problems of society,
involved in its tensions, with the teacher as instructor in basic skills and friendly guide to
the ways of the world.
Few schools in practice simply exhibit one combination of curricular emphasis and
milieu. Most have to make some accommodation with the capabilities of their staff, with
the aspirations of parents and pupils and with the underlying structure of society, each of
which may lie in very different directions from those being pursued by the schools.
Nevertheless, at the level of curricular policy, schools through their heads and staff strive
to create a certain curricular ‘climate’ in which teaching take place. Of course,
expediency can sometimes be the governing criterion rather than any thought out,
justifiable curricular policy,
Whether or not schools have carefully considered, explicit curricular policies, they do at
least have a notion of what ought to be going on when teaching is taking place. Such
notions are often, though not always, conveyed through syllabuses and schemes of work.
44
In primary schools the importance of schemes of work has varied over time.
Some years ago, they were considered restrictive of both pupils and teachers
activities. Recently, however, many schools have begun to develop such schemes, but the
latter are not always detailed, nor are they to be found in every primary school.
Sometimes schemes are directly related to curriculum projects adopted by schools or to
sets of textbooks or structural teaching materials used by particular classes. Sometimes
the place of detailed formulations is taken by discussion at staff meetings or by incidental
indicators of what should be taught gleaned from conversations among staff members.
There has been little or no research into how primary school teachers plan their curricula
or into how they use their much-prized professional autonomy, which has expanded to fill
the gap caused by its restrictive influence on the curriculum.
At the secondary level, syllabuses are not regarded highly by teachers. They
concentrate most on subject matter, content and teaching methods to be employed tend to
play an intermediate role. Secondary teachers’ main concern is to know what they have to
teach. The same factor is of high priority when planning a course of study.
Schemes of work and syllabuses along with curriculum aims and objectives form
part of a means-ends model of education. Syllabuses tell the teacher what content to
cover; objectives indicate what his coverage of content is to achieve. There are, however,
other views, which assert that what matters is the ‘quality’ of curricular experience
provided, not where it leads. This experience may lead in many directions for pupils
depending on personal disposition and opportunity. Many art educators hold such a view,
as do some advocates of primary education. For such educationists the purpose of the
curriculum is to provide pupils with an opportunity to engage in educational encounters –
in art to develop aesthetic ideas out of an encounter with materials; in the primary school
to explore materials in an enriched environment and out of this exploration to discover
ideas of language and number. For such a curriculum the availability of appropriate
media and suitable materials is essential and flexibility in its use is critical.
Sound curricular policies, timetables that reflect them and schemes of work, which
support them, are all part of the operational curriculum. They provide the enabling
framework for the curricular life lived in classrooms, at the heart of which are teaching
and learning. The acts of teaching are many and various. They include keeping order,
organising pupils and materials, interesting pupils in what they have to learn, providing
activities through which to consolidate and exercise what has been learned, and assessing
how well it has been learned. The way in which a teacher puts these acts together,
articulates and paces them creates a curricular ‘culture’. How he conceives his role and
that of his pupils gives this culture a certain ambience or atmosphere. If, for example, the
teacher closely directs the work that pupils are to do, gives them no scope to bring to it
elements from their own background and determines how the work is to be done, then the
classroom culture will be heavily authoritarian. Curricular life for the pupil will be
teacher-directed, lived in the language of the teacher and the pace he sets.
In practice the curricular culture of science teaching is less clear-cut, though there is
a tendency for teachers to develop, and feel at home with, one style of teaching,
45
especially if they have not had opportunity or the motivation to practice alternative
styles.
Teachers as much as pupils need a variety of curricular experience and therefore their
learning are to show flexibility in use. What may be true of science teaching may not be
true of teaching history or of teaching seven-year-olds in the primary school. Other
dimensions may be more important in creating curricular cultures.
There are, however, other ways of describing the curricular culture of classrooms.
Barnes, for example, uses a communications model and distinguishes between
‘transmission’ teachers and ‘interpretation’ teachers. The former believes that knowledge
is contained in academic subjects, the content of which is verified against objective
standards or criteria. These teachers judge what their pupils do in accordance with these
criteria and use their job as one of correcting the pupils’ work so as to bring it more and
more into line with the standards of the subject. Pupils are regarded as novices, yet to be
taught how to think and understand. On the other hand, ‘interpretation’ teachers believe
that what matters are pupils’ abilities to organise thought and action so as to come to
understand what they are experiencing as science or history. Pupils, they believe, do not
start from ignorance but are knower, yet to appreciate what criteria may be applied to
give their understanding order and form. ‘Interpretation’ teachers see themselves, not as
authorities, but as mediators of the interaction necessary to pupils’ understanding of
experience.
It is advisable to use the concept of curriculum negotiation whereby teachers and
pupils (as well as teachers and other teachers) work out a mutually acceptable programme
and mode of teaching. The form, which curriculum negotiation may take, ranges from
confrontation at one extreme to consultation at the other. With confrontation pupils may
be forced to learn. With consultation they will have a clear say in what they learn and
how they will learn it. It is rare for either extreme to apply. Rather, norms and rules for
the negotiation of the curriculum are accepted by teachers and taught. Their nature and
this may vary with what is being taught, will characterise the curricular culture of
classrooms.
Yet another way of viewing the way in which curricular culture of classrooms comes
about is in asking how teachers function to define the everyday realities of life in
classrooms.
Much work remains to be done on how the curricular cultures of classrooms develop
and function; though quite clearly more than just the behaviour of teachers influences
them. There are the forms of pupil grouping employed, the persistent individuality of
pupils, the pressure of outside agencies, especially the examination boards, the multitude
of practical constraints and the clamour of public opinion and great debates. Certainly
curricular cultures are extremely complex, as is the evaluation of their processes and
outcomes. What is taught seems to be both much less than is intended and in some of its
effects much more than is foreseen.
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Chapter 7
Curriculum Evaluation
Evaluation may be defined as a broad and continuous effort to inquire into the effects of
utilising educational content and process to meet clearly defined goals. According to this
definition, evaluation goes beyond simple measurement and also beyond simple
application of the evaluator’s values and beliefs.
Teachers, administrators, and other school personnel commonly think of evaluation
in three terms:
(1) the evaluation of pupil progress by teachers in classrooms;
(2) the evaluation of schools and school systems by outside agencies;
(3) and the evaluation by the state departments of education and by the board of
examination.
The process of evaluation is essentially the process of determining to what extent the
educational objectives are actually being realised by the programme of curriculum and
instruction. However, since educational objectives are essentially changes in human
beings, that is, the objectives aimed at are to produce certain desirable changes in the
behaviour patterns of the student, and then evaluation is the process for determining the
degree to which these changes in behaviour are actually taking place.
47
This conception of evaluation has two important aspects. In the first place, it
implies that evaluation must apprise the behaviour of students since it is change in
these behaviours, which is sought in education. In the second place, it implies that
evaluation must involve more than a single appraisal at any one time since to see whether
change has taken place, it is necessary to make an appraisal at an early point and other
appraisals at later points to identify changes that may be occurring.
Since evaluation involves getting evidence about behaviour changes in the students,
any valid evidence about behaviours that are desired as educational objectives provides
an appropriate method of evaluation. This is important to recognise because many people
think of evaluation as synonymous with the giving of paper and pencil tests.
‘Judgement’ is the key term in discussion of curriculum evaluation. Judgements have
to be made about what to evaluate, how and with what end in view. But before going into
what, how and why of evaluation one thing should to be made clear. If the process of
curriculum evaluation is to be understood, it is necessary to appreciate the close
relationship between what is being evaluated and the form that the judgement takes.
A simple example will illustrate the point. Evaluating the skill of a marksman in a
tournament requires that he is judged as to how well he can hit a target, at what distance
and with what accuracy. Evaluating the quality of a work of art calls for judgement of a
quite different kind. Failure to recognise that a different kind of judgement is required in
each circumstance would, to say the least, lead to difficulties. Unfortunately, the field of
curriculum evaluation has been free from just such difficulties. This is because of the
differing forms in which curriculum evaluation has been cast – because of the differing
models or metaphors, which have characterised it.
A curriculum project is a part of a whole curriculum programme. The process often used
in evaluating a curriculum project can best be expressed in a series of steps:
(1) The first major step is to define the goals of the project. This step usually has two
components – making a workable statement of the goals of the project and identifying
quantitative measures to be used in evaluating performance relative to the goals.
Great care is needed in stating the project goals. It is found that the goals as first
stated by programme and project planners often bear only a slight resemblance to
what the programme or project in fact does.
(2) The second step in the process is to collect the data necessary for determining the
project’s effectiveness. The data may include findings about pupil characteristics;
about the nature of the project and the processes used in it – its duration and the
varied treatments it provides groups of pupils.
(3) The third and final step is to determine the cost effectiveness of the project. Here,
levels of progress toward achieving the project’s goals are noted against amounts of
resources used in reaching these levels. If pouring in additional resources produces no
better results, the maximum extent of desirable resource input has been reached.
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Stake’s model
The basis of Stake’s model lay in the two dimensions of intents and observations and the
three bodies of data – antecedents, transactions and outcomes. Evaluation required that
data should be gathered on:
i) the antecedent intents i.e. what the curriculum developers had in mind in
developing
49
ii) the intended transactions i.e. what events were intended to take place when a
curriculum was transacted
iii) the intended outcomes i.e. what was to result from the intended curriculum – the
skills and attitudes it was intended to develop
iv) the observed antecedents i.e. what classroom events were taking place before the
new curriculum was implemented, especially the conditions of the teacher-pupil
transactions
v) the observed transactions i.e. the actual activities engaged in when transacting the
curriculum
vi) the observed outcomes i.e. the results actually achieved through the transacted
curriculum
Stake’s argued that arising from the application of this model, data would have to be
produced not only by educational measurement specialists but also by social and political
scientists and historians who routinely study opinions, preferences, and values. But for
him data gathering was not the end of evaluation; having clinically conducted his
evaluation, the evaluator could not then wash his hands of it and leave others to judge its
meaning and value. The evaluator’s responsibility involved saying whether or not the
+curriculum was marching expectations (or intents).
Stake’s contribution was to widen the evaluation perspective by drawing
attention to the importance of both intentions and observations in the enterprise and by
re-emphasising judgement as the goal of evaluation. Even so, his approach was still
heavily measurement-oriented, and theoretical. Although these categories are useful in a
general sense, they are not close enough to curricular phenomena to be immediately
helpful; they do not direct an evaluator precisely enough to the phenomena he is
supposed to look at.
special treatment, continuing with the customary subject matter content and
educational practices. Then, evaluation of specific learning outcomes and other
outcomes is conducted for both experimental and control groups by using the same
evaluation strategies and instruments for both groups. Whenever the true experimental
method can be utilised, it should be selected because of its relative freedom from error
and because of the confidence that evaluators usually place in it.
Naturalistic designs
Here, data are gathered by means of four major strategies. The first strategy is
observation by skilled observers to answer the question “What is happening here?” The
second is description, which should be an actual portrayal of the situation that has been
observed. The third strategy is interpretation, which is accomplished by discovering
meaning relative to theoretical, historical, socio-economic, or other standards. The fourth
strategy is judgement of the worth and importance of what has been done, in answer to
questions like “Was it worth doing?” and “How well was it done?”
This type of activity is sometimes referred to as naturalistic evaluation. It capitalises
on human abilities. In answering questions about what is true and what is valuable,
naturalistic evaluation encourages the participation of people in making intelligent
judgements. The more the participants practice evaluation strategies with understanding
and care, the greater the quality or validity of the results.
Although naturalistic evaluation has strengths, it also has weaknesses. The strength is
the presence of informed and skilled viewers, who can act as translators and interpreters
and can thus help other viewers make wise judgements. The weaknesses are: there is no
53
assurance that what one critic sees will be even similar to what another critic sees;
standards of criticism in themselves necessarily vary; and what can be seen may
easily be less than what can be tested.
Some guidelines
School personnel should
• know what is, and what is not, being evaluated;
• know what kinds of continuing information are available from the project centre
regarding evaluation procedures and data;
• know what materials, procedures and suggestions are recommended and are available
for evaluating according to the objectives of the project;
• use appropriate techniques and devices and employ properly trained observers in
assessment programmes;
• conduct assessment on continuing bases.
• Assessment must be sufficiently precise and comprehensive to yield the data
necessary for competent judgements.
Keep the following questions in mind:
• Do we have initial data on learners – their achievement, their motivation, and
their personalities?
• Do we have initial data on teachers – their strategies, their motivation, their
knowledge, and their personalities?
• Do we have these data at many stages during the implementation of the project?
• What happens to learners as people and to learners as learners as a result of the
project?
• What happens to teachers as people and to teachers as teachers?
• Are the changes which we expected occurring? Why or why not?
• Do changes justify the time and funds expended?
The guidelines are worded to express the expectation that worthwhile evaluation in an
ongoing procedure throughout the life of a project and not merely an end-of-the-line
operation.
Since every educational programme involves several objectives and since for almost
every objective there will be several scores or descriptive terms used to summarise the
behaviour of students in relation to this objective, it follows that the results obtained from
evaluation instruments will not be a single score or a single descriptive turn but an
analysed profile or a comprehensive set of descriptive terms indicating the present
student achievement. These scores or descriptive terms should, of course, comparable to
those used at a preceding date so that it is possible to indicate change-taking place and
one can then see whether or not educational progress is actually happening.
It is, therefore, essential to compare the results obtained from the several evaluations
instruments before and after given periods in order to estimate the amount of change
taking place. The fact that these are complex comparisons, that they involve a number of
points and not a single score, may complicate the process, but it is necessary for the kind
of identification of strengths and weaknesses that will help to indicate where the
curriculum may need improvement.
It is not only desirable to analyse the results of an evaluation to indicate the various
strengths and weaknesses, but it is also necessary to examine these data to suggest
possible explanations or hypotheses about the reason for this particular pattern of
strengths and weaknesses.
When hypotheses have been suggested that might possibly explain the evaluation
data, the next step is to check those hypotheses against the present available data, that is,
against additional data that may be available, and to see whether the hypotheses are
consistent with all the data then available. If they appear to be consistent with the
available data, the next step is to modify the curriculum in the direction implied by the
hypotheses and then to teach the material to see whether there is any actual improvement
in student achievement when these modifications are made. If there were, then it would
suggest that the hypotheses are likely explanations and the basis for improving the
curriculum has been identified.
What is implied is that curriculum planning is a continuous process and that as
materials and procedures are developed, they are tried out, their results appraised, their
inadequacies identified, suggested improvements indicated, there is re-planning,
redevelopment and then reappraisal. In this kind of continuing cycle, it is possible for the
curriculum and instructional programme to be continuously improved over the years. In
this way we may hope to have an increasingly more effective educational programme
rather than depending so much upon hit and miss judgement as a basis for curriculum
development.
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Chapter 8
Two additional sources of personnel to improve teaching and learning are (1) the
staff of universities, state departments of education, board education offices, and school
systems other than one’s own and (2) well-informed lay persons who give advice strictly
within their own specialities. These two sources provide part-time consultants who may
be called upon for a few hours or days of assistance at almost any time.
Many school systems maintain resource files of community citizens who volunteer
their help in instructional fields ranging from the physical sciences and the arts to
citizenship education. The classroom teachers are usually the best judges of which lay
persons are most effective in reaching pupils with the content they have to teach.
Of course, no substitutes have been found for competent classroom teachers who
work patiently and insightfully with children day after day. The quality of the schools
depends chiefly on the quality of the classroom teachers who teach in them.
The morale of able teachers can be improved by reducing the load of clerical and
custodial duties that now burden many of them. Obviously professional employment
carries with it responsibility for certain routine operations, but studies of the duties of the
classroom teachers often reveal numerous and sometimes unnecessary clerical and
custodial loads. An enlightened school administration seeks to free competent persons for
activity at their highest level of performance. School officials will need to be more
60
certain than they are at present that teachers are using their time to maximum
advantage.
to do the supporting, and ample time must be allowed for the effectuating
process to be completed.
school system. Significant experimentation with the uses of computers, for example,
usually requires large-scale financing and the co-operation of several school systems.
Unwise selection of projects that are too large or too involved not only leads to
frustration among personnel, but also wastes their valuable time.
A related difficulty is selecting projects that make no real difference in instructional
improvement. Many tasks being performed today are unevaluated, so little is known
about their relative or intrinsic worth. One may make expensive arrangements of
personnel and materials, demonstrate the materials, and advertise them widely, and still
not know whether the changes make a difference to learning. Time spent on unevaluated
demonstrations may easily be tome stolen from other, more demonstrably useful projects.
Finally, tempo is affected by injudicious rescheduling of tasks that have been
performed on one or more occasions previously. Teachers become frustrated when
curriculum leaders seem to “ride” their own hobbies, calling for restudies of given
educational problems at too-frequent intervals. Careful pacing of tasks is a special need in
those school systems in which curriculum study has been under way for many years.
The rule may be summarised as follows:
Not too fast, not too slow, not too carelessly planned, not too big, not too insignificant,
not too recently considered.
This is obviously a rule easier to state than to live by, but it is extremely relevant to the
process of improvement.
A third major action that assists the process of curriculum improvement is to select
among a variety of activities directed toward improvement. The provision of varied
activities has been referred to as a shotgun approach. When a shotgun is fired, no one
knows exactly what will be hit by the pallets. Similarly, curriculum improvers who use
varied activities are sometimes unsure who will be attracted to and will be most affected
by each of several activities. The best that we can do is to narrow many possibilities to a
few according to ascribed purposes and the exercise of good judgement.
Curriculum improvement can be equated in many respects with supervision, in-
service education, or staff development. Accordingly, the activities used in these three
connecting avenues to school quality are fundamentally the same. They exist in some
profusion under these headings: group activities, contact with individuals, and use of
literary and mechanical media. Some of the activities are under their appropriate
headings:
A fourth major action to help the process of curriculum improvement is building into
each project, from its very inception, procedures for evaluating the effects of the project.
This action is taken so infrequently that the quality of both old and new educational
practices usually goes un-assessed. After a while, the accumulation of unevaluated
practices becomes so large that no one can defend with assurance the ways in which
schools are operated.
If the chief end of curriculum improvement is improvement of pupils’ engagements
in learning under auspices of the school, the significance of every important step toward
this end is evident. The evaluation may, because of the pressure of time and work, be
done quite informally, but it should be done nevertheless. The presence of evaluation data
lends assurance to practitioners, and it supplies evidence to the people who pay school
costs and want to know whether money is being well spent.
Evaluation is meant to gauge the extent to which objectives of a project or activity
have been achieved. A desirable relationship between evaluation and objectives appears
in Figure 8.1. The diagram suggests that as soon as the objectives of a project are stated,
ways of evaluating the achievement of the objectives should be considered.
FIGURE 8.1
The relationship among major parts of a curriculum project
Objectives Evaluation
Activities
64
Activities then should be chosen for their pertinence to the objectives and also with
reference to possible means of evaluation. The thinking process should follow this
sequence: from objectives to evaluation to activities that are useful in achieving the
objectives and have effects that can be properly be evaluated. Too often, curriculum
workers think of activities first and then either ignore or defer consideration of objectives
and evaluation.
Four well-recognised actions by change agents move the curriculum toward
improvement: seeking a more helpful climate and working conditions striving to achieve
an appropriate change tempo. Sponsoring varied activities will contribute to
improvement, and specifying effective evaluation procedures.
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Chapter 9
solution: schools within schools. The school of several thousand students was
divided into smaller schools, housed within the existing buildings. The houses are
organised vertically so that students are connected with one house during their high
school years. Each house has its own faculty and counsellors, and provides a curriculum
of general education or unified studies—those learning that all educated members of a
society hold in common. Specialised studies are taken in other units.
In general, one is able to identify three advantages to the school-within-a-school
plan. The first is more opportunity for faculty to get to know students and give them
individual attention. This is important for all students but particularly in urban schools,
which may have as many as 5000 students, many of whom are considered at risk. A
second advantage is that the houses can share the library, laboratories and other central
resources that school must have if they have to offer educational services of high quality.
A third advantage is that teachers have a greater opportunity to work together with a
given population of heterogeneous students throughout the high school years. Although
educators continue to point to the industrial climate of full-size high schools as an
unfavourable environment for at-risk youth, relatively few urban high schools have
adopted the house plan.
A problem with segmental approaches is that they tend to deal with specific
techniques, procedures, practices, or programmes targeted for one population group or
level of schooling, making curriculum articulation more difficult. Preoccupation with one
group may cause the problems of other groups to remain unaddressed. This is short-
sightedness in its most virulent form. The problems of one group do not remain their
own, but affect other youngsters as well as us all. Kindergarten through twelfth grade
students is part of an ecological community, in interaction with the environment of the
school and with each other and the wider ecosystem outside schools.
69
Christopher Jencks concluded that the character of school’s output depends largely
on a single input, namely the characteristics of the entering children, and that every thing
else is either secondary or completely irrelevant. The other research study of England
suggests that student behaviour, attitudes, and achievement are appreciably influenced by
their school experiences and by the quality of the school as a social institution.
Furthermore, the differences in the outcomes of schools in the study were related to
specific school characteristics—such as the availability and use of curriculum resources,
instructional strategies and faculty collaboration on school wide problems.
Researchers investigating schools with high achievement levels found that these
schools had a strong principal who supported a climate of achievement. This was fine, on
the face of it. Achievement for these children meant something different than for other
people’s children. It meant lower-level skills rather than critical-thinking skills. A good
principal was by implication someone who could raise pupils’ basic skills levels. Because
the tests were narrowly focused, curriculum improvement was not an issue. Principals
and teachers could help children to pass the tests by means of drill and this could be done
most economically and efficiently with worksheets and without the help of other staff.
critical importance for a coherent curriculum district wide. It has been noted
that while the unique needs of each school may require differences in curricula from
one school to another, those in central office who are responsible for all student learning
can work in tandem with the school to ensure that the total system is in harmony. The
point cannot be overemphasised that if schools are to renew themselves, renewal must
begin with the curriculum.
Curriculum frameworks
The tendency among the most progressive states and school systems has been to
establish curriculum frameworks to provide focus for the improvement of teaching and
learning in classrooms. Such frameworks are infinitely preferable to lists of competencies
or topics to be covered by schools at a given grade level. The idea of the frameworks is to
provide schools with a comprehensive and integrative view of what teaching should look
like in a particular subject. Instead of long lists of topics for each grade, the framework
simply states broadly the concepts and generalisations that students should come to
understand over a given period of time. It has been noted that the frameworks are
strikingly different from the fragmented subject matter objectives of a generation ago.
Although some states view the curriculum in terms of content areas, some views
learning as interdisciplinary by nature to foster interdisciplinary learning. The
curriculum-improvement document can be organised into broad areas such as developing
creativity, reasoning and problem solving, communication and the development of social
responsibilities.
Frameworks as opportunities
According to Resnick, research on higher-level learning and constructivist views of
knowledge conclude that students learn best when given an opportunity to incorporate
what they are studying into their own experience. The point of importance is that the idea
continues to be supported by research on cognitive learning and that integrative
curriculum frameworks can have great influence in its implementation. Curriculum
frameworks present a genuine opportunity for curriculum improvement.
Schools should not be given step-by-step guides to follow; they need broad
functional outlines of what students should understand and be able to do. Schools need
integrative curriculum frameworks. Teachers who are knowledgeable about a curriculum
area should have a major responsibility in developing the frameworks and in fitting the
parts into the whole curriculum. However, the education agency is responsible for
establishing criteria, co-ordinating the work of committee members, bringing them into
contact with the best sources of knowledge and material in each curriculum area, and
assisting them in obtaining the needed expertise and resources. The responsibility for
putting the framework in the hands of the teachers and principals and helping them with
implementation resides with the central office. Frameworks should be revised at
scheduled intervals; but looking for better methods of implementing the frameworks
should be a continuous process.
systems provide support for teachers to help them implement the integrative ideas
and new methods. The assistance must be sustained, providing time for teachers to
attend in-service education sessions is not enough. Most administrators support formal
staff development activities by providing teachers with released time to attend a training
course. School systems generally balk at offering teachers follow-up time for observing
other teachers who practice and use the new approaches. Principals prefer the less
expensive means of having teachers use their own preparation or lunch time to observe
other teachers.
Research on staff development indicates that teachers need to feel successful in using
a new or approved practice or they will not use it. Teachers, like anyone else, tend to do
things in which they are successful and avoid the other things. They become easily
discouraged when a new approach does not work. School systems can ensure that their
investment will have optimal influence when they (1) provide staff-development courses
that include follow-up sessions and/or continuing school visits by the course instructors,
(2) prepare teachers as facilitators to provide more immediate help for colleagues as
problems develop, and (3) provide teachers with released time to observe and to confer
with other teachers who have demonstrated success with the new approaches.
Schools where teachers are their own initiators of curriculum improvement are no
accident. Teachers talk to one another about problems and work together to develop new
teaching methods. These schools have an organic form of organisation where members
view themselves as working toward a common goal and continually adjust their work
through interaction with others in solving problems facing the organisation. In a
mechanistic system of organisation, by contrast, the goals of the organisation are broken
down into abstract individual tasks and members pursue their own tasks in isolation.
An organic system fits with teachers’ efforts to devise problems and units of work
that interconnect the various studies and that engage students in the development of skills
and concepts that cross through the entire curriculum. An organic system is a realistic
reflection of the reality that students are not uniform and has special as well as common
needs and interests. These reasons would be enough to make the organic model
appropriate for the schools. Improving teachers’ knowledge and skills requires continual
participation by individual teachers with others in trying to find better ideas and methods.
Central offices have a responsibility for encouraging communication and collaboration
among professional staffs and others who can help teachers learn new practices.
Chapter 10
Classroom management
one subject area could serve as tutors to younger students in that same skill,
dependent upon the older child's satisfactory performance. Classroom
privileges such as helping to distribute papers can also be made contingent on
performance.
Honour Level Two students are youngsters who may have only had one or two problems in
the last 14 calendar days. Some of the extra privileges awarded Honour Level One students
may also be awarded to Honour Level Two Students.
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Typically 20% to 30% of your students qualify for Honour Level Two.
Honour Level Three students are youngsters who seem to have more difficulty staying out of
trouble. They will have had three or more problems within the last 14 calendar days. Honour
Level Three students will not receive the extra privileges that the Honour Level One's and
Two's enjoy. Often they are excluded from activities as are the Honour Level Fours, but these
students might negotiate the right to participate.
Generally only about 5% or fewer of your students will be on Honour Level Three.
Honour Level Four students are youngsters who consistently get into trouble at school.
Fortunately, this is a very small group. Schools using The Honour Level System have
reported that this group rarely exceeds 5% of the students. Youngsters on Honour Level Four
usually do not participate in any of the extra activities that the other students enjoy. For
example, one school asks them to sit in a study hall during school assemblies and makes them
ineligible to attend dances or athletic events. They do not negotiate, as do the threes.
(1) If a student is disruptive during class, I assign him/her to detention, without further
discussion.
(2) I don't want to impose any rules on my students.
(3) The classroom must be quiet in order for students to learn.
(4) I am concerned about both what my students learn and how they learn.
(5) If a student turns in a late homework assignment, it is not my problem.
(6) I don't want to reprimand a student because it might hurt his/her feelings.
(7) Class preparation isn't worth the effort.
(8) I always try to explain the reasons behind my rules and decisions.
(9) I will not accept excuses from a student who is tardy.
(10) The emotional well being of my students is more important than classroom control.
(11) My students understand that they can interrupt my lecture if they have a relevant
question.
(12) If a student requests a hall pass, I always honour the request.
Here are some techniques that you can use in your classroom that will help you
achieve effective group management and control.
• Focusing. Be sure you have the attention of everyone in your classroom before you start
your lesson. Don't attempt to teach over the chatter of students who are not paying attention.
Inexperienced teachers some-times think that by beginning their lesson, the class will settle
down. The children will see that things are underway now and it is time to go to work.
Sometimes this works, but the children are also going to think that you are willing to
compete with them. You don't mind talking while they talk. You are willing to speak louder
so that they can finish their conversation even after you have started the lesson. They get the
idea that you accept their inattention and that it is permissible to talk while you are
presenting a lesson.
The focusing technique means that you will demand their attention before you begin. That
you will wait and not start until everyone has settled down. Experienced teachers know that
silence on their part is very effective. They will punctuate their waiting by extending it 5 to
10 seconds after the classroom is completely quiet. Then they begin their lesson using a
quieter voice than normal.
A soft-spoken teacher often has a calmer, quieter classroom than one with a stronger voice.
Her students sit still in order to hear what she says.
• Direct Instruction. Uncertainty increases the level of excitement in the classroom. The
technique of direct instruction is to begin each class by telling the students exactly what will
be happening. The teacher outlines what he and the students will be doing this period. He
may set time limits for some tasks.
An effective way to manage this technique with the first one is to include time at the end of
the period for students to do activities of their choosing. The teacher may finish the
description of the hour’s activities with - "And I think we will have some time at the end of
the period for you to chat with your friends, go to the library, or catch up on work for other
classes."
The teacher is more willing to wait for class attention when he knows there is extra time to
meet his goals and objectives. The students soon realise that the more time the teacher waits
for their attention, the less free time they have at the end of the hour.
• Monitoring. The key to this principle is to circulate. Get up and get around the room.
While your students are working, make the rounds. Check on their progress.
An effective teacher will make a pass through the whole room about two minutes after the
students have started a written assignment. She checks that each student has started, that the
children are on the correct page, and that everyone has put their name on their papers. The
delay is important. She wants her students to have a problem or two finished so she can
check that answers are correctly labelled or in complete sentences. She provides
individualised instruction as needed.
Students who are not yet quite on task will be quick to get going as they see her approach.
Those that were distracted or slow to get started can be nudged along.
The teacher does not interrupt the class or try to make general announcements unless she
notices that several students have difficulty with the same thing. The teacher uses a quiet
voice and her students appreciate her personal and positive attention.
• Modelling. "Values are caught, not taught." Teachers who are courteous, prompt,
enthusiastic, in control, patient, and organised provide examples for their students through
their own behaviour. The teachers send mixed messages that confuse students and invite
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misbehaviour.
If you want students to use quiet voices in your classroom while they work, you too will
use a quiet voice as you move through the room helping youngsters.
• Non-verbal cueing.
Non-verbal cues can also be facial expressions, body posture, and hand signals. Care should
be given in choosing the types of cues you use in your classroom. Take time to explain what
you want the student to do when you use your cues.
• Environmental Control. A classroom can be a warm cheery place. Students enjoy an
environment that changes periodically. Study centres with pictures and colour invite
enthusiasm for your subject.
Young people like to know about you and your interests. Include personal items in your
classroom. A family picture or a few items from a hobby or collection on your desk will
trigger personal conversations with your students. As they get to know you better, you will
see fewer problems with discipline.
Just as you may want to enrich your classroom, there are times when you may want to
impoverish it as well. You may need a quiet corner with few distractions.
• Low-Profile Intervention. Most students are sent to the principal's office as a result of
confrontational escalation. The teacher has called them on a lesser offence, but in the
moments that follow, the student and the teacher are swept up in a verbal maelstrom. Much
of this can be avoided when the teacher's intervention is quiet and calm.
An effective teacher will take care that the student is not rewarded for misbehaviour by
becoming the focus of attention. She monitors the activity in her classroom, moving around
the room. She anticipates problems before they occur. Her approach to a misbehaving
student is inconspicuous. Others in the class are not distracted.
While lecturing to her class this teacher makes effective use of name-dropping. If she sees a
student talking or off task, she simply drops the youngster's name into her dialogue in a
natural way: "And you see, David, we carry the one to the tens column." David hears his
name and is drawn back on task. The rest of the class doesn't seem to notice.
• Assertive Discipline. This is traditional limit setting authoritarianism. When executed it
will include a good mix of praise. This is high profile discipline. The teacher is the boss and
no child has the right to interfere with the learning of any student. Clear rules are laid out and
consistently enforced.
• Assertive Messages (A component of Assertive Discipline): These messages are
statements that the teacher uses when confronting a student who is misbehaving. They are
intended to be clear descriptions of what the student is supposed to do. The teacher who
makes good use of this technique will focus the child's attention first and foremost on the
behaviour he wants, not on the misbehaviour. "I want you to ..." or "I need you to ..." or "I
expect you to ..."
The inexperienced teacher may incorrectly try: "I want you to stop ..." only to discover that
this usually triggers confrontation and denial. The focus is on the misbehaviour and the
student is quick to retort: "I wasn't doing anything!" or "It wasn't my fault ..." or "Since when
is there a rule against ..." and escalation has begun.
• Humanistic Messages (These messages are expressions of our feelings): Structure these
messages in three parts. First, a description of the child's behaviour. "When you talk while I
talk ..." Second the effect this behaviour has on the teacher. "I have to stop my teaching ..."
And third, the feeling that it generates in the teacher. " ... which frustrates me."
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A teacher, distracted by a student who was constantly talking while he tried to teach, once
made this powerful expression of feelings: "I can not imagine what I have done to you
that I do not deserve the respect from you that I get from the others in this class. If I have
been rude to you or inconsiderate in any way, please let me know. I feel as though I have
somehow offended you and now you are unwilling to show me respect." The student did not
talk during his lectures again for many weeks.
• Positive Discipline. Use classroom rules that describe the behaviours you want instead of
listing things the students can not do. Instead of "no-running in the room," use "move
through the building in an orderly manner." Instead of "no-fighting,” use "settle conflicts
appropriately." Instead of "no-gum chewing," use "leave gum at home." Refer to your rules
as expectations. Let your students know this is how you expect them to behave in your
classroom.
• Make ample use of praise. When you see good behaviour, acknowledge it. This can be
done verbally, of course, but it doesn't have to be. A nod, a smile or a "thumbs up" will
reinforce the behaviour.
• Circulate throughout the room--staying in one place means a "blind spot" on some
behaviour like playing with an item in the desk (yes, they can maintain eye-contact with
you and do this). If kids know you might catch them doing something else, they are less
likely to get off task.
• Be consistent with your expectations and follow through. Post class rules and refer to
them when broken.
• Have a daily routine posted somewhere in the room on word cards or a sheet of paper.
Go over this each morning so they will be aware of special events or other changes.
• Remind students of their manners if needed. You can reward those that do something
nice for someone without being asked etc. If everyone respects each other, shares, and
listens, you will have a pleasant working environment.
• Make "I have" and "Who has" statements and questions on index cards. For instance,
I have "Your school". Who has the third planet from the sun? There should be a card for
each member of the class and each "I have" statement answers a "Who has" question.
Make the questions from the topics being studied or in the early grades just basic
knowledge. This helps novice readers pick up some new words. You can time the
students to see how quickly they can complete the cards correctly. Make new cards as
needed.
• Describe an object/event and allow students to guess what it is. Perfect for review.
Challenge the class to see if they can beat their last record of working quietly. Reward the
group if they beat their old time. Perfect for when you have to run next door.
Clapping patterns (students imitate until you have everyone's attention)
"Give me five" (all students raise their hand in the air and face you)
"Countdown" ring a bell and count down from five or ten (depends on activity)
Flip the lights on and off
• Write "recess", "snack", or whatever an important event is and erase letters as needed
for poor class behaviour. When all letters are erased that event is not allowed.
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• Individual stickers that are marked out for poor behaviour resulting in certain
consequences
4 or 5 cards in different colours that represent different consequences
Examples: Warning, loss of 5 minutes of recess, loss of whole recess, loss of privilege
(fieldtrip etc.), and timeout room/principal
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Appendix 1
Appendix 2
You may use this inventory as you wish, adding to it or subtracting from it at will. It may
prove useful for self-analysis, or it may form a basis for group discussion. Sufficient
preparation will help you advocate valid curriculum plans and proposals and thereby
make lasting contributions to a significant field of endeavour.
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References