February 11, 2017

TO: PROF. DIVINE J. GLIFONEA

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
FROM: LEMUEL C. CONDES
MSEUF-ETEEAP/BSED

FAMOUS PERSONALITIES IN THE

CLUSTER OF CURRICULUM FOUNDATION
1) Ralph W. Tyler (19021994) was an American educator who worked
in the field of assessment and evaluation. He served on or advised a
number of bodies that set guidelines for the expenditure of federal
funds and influenced the underlying policy of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965. Tyler chaired the committee that
eventually developed the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP). He has been called by some as "the father of
educational evaluation and assessment".

Biography
Tyler was born on April 22, 1902, in Chicago to a professional family. His
maternal grandfather was in the Civil War and had been appointed as a
judge in Washington by president Ulysses S. Grant. His father, William
Augustus Tyler, had been raised in a farm, and had become a doctor.
Being deeply religious, there came a time when both of Tyler's parents
thought that the medical profession was too lucrative and that they should realign their priorities, at which point
his father became a Congregational minister. As the sixth of eight children, Tyler grew up in Nebraska where he
recalled having to trap animals for food and wear donated clothing. He worked at various jobs while growing
up, including his first job at age twelve in a creamery.

Tyler went to college during the day and worked as a telegraph operator for the railroad at night. He received his
bachelor's degree in 1921 at the age of 19 from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. There was a time when Tyler
wanted to become a missionary in Rhodesia, but he declined because he had no formal instruction in ministry,
unlike his younger brother who had gone to Yale Divinity School. However, later all the brothers pursued a
career in the field of education.

His first teaching job was as a high school science teacher in Pierre, South Dakota. In 1923, Tyler wrote a
science test for high school students which helped him "see the holes in testing only for memorization." He
earned his master's degree from the University of Nebraska in 1923 and his Ph.D. from the University of
Chicago in 1927.

His graduate work at the University of Chicago connected him with notable educators Charles Judd and W. W.
Charters, whose ideas influenced Tylers later work in curriculum development and evaluation. Tylers first
appointment was at the University of North Carolina in 1927, where he worked with state teachers to improve
curricula. Later in 1927, Tyler joined the faculty at Ohio State University, where he refined his innovative
approach to testing while working with Charters, who was the director of the university's Bureau of Educational
Research. Tyler helped Ohio State University faculty to improve their teaching and increase student retention.
He is credited with coining the term, "evaluation," for aligning measurement and testing with educational
objectives. Because his concept of evaluation consisted of gathering comprehensive evidence of learning rather
than just paper and pencil tests, Tyler might even be viewed as an early proponent of portfolio assessment.

Tyler headed the evaluation staff of the "Eight-Year Study" (19331941), a national program, involving 30
secondary schools and 300 colleges and universities that addressed narrowness and rigidity in high school
curricula. He first gained prominence in 1938 when he was lured by Robert Maynard Hutchins from Ohio State
University to the University of Chicago to continue his work there. In 1953, Tyler became the first director of
the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, a position he held until his
retirement in 1967.

A decade after completing his work with the Eight-Year Study, Tyler formalized his thoughts on viewing,
analyzing and interpreting the curriculum and instructional program of an educational institution in Basic
Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949). This book was a bestseller and has since been reprinted in 36
editions, shaping curriculum and instructional design to this day. The book laid out a deceptively simple
structure for delivering and evaluating instruction consisting of four parts that became known as the Tyler
Rationale:

1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? (Defining appropriate learning objectives.)
2. How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives?
(Introducing useful learning experiences.)
3. How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction? (Organizing experiences to
maximize their effect.)
4. How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated? (Evaluating the process and revising
the areas that were not effective.)

In this book, Tyler describes learning as taking place through the action of the student. "It is what he does that
he learns, not what the teacher does" (Tyler p. 63).

Tyler advised President Truman on reforming the curriculum at the service academies in 1952 and, under
Eisenhower, chaired the Presidents Conference on Children and Youth. The Johnson Administration used
Tylers advice to shape many of its education bills and programs.

Tyler was named founding director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1954 and
held that position through 1967. The center was originally envisioned as a five-year project, but later became an
ongoing independent institution that would eventually claim to have supported over 2,000 leading scientists and
scholars. As a member of the governing board, Tyler is credited with playing a critical role in determining the
character of the center as a new type of educational institution.

In 1964, the Carnegie Corporation asked Tyler to chair the committee that would eventually develop the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 1969. Before this time, Tyler wrote, "no
comprehensive and dependable data about the educational attainments of our [young] people" were available.
Ralph Tyler also contributed to educational agencies such as the National Science Board, the Research and
Development Panel of the U.S. Office of Education, the National Advisory Council on Disadvantaged Children,
the Social Science Research Foundation, the Armed Forces Institute, and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. Ralph Tyler also served the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
(ASCD) and helped publish its Fundamental Curriculum Decisions in 1983.

Tyler formally retired in 1967 from the Center for Advanced Study, but he later became president of the System
Development Foundation in San Francisco in 1969, which supported basic research in information sciences. He
was also on many other commissions, committees, and foundations. He was on the National Advisory Council
on Education for Disadvantaged Children, a panel to study SAT scores, and was also the chairman on the
Exploratory Committee on Assessing Progress on Education.

After his retirement, Tyler maintained an active life as a lecturer and consultant. He was a visiting professor at
the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and he advised on evaluation and curriculum in Ghana, Indonesia,
Ireland, Israel and Sweden. Tyler was reported to have remained strongly optimistic about the future of
education, right up until the end of his life. Tyler died of cancer on February 18, 1994, at the St. Paul's Health
Care Center in San Diego.

Tyler believed in the social role of religion and remained a member of the First Congregational Church of Palo
Alto, to which he paid contributions. However, he refused to adhere to fundamentalism.

And as to the hallmark of curriculum development as a science, Ralph Tyler believes that curriculum
should revolve around the students needs and interests. The purpose of curriculum is to educate the
generalists and not the specialists, and the process must involve problem solving. Likewise, subject
matter is planned in terms of imparting knowledge, skills and values among students.

2) Hollis Leland Caswell (October 22, 1901 November 22, 1988) was an American educator who
became an authority on curriculum planning in schools. He directed surveys of curriculum
practices in several school systems, and wrote several books on the subject.

Caswell joined the editorial advisory board of the World Book Encyclopedia in
1936, and became its chairman in 1948. In 1954, Caswell was appointed
president of Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City, and
served as its president until 1962.

From 1962 until 1966 Caswell served as general chairman of editorial advisory
boards for Field Enterprises Educational Corporation.

Following his retirement as president at Teachers College, Caswell continued at the

College, being appointed to the Marshall Field, Jr., Professorship of
Education. He remained in that chair until 1967.

Early life and education

Caswell was a descendant of Kansas homesteaders. He attended a rural high school in western Kansas and
attended Kansas State University for two years before transferring to the University of Nebraska, where he
received a bachelor's degree in 1922.

Planning to go to law school, he took a temporary job teaching at the high school in Auburn, Nebraska. After he
was appointed principal at the age of 21, he gave up his ambition to become a lawyer and devoted his full
energies to teaching. After two years in Auburn, he was named superintendent of schools in Syracuse, Nebraska.
In 1926 he enrolled in Teachers College, earning a master's degree the following year and a doctorate in 1929.

Career In Education
In 1929, after receiving his Ph.D., Caswell joined the faculty of George Peabody College in Nashville,
Tennessee; now affiliated with Vanderbilt University, and rose to become a full professor before he returned to
Teachers College nine years later to head its department of curriculum and teaching and to direct its division of
instruction. He launched several studies of educational systems during this time, publishing his findings ("City
School Surveys: An Interpretation and Appraisal" (1929); "Education in Middle School" (1942); "Program-
Making in Small Elementary Schools" (1942); "American High School: Its Responsibility and Opportunity"
(1946)). Caswell was a leader in the development of state courses of study in the 1930s, consulting on state
curriculum programs in Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kansas.

President of Teachers College

Caswell served as president of Teachers College from 1954 until 1962. During his presidency the college
launched a twenty-year collaboration with schools in Afghanistan, and mounted a volunteer program for
teachers to various nations in Africa (the college instituted the Teachers for East Africa program during his
tenure). After leaving the presidency, Caswell served until 1967 as the College's Marshall Field Jr. professor of
education.

Education Reform
In the years after World War II, Dr. Caswell opposed efforts to develop a standard national curriculum for public
schools, arguing instead for more differentiation in teaching methods. He called for strengthening university
centers that influence curricula and teacher training. He was frequently outspoken on educational subjects and
did not shun controversy. In 1958, in a speech at a conference in Albany, he welcomed citizen interest in schools
but opposed participation by people who were not educators in planning curricula:

What should be taught in American history should not be left up to historians and not to citizens' committees.

In the two decades before his retirement Caswell was a principal editorial adviser to World Book Encyclopedia,
published by Field Enterprises. He also was a consultant to many state education departments and municipal
school systems and held a number of high positions in national educational organizations, including the
National Education Association and the American Council on Education.

He believes that subject matter is developed around the interest of the learners and their social functions.
So, the curriculum is a set of experiences. Learners must experience what they learn.
 EDUCATIONAL THEORIES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS

Within the epistemological frame that focuses on the nature of knowledge and how we come to know, there are
four major educational philosophies, each related to one or more of the general or world philosophies just
discussed. These educational philosophical approaches are currently used in classrooms the world over. They
are Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism, and Reconstructionism. These educational philosophies focus
heavily on WHAT we should teach, the curriculum aspect.

Perennialism
For Perennialists, the aim of education is to ensure that students acquire understandings about the great ideas of
Western civilization. These ideas have the potential for solving problems in any era. The focus is to teach ideas
that are everlasting, to seek enduring truths which are constant, not changing, as the natural and human worlds
at their most essential level, do not change. Teaching these unchanging principles is critical. Humans are
rational beings, and their minds need to be developed. Thus, cultivation of the intellect is the highest priority in
a worthwhile education. The demanding curriculum focuses on attaining cultural literacy, stressing students'
growth in enduring disciplines. The loftiest accomplishments of humankind are emphasized the great works of
literature and art, the laws or principles of science. Advocates of this educational philosophy are Robert
Maynard Hutchins who developed a Great Books program in 1963 and Mortimer Adler, who further developed
this curriculum based on 100 great books of western civilization.

Essentialism
Essentialists believe that there is a common core of knowledge that needs to be transmitted to students in a
systematic, disciplined way. The emphasis in this conservative perspective is on intellectual and moral standards
that schools should teach. The core of the curriculum is essential knowledge and skills and academic rigor.
Although this educational philosophy is similar in some ways to Perennialism, Essentialists accept the idea that
this core curriculum may change. Schooling should be practical, preparing students to become valuable
members of society. It should focus on facts-the objective reality out there--and "the basics," training students to
read, write, speak, and compute clearly and logically. Schools should not try to set or influence policies.
Students should be taught hard work, respect for authority, and discipline. Teachers are to help students keep
their non-productive instincts in check, such as aggression or mindlessness. This approach was in reaction to
progressivist approaches prevalent in the 1920s and 30s. William Bagley, took progressivist approaches to task
in the journal he formed in 1934. Other proponents of Essentialism are: James D. Koerner (1959), H. G.
Rickover (1959), Paul Copperman (1978), and Theodore Sizer (1985).

Progressivism
Progressivists believe that education should focus on the whole child, rather than on the content or the teacher.
This educational philosophy stresses that students should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is
rooted in the questions of learners that arise through experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The learner
is a problem solver and thinker who makes meaning through his or her individual experience in the physical and
cultural context. Effective teachers provide experiences so that students can learn by doing. Curriculum content
is derived from student interests and questions. The scientific method is used by progressivist educators so that
students can study matter and events systematically and first hand. The emphasis is on process-how one comes
to know. The Progressive education philosophy was established in America from the mid 1920s through the mid
1950s. John Dewey was its foremost proponent. One of his tenets was that the school should improve the way
of life of our citizens through experiencing freedom and democracy in schools. Shared decision making,
planning of teachers with students, student-selected topics are all aspects. Books are tools, rather than authority.

Reconstructionism/Critical Theory
Social reconstructionism is a philosophy that emphasizes the addressing of social questions and a quest to create
a better society and worldwide democracy. Reconstructionist educators focus on a curriculum that highlights
social reform as the aim of education. Theodore Brameld (1904-1987) was the founder of social
reconstructionism, in reaction against the realities of World War II. He recognized the potential for either human
annihilation through technology and human cruelty or the capacity to create a beneficent society using
technology and human compassion. George Counts (1889-1974) recognized that education was the means of
preparing people for creating this new social order.

Critical theorists, like social reconstructionists, believe that systems must be changed to overcome oppression
and improve human conditions. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian whose experiences living in poverty
led him to champion education and literacy as the vehicle for social change. In his view, humans must learn to
resist oppression and not become its victims, nor oppress others. To do so requires dialog and critical
consciousness, the development of awareness to overcome domination and oppression. Rather than "teaching as
banking," in which the educator deposits information into students' heads, Freire saw teaching and learning as a
process of inquiry in which the child must invent and reinvent the world.

For social reconstructionists and critical theorists, curriculum focuses on student experience and taking social
action on real problems, such as violence, hunger, international terrorism, inflation, and inequality. Strategies
for dealing with controversial issues (particularly in social studies and literature), inquiry, dialogue, and
multiple perspectives are the focus. Community-based learning and bringing the world into the classroom are
also strategies.

REFERENCES:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_W._Tyler
2. http://biography.yourdictionary.com/ralph-w-tyler
3. https://nangbawkcurriculum.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/major-foundations-of-curriculum-by-ornstein-
and-hunkins/
4. http://simplyeducate.me/2014/12/03/six-famous-curriculum-theorists-and-their-contributions-to-
education/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollis_Caswell#Career_in_education
6. http://study.com/academy/lesson/perennialism-overview-practical-teaching-examples.html
7. http://oregonstate.edu/instruction/ed416/PP3.html