Curriculum has numerous definitions, which can be slightly confusing.

In its broadest sense a curriculum may

refer to all courses offered at a school. This is particularly true of schools at the university level, where the
diversity of a curriculummight be an attractive point to a potential student.
A curriculum may also refer to a defined and prescribed course of studies, which students must fulfill in order
to pass a certain level of education. For example, an elementary school might discuss how its curriculum, or its
entire sum of lessons and teachings, is designed to improve national testing scores or help students learn the
basics. An individual teacher might also refer to his or her curriculum, meaning all the subjects that will be
taught during a school year.
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What is curriculum development?

It is always good at the beginning of a process to start by reflecting on your own experience.
Perhaps you already have experience of designing and delivering training courses? Try to answer
the following questions:

—What does curriculum development mean to you?

—What experiences have you had with curriculum development?
—What have you, personally, learned from these experiences?
—What have others who were involved learned from these experiences?

Perhaps, when you see the word ‘curriculum’, you think of:

—a formal setting, a product like a book, or a document?

—some inputs like a small group of people sitting in an office making a document that will be sent
out to many teachers or trainers all over the country?
—the resources that are needed for curriculum development to take place?
—all of these, and more?

It is difficult to give a definition for curriculum development, because it will always be affected
very strongly by the context in which it takes place. We can look back in history and find out that
the word curriculum originally came from a Latin word, which meant a racetrack that horses ran
around. Today, we might call it a racecourse, and so we see that the
words curriculum and course are closely related. There is a suggestion that something continuous
is happening, maybe over a long time, although it is equally valid for short courses. We can think
of curriculum development as a continuous process, which is relevant to the situation where it
takes place, and flexible, so you can adapt it over time. As in a race, there may be a finishing point,
but if you work in curriculum development, you will probably find out that the work does not end
at a particular moment. This is what makes it very interesting and exciting!

The following description of curriculum development, rather than a definition, provides a basis for
the approach taken in this Toolkit:
 Curriculum development describes all the ways in which a training or teaching organisation plans
and guides learning. This learning can take place in groups or with individual learners. It can take
place inside or outside a classroom. It can take place in an institutional setting like a school,
college or training centre, or in a village or a field. It is central to the teaching and learning
process (Rogers and Taylor 1998).

From this description, you will see that curriculum development can take place in many settings,
and may involve many people. Typically, curriculum development involves four main elements:
1. Identify what learning is needed and decide on the type of training you need to provide to meet
these learning needs.
2. Plan the training carefully, so that learning is most likely to take place.
3. Deliver the training so that learning does take place.
4. Evaluate the training so that there is evidence that learning has taken place.

These elements can be addressed in different ways. It is important that the approach you use will
lead to effective training and teaching. This Toolkit strongly recommends that you follow a
participatory approach to curriculum development since this will bring about the best results, and
lead to real learning.

Why this recommendation?

The fact is that a lot of training and teaching is not effective. Many traditional approaches to
curriculum development, and the resulting curriculum, do not provide the guidance to learning that
is needed by both trainers and participants. In addition, curriculum development rarely involves the
different groups or individuals who will gain from, or have something to offer to the training.

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About CATL
CATLogue What is Curriculum?
Contacts
eLearning Development and Support What does the term 'curriculum' mean to you as a
(eDS) teacher? The literature shows that it means different
Evaluation of Teaching
Programmes, Workshops & Events things to different people, to different educational
Projects institutions and to different parts of educational
Publications institutions.
CATLyst
A general definition of curriculum is offered by Print
(1993: 9):
Interns
...all the planned learning opportunities offered by the organisation to
learners and the experiences learners encounter when the curriculum is
Journals implemented. This includes those activities that educators have devised
for learners which are invariably represented in the form of a written
document.
Archived Publications
Print also describes the difference between 'curriculum'
and 'syllabus', which are often confused: a syllabus forms
Issues of Teaching & Learning part of the overall curriculum and tends to be a list of
content areas which will be assessed.
12 At a broad level, curriculum is determined by the
educational institution. Some universities include in their
11 curriculum certain units that all first-year undergraduate
students must complete. At the faculty or school level,
learning opportunities, generally in the form of units, are
10
planned for particular degrees. Departments and course
controllers decide the content and scope of units. Finally,
9 teachers plan learning activities for 'contact hours', such
as lectures, tutorials, laboratories and for project work
8 and practica.
The most commonly held view of curriculum depicts it as
7 subject matter or a body of content to be taught to
students. Faculty and school handbooks often list topics
to be covered in particular units. For example, a unit in
6
mathematics might include 'functions, derivatives,
maxima and minima, differential equations, etc.' The
5 focus is thus on imparting a certain body of knowledge to
students. One of the problems with this approach is that
4 if the curriculum is overcrowded with content, teaching
sessions may focus primarily on 'getting through the
material' set down in the curriculum, rather than focusing
3 on how to help the students learn the material.
A number of additional views of curriculum are described
2 by Print, three of which are listed below; the examples
 provided are from the 1995 UWA faculty handbooks.
1
• Curriculum as experience.
This view of curriculum depicts it as a set of
(7) planned learning experiences encountered by
students. In a higher education context, this
What is Curriculum? approach might involve the planning of field trips,
supervised work experience, industry visits and
placements, and practica. In the classroom, it
Professor Ference Marton's
visit... includes a wide range of activities, such as
experiments, role plays, simulations, etc. An
Reviews from the TLC example of this view of curriculum can be found in
the Department of General Practice's description of
Teaching for Diversity
the faculty initiative for fifth-year students:

Students spend three weeks of their eight-week

(6) term in a rural area under the supervision of an
appropriate specialist in the discipline of their
(5) choice... Students must be prepared to complete a
log diary of their experience and to find a colleague
who will do the same while remaining in Perth. This
(4) is to enable comparisons to be made on the
quantity and quality of the experience.
(3)
• Curriculum as intention.
This approach to curriculum is characterised by
(2)
predetermined aims, goals and objectives
describing what students should learn. An
(1) illustration of this approach is provided in the
Resources
description of the unit Australian Industrial
Teaching and Learning Month Relations:
Teaching Criteria Framework
Funding for T&L This unit aims to provide students with a basic
introduction to the working of the Australian, and
where appropriate, selected overseas industrial
relations systems.

This approach to curriculum may also include

statements of anticipated learning outcomes or
behaviours. An example of a learning outcome is
provided in the unit description for Oral Pathology
and Oral Medicine:
On completion of this unit, the undergraduate
should be capable of discussing the clinical
presentations and progression of oral disease
and to relate this to the underlying
pathological processes in order to understand
the biological basis for the management of
such conditions.
 • Curriculum as a process of providing personal
meaning to learners.
This image of curriculum emphasises personal
growth and self-actualisation through experiential
learning. For example, one of the aims of the Social
Work practicum is:

...development of the student's self-awareness and self-confidence as a

professionally practising social worker.
Two other important concepts related to curriculum
include:
• The hidden curriculum.
This refers to unplanned learning in which meanings
are conveyed indirectly by the way language is
used, the interactions that occur in the class room
and assessment methods. The hidden curriculum
can have negative outcomes where the indirect
meanings conveyed are in conflict with explicit
intentions. Some students when taking a strategic
approach to their studies are quick to determine the
hidden curriculum: for example anything that will
be examined is likely to be seen as included in the
curriculum; anything that is not to be examined is
considered superfluous and unlikely to be learned.

• Inclusive curriculum.
An inclusive curriculum treats the knowledge and
experience of women, racial groups and ethnic
groups as being just as valid and relevant as the
knowledge of dominant groups in mainstream
academic discourse. An article on inclusive
curriculum and its implications for teaching at UWA
is included in the June volume of the Innovative
Teaching Forum Newsletter.

Some issues teachers may wish to consider in relation to

curriculum
• What view of curriculum do I hold? What about my
department, the faculty, the University? How is this
reflected in the documents we produce describing
the curriculum?

• How is the curriculum expressed in terms of what is

taught, how it is taught, when it is taught, how it is
assessed and how it is evaluated? To what extent
does the intended curriculum reflect what is actually
taught and learned?
 • What might be positive and negative aspects of the
'hidden curriculum' in the units I teach?

• How inclusive is the curriculum which guides my

teaching?

○ Print, M. (1993). Curriculum Development

and Design. 2nd ed. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen
& Unwin.

○ Learning Innovation - Newsletter of the

Innovative Teaching Forum, UWA. June
(1995). 'The Inclusive Curriculum'. p3. Ed:
Janis Bailey.

...supporting academics in their practice with the aim of enhancing the quality of the
student learning experience...
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 Critical Media Education Curriculum
Development Project
Curricular Response to Hegemonic Media in Consumerist Asia

« Teaching Media Literacy Through the Teen-Screen

The Role of Philosophy in Curriculum Development »

A Philosophy of Curriculum

Three basic educational approaches competed in the second half of the 20th century to shape
our views on WHAT we should teach and HOW we should teach it…

Source

—————————————————————————————-

Those apporaches were:

• Perennialism – a teacher-centered philosophy that focuses on “great books” the hope of impart the
culture’s enduring themes to students. The goal is to develop the ability for rational thought in
students.

• Essentialism – a teacher-centered, back-to-basics approach to education that stresses the three R’s
and emphasizes the remembering of facts.

• Progressivism – a student-centered philosophy that attempts to interact with the real-world

concerns and experiences of students. Classrooms are more democratic in governance and learning is
more participatory and experimental than in either Essentialism or Perennialism.

Most teachers tend to be eclectic – they draw from more than one of these approaches.

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 Adjectives serve as better answers than do nouns in describing what the curriculum of education should be
like. The content of the curriculum should be flexible, responsive to the changes of society. The content of the
curriculum should be sympathetic to the values and limitations of the students. My own experience leads me
to believe that every life is richer if the individual has read Kafka and Steinbeck, Aeschylus and Blake, Camus
and Hemmingway. But I view the Great Books approach to education today as more of a misguided effort to
preserve a cultural timeframe than anything else - to halt (or at least slow) cultural change.
I believe that reading (and literacy) is essential; it is the medium of later instruction. To the extent that an
emphasis on basic skills has become exclusive, to the extent that a concern with math and language skills
has crowded out music and the arts, the emphasis on basic skills has become a destructive force. But kids
who show up at school should learn to read. And as much as I hate to agree with George W. Bush about
anything, they should learn to read early. They should learn to do arithmetic and gradually progress to more
abstract forms of math. They should be introduced to the various formal genres of language - to poetry and
letter writing, the short story and the novel. When Piaget allows, they should be introduced to epistemology
and taught to ask "but how do I know that." And of course they should be given an understanding in social
studies classes of how our society works (civics) and why (history). And there is science. But none of these
core classes should be allowed to displace completely the arts. And an understanding of the importance of
the role of creativity in fields like math and grammar needs to be maintained.
Read on
• The Roles of Students and Teachers
• A Philosophy of Education
• Educational Contributions of Leo Tolstoy
In Part IV we'll conclude this Philosophy of Education by looking at the roles of students and teachers.
Read the whole series on the Philosophy of Education:
1. A Philosophy of Education
2. Things Schools Do Besides Teach
3. A Philosophy of Curriculum
4. The Roles of Students and Teachers

Read more at Suite101: A Philosophy of Curriculum: What should we

teach? http://www.suite101.com/content/philosophy-of-education-a4145#ixzz1JYqSpDtS