CONCEPTS OF CURRICULUM AND PURPOSES OF CURRICULUM STUDY

GITA RAHMI

Materials for Presentation A. Introduction

B. Concepts of Curriculum and Purposes of Curriculum Study

1. Curriculum Study

2. The Meaning of Curriculum

3. Curriculum Models

4. Frameworks for Curriculum Analysis

5. Why Do a Curriculum Analysis?

6. Overview of a Curriculum Analysis-The Case of Man: A Course of Study

7. How to choose a Curriculum for Analysis

C. Synthesis and Comments

D. Conclusion

E. References

Introduction

Concepts of curriculum and purposes of curriculum study are the important topics to be discussed because teachers use curriculum in teaching process and they need to know the concepts and the purposes of the curriculum itself.

Concepts of Curriculum and Purposes of Curriculum Study

Curriculum Study A graduate student says: Im totally confused! I came to Cornell to

find out how to make curriculum decisions, and all I am learning is that different experts have different answer to basic questions. Now, I have more problems than when I started. What are we supposed to do when the so-called experts disagree?

What the students commonly do:

Ignore all experts and just use ones own common sense.

Follow one authoritys ideas.

Borrow from all experts as long as their ideas work.

What the students should do:

Understand the reflective eclecticism and myriad curriculum alternatives.

The Meaning of Curriculum

Definitions of Curriculum (Posner,

1992:4)

Curriculum is the content or objectives for which schools hold students accountable

Curriculum as the expected ends of education. E.g., the intended learning outcomes

Curriculum is the set of instructional

strategies teachers plan to use.

curriculum as the expected means of

education. E.g., instructional plans

Six Common Concepts of Curriculum

Scope and sequence: the depiction of curriculum as a matrix of objectives assigned to successive grade levels (i.e., sequence) and grouped according to a common theme (i.e., scope).

Syllabus: A plan for an entire course, typically including rationale, topics, resources, and evaluation.

Content outline: a list of topics covered organized in outline form.

Textbooks: instructional materials used as the guide for classroom instruction.

Course of study: a series of courses that the student must complete

Planned experiences: all experiences students have that are planned by the school, whether academic, athletic, emotional, or social.

The Five Concurrent Curricula Official curriculum: The curriculum

described in formal documents. Operational curriculum: the curriculum

embodied in actual teaching practices and tests.

Hidden curriculum: institutional norms and values not openly acknowledged by teachers or schools officials.

Null curriculum: the subject matters not taught.

Extra curriculum: the planned experiences outside the formal curriculum.

Curriculum Models

A curriculum analysis is an attempt to tease a curriculum apart into its component part, to examine those parts and the way they fit together to make a whole, to identify the beliefs and ideas to which the developers were committed and which either explicitly or implicitly shaped the curriculum, and to examine the implications of these commitments and beliefs for the quality of the educational experience.

A curriculum model provides such a framework by identifying a set of categories useful for sorting out curriculum decisions, documents, and assumptions.

The Tyler Rationale Tylers four questions 1. What educational purposes should the

school seek to attain? 2. What educational experiences can be

provided that are likely to attain these purposes?

3. How can these experiences be effectively organized?

4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?

Tyler Rationales has dominated thought on curriculum planning for about forty years.

Tyler Rationales assumptions: 1) schooling is assumed to be a process whose main

purpose is to promote or produce learning. 2) Students are termed learners. 3) Objectives are conceived as desirable learning. 4) Evaluation is targeted at achievement of the

scores 5) educational goals are distinguished from

noneducational goals. 6) Curriculum is defined as intended learning

outcomes. So, schooling is conceived as production system

in which individual learning outcomes are the primary product.

Curriculum planning is assumed to be an enterprise in which the planner develops the means necessary to produce the desired learning outcomes.

Means-ends rationality leads to the assumption that decisions on such issues as instructional method and content are technical ones.

Curriculum decisions are best reserved for people with technical expertise about the methods and content optimally suited for particular objectives.

Technical production systems

The Johnson Model Curriculum is a structured series of intended learning

outcomes.

The definitions of curriculum and instruction are distinguished.

Curriculum describes what is to be learned.

Instruction is the process by which it is taught to students.

Curriculum is not a process, but curriculum development is a process.

This processes consists of selecting and structuring the intended learning outcomes from the available and teachable culture to produce people with certain intended characteristics.

The curriculum guides the instructional system, which consists of both content and strategies.

Education consists of various processes: goal setting, curriculum development, instructional planning, instruction, and development.

The products of each process: goals, curriculum, instructional plans, learning outcomes, educational result

Comparison of Johnson and Tyler Models

Johnson (1977) Tyler (1950)

Goal setting Curriculum selection Curriculum structuring Instructional planning Technical evaluation

What educational purpose? What educational experiences? How organize educational experience? How determine whether purposes attained?

Frameworks for curriculum analysis

How is the curriculum documente

d?

What situation

resulted in the

development of the

curriculum? What

perspective does the curriculum represent

?

What are the

purposes and

content of the

curriculum? How is

the curriculum organized

?

How should the curriculum

be implemented? What

can be learned from an

evaluation of the

curriculum?

What are the

curriculums

strengths and

limitations?

Curriculum documentation and

origins (set 1)

Curriculum proper (set

2)

Curriculum in use (set

3)

Curriculum critique (set

4)

Why do a curriculum analysis? Curriculum analysis is necessary because of

its centrality to two important tasks performed by teachers and administrators: curriculum selection and curriculum adaptation.

Determining whether or not the curriculum is appropriate for the situation.

Determining the extent to which the assumptions underlying the curriculum are valid for particular class, school, or district.

How to choose a curriculum for analysis

Choose a curriculum for the project.

The curriculum documents should contain kinds of information.

The curriculum should have amount of information.

Information provided by ideal curriculum documents

Some clues about the problem to which the curriculum was responding and the kinds of experts included in the development process.

A clear idea of what students are supposed to learn, what teachers are supposed to teach, and in what order it should be taught and learned.

A clear idea about why these learning objectives and content are important.

Some guidance, whether in the form of suggestions or prescription, as to how to teach the objective and content

An indication of how the curriculum and the students should be or have been evaluated and what the results were.

An indication of whether the curriculum has been implemented.

Conclusions Curriculum is defined differently by

experts.

Curriculum analysis is very necessary to be done because it can help to determine whether or not the curriculum is appropriate for particular context.

Bibliography

Posner, G. J. 1992. Analyzing the curriculum. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

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