curriculum
CURRICULUM
By
MUHAMMAD SUFDAR SAHAR
Vehari Academy of Sciences (VAS) Madina Colony Vehari (03007727047,
03346908699)
Curriculum:
According to Ralph Taylor,
Curriculum
means all those activities which are provides to students in the school or out
of school in order to achieve the predetermined activities.
According to Smith, Stanely and
Shore:
Curriculum
includes all the activities organized by the school inside or outside the
classroom. These activities are sequential in the nature.
According to j. f Kert:
All the
learning which is planned or guided by the school is called curriculum.
Characteristics
of a Good Curriculum:
·
Totality
of activities
·
A
mean to an end
·
Total
school environment
·
Totality
of experience
·
Mirror
of educational trends
·
Development
of balanced personality
·
Process
of living
·
Dynamic
·
Mirror
of philosophy of life
·
Achievement
of goals
Differences between Curriculum,
Syllabus, Course and Educational Program
Curriculum:
According to K.A Leithwood (1981)
Curriculum
encompassed educational philosophy, values, objectives, organizational structure,
materials, teaching strategies, student experiences and assessment and learning
outcomes.
Syllabus :
A list of the content of a course
of the work simply means collection. It usually specifies the content, learning
outcomes and the time allocation for various topics.
Course:
It is defines as the series of
planed units related to each other. In course of study organized subject is to
the covered with specified mind, teaching goods and suggestion for
instructional strategies.
Educational program:
It concerns with the specific period
of course of study.
Need of Curriculum:
·
Achievement
of educational aims
·
Fixing
limits
·
Development
of democratic values
·
Development
of citizenship
·
Development
of character
·
Satisfaction
of needs
·
Criteria
of suitable teacher
·
Acquisition
of knowledge
·
Development
of personality
·
Reflects
trends in education
·
Discoveries
of and inventions
ELEMENTS OF
CURRICULUM:
Aims,
Goals, Objectives:
Educational aims refer to the overall purpose
of education, which represent the needs and aspiration in an educational policy.
Goals are the general purpose of the educational that normally prepared for
particular stage or level of the education system Objective refer more
precisely to the changes in behavior ,which we hope will result from studying
particular courses,
Subject Matter or Content:
This is
the element, which has been emphasized mainly in the past.
Methodology:
It
includes the methods adopted by the teacher during instruction and the learning
experience or activities performed by the students.
Evaluation:
Give
a judgment .decision about the worth, value or standard of something according
to some specific rules or regulation is called evaluation.
Foundation
of Curriculum:
Curriculum
must take in to account the following consideration or foundations otherwise it
will remain bookish and divorced from life. A curriculum that ignores these
foundations does not serve any purpose. a sound curriculum must be based on the needs and aspiration of
the learners as well as of the society.
Philosophical
Foundation:
Philosophy
is the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. It is study of realities and general
principles. It concerns with the research of internal truth. Every society is
held together by a common faith or “philosophy” which serves its members as
guide for living a good life.
Psychological
Foundation:
The
psychology is derived from the Greek words “psyche” means soul and “logos” mean
study. Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior. Psychology attempts to describe.
Explain and predict human behavior. Psychology gives us an insight in to the
child’s development and learning and provides various techniques of inquiry for
use in the curriculum area.
Sociological
Foundation:
Sociology as deemed in
dictionaries is the science or study of society. A curriculum that ignores sociology foundation does not
serve any purpose. It results in wastages of time, energy and resources. It
will produce individual, who can’t play their role effectively enlightened members
of a society.
Historical
Foundation:
Every
society has its own specific historical background. A curriculum that ignores
historical foundation does not fulfill any purpose. For example, as two nation
theory in the history of Pakistan.
Types
Of Curriculum:
The
written curriculum, gives the basic lesson plan to be followed, including
objectives, sequence and materials. This provides the basis for accountability.
The operational curriculum is what is taught by the teacher and how it is
communicated. This includes what the teacher teaches in the class and the
learning outcomes for the student.
The hidden curriculum includes
the norms and values of the surrounding society. These are stronger and more
durable that the first two and may be in confident with them. The NULL curriculum
consists of what is not taught. Consideration must be given to the reason
behind why things are not included in the official or operational curriculum. The extra curriculum is the planed
experience outside of the specific educational season.
Formal is the accepted, committee
passed, written documents that are supposed to guide practices. Here at Andrews
we might find some of this in the university bulletin. Informally curriculum is
those activates that happen that are not designed , planned, of formally
accepted by the school. Curriculum developers , drawing upon their personal
experience ,their preferred conception of curriculum and their understanding of
curriculum drawn from the curriculum
foundations, have constructed curricula according to designs, which may be
categorized as
1)
Core
curriculum.
2)
Subject
centered curriculum.
3)
Learner
centered curriculum.
4)
Activity
based curriculum.
5)
Integrated
curriculum.
1. Core
Curriculum:
The term core curriculum is
sometimes simply called the “core”. The terminology applied to core type course
includes general education, basic education basic studies, social living and
unified studies. Which such divers name, it is expected that there would be
vide variation in the programs represented
2. Subject
Centered Curriculum
Subject centered curriculum is
still the most widely used curriculum pattern in our schools. It regards
learning primarily as cognitive development and the acquisition of knowledge
and information. With this approach, the entire subjects for instruction are
separated. In general the content areas are taught in isolation, which no
attempt at integration.
The
subject curriculum places emphasis on oral discourse and extensive explanation.
3. Learner
Centered Curriculum:
Child
centered curriculum is to be varied and elastic, meeting in visual differences
and adopted to individual needs and requirements. Satisfaction of the child
nature is period of the equipment for future life.
4. Activity
Based Curriculum:
In
activity based curriculum, the pupils engage in any activities, which are
desirable for their development.
5. Integrated
Curriculum: integration is the process of
emerging different subjects or pat subjects through coordination so that
individual components lose their subjects identity.
6. Hidden
Curriculum:
The hidden curriculum is a term
to used to described the unwritten social rules and expectation of behavior
that we all seen to know, but we were taught.
Hidden
curriculum refers to message communicated by the organization and operation of
schooling apart from the official or public statements of school mission and
subject area curriculum guidelines. In other words the medium is a key source
of message. The message of hidden curriculum usually deals with attitudes,
values, beliefs and behavior. The massage of hidden curriculum may complement
or contradict each other as well as the official curriculum.
Models
Of Curriculum:
Curriculum
development is seen here as a process of making programmatic decisions and for
revising the product of those decision based on continuous and subsequent
evaluation.
Tyler
Model:
Perhaps the best model or one of the known
model curriculum development with special attention to the planning in Ralph
W.T Tyler in the class little book basic principle of curriculum and
instructions ”.
Source students source
society source
subject
Tentative
general goals
Screen
philosophy of education screen
psychology of learning
Precise
instructional objectives
Selection
of learning experiences
Direction
of learning experience
Evaluation of learning experience
D.K
Wheeler (1967)Model
In
his influential book curriculum process wheeler argued for curriculum
developers to employ a cyclical process in which each element is related and
interdependent and fellow a cyclical pattern as evidence in five below. Yet his
approach to devising curricula is still essentially rational in nature. Each
phase is logical development of the proceeding one, for most commonly; work in
one phase can’t be attempted until some work has been done in proceeding phase.
D.K
Wheeler presented the model of curriculum in the following cyclical shape.
Lawton
Model:
Lawton
model has provided us with five stage flow chart on curriculum development. 1st stage:
the 1st in Lawton’s model deals with the needs to achieve clarity
about the aims of education about reality, knowledge and reality. 2nd stage:
the 2nd stage, that of improving society. According to Lawton the
sociological questions about the curriculum of two folds. One is needs of
individual in the society; the second is knowledge of which is related to
society. 3rd
stage: the 3rd stage is the selection from the culture and is
reached once. Philosophical and sociological question have been posed and
answered. 4th
stage: in 4th stage, Lawton deals with the question of psychology.
According to him, psychology might criticize the typical curriculum in term of
effectiveness of the organization of learning and method of teaching. 5th
stage: finally stage five Lawton suggests that we examine how the curriculum is
organized in stage and sequence.
Process
of Curriculum Development in Pakistan:
Curriculum
revision/development is ideally an ongoing, assessment, planning and design,
teacher training materials, implementation monitoring, feedback and evaluation,
the curricula renewal is based on the following broad areas of concern.
To
incorporate changes at national and global level.
Incorporating
issues of global significance include environment change, degradation,
population control, gender issues and international understanding and
cooperation. Fostering respect for and prevention of cultural tradition ad
indigenous values and ways of life. Fostering is the moral values through
Islamic principle and ethics among pupils. Promoting democratic value, respect
for an appreciation of cultural diversity that characterize Pakistani society
and the broader global society. To introduce competency based curricula by
defining mini involved in learning competence at both primary and secondary
level.
Following are the steps involved in curriculum
development in Pakistan.
Curriculum
wing request the provincial centers to prepare draft curriculum for each
subject taught in various classes up to the class XII.
Provincial curriculum committees
prepare curriculum plane.
The draft is sent to the curriculum wing. The national committee of curriculum
scrutinized the drafts in the light of the comments. The committee submits its
recommendation to the ministry approval. The curriculum schemes duly approved
are passed, on the provincial text book.
Nine types of curriculum adaptation:
1. Quantity:
Adapt
the number of items that the learners is expected to learn or number of
activities student will complete prior to assessment for mastery. For example,
reduced the number of social studies terms a learner must learn at any one
time. Add more practice activities or worksheets.
2. Time:
Adapt
the time allotted and allowed for learning, task completion or testing, for
example, individuals a timeline for completing the task, pace learning
difficulty for some learner.
3. Level of support:
Increase
the amount of personal assistance to keep the student on task or to reinforce
or prompt use of specific skills, enhance adult student’s relationship, use
physical space and environmental structure. For example, assign peer buddies,
teaching assistant, peer tutors or cross age tutors, specify how to interact
with the student or how to structure the environment.
4. Input: adapt the way
instruction is delivered to the learner. For example, use different visual
aids, enlarge text, plan more concrete examples, provides hands on activities
place students in cooperative groups, pre teach key concepts or terms before
the lesson.
5. Difficulty:
Adapt
the skill level, problem type or the learner may approach the work. For example
allow the use of a calculator to figure math problems, simplify tasks direction
and change rules to accommodate learner needs.
6. Output:
Adapt
who the student can respond to instruction. For example instead of answering
questions in writing allow a verbal response, use a communication book for some
students, allow students to show knowledge with hands on materials.
7. Participation:
Adapt
the extent to which the learner is actively involved in the task. For example,
in geography have students hold the globe, while other point out location, ask
the students to lead a group. Have the student turn the pages while sitting on
your lap.
8. Alternate goals:
Adapt
the goals or outcome expectation while using the some materials, when routinely
utilized, this is only for student with moderate to severe disabilities. For
example, in a social studies lesson, expect a student to be able to locate the
colors of the states on a map, while other students learn to locate each state
and name the capital.
9. Substitute curriculum:
Provide
different instruction and materials to meet learner individual’s goals. When
routinely utilized, this is only for students with moderate to serve disabilities.
For example, during a language lesson a student is learning toileting skills
with an aide.
Factors
affecting curriculum development in Pakistan:
As
curriculum revision in Pakistan is attempted adhoc basis and is never based on
adequate research, experimentation and formative evaluation, the discussion
about the failure or success of curriculum implementation will be based on
theoretical framework already discussed. As for as desirable outcomes we have
not been successful to achieve and thus the implementation of curriculum design
in Pakistan seems to be a failure.
·
Teacher
are reluctant to accept the change
·
Lack
of in-service training
·
Political
interference
·
Economic
problems
·
Inadequate
evaluation
·
Lack
of commitment of national philosophy
·
Disapproval
of the society
·
Lack
of sequence
·
Curriculum
is more urbanized
·
Lack
of the teaching materials.
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