CHAPTER 1: Changing

Concepts, Nature, Purpose,

and Types of Curriculum
 Introduction
What is Curriculum?
What is its purpose?
How does it affect students and teachers?

Latin word: currere, “to run” or “to run a course”

 5 Basic Definitions of Curriculum
-Ornstein and Hunkins
1.) Curriculum can be defined as a plan for achieving goals.
-Tyler and Taba
• “a plan for providing sets of learning opportunities for persons
to be educated.” -J. Galen Saylor

• “curriculum is an organized set of formal education and/or

training intentions.” -David Pratt

• “a four-step plan involving purpose, design, implementation,

and assessment.” -Jon Wiles and Joseph Bondi
2.) Curriculum can be defined broadly, as dealing with the learner’s
experiences.
-J. Dewey
• “all the experiences children have under the guidance of
teachers.” -Hollis Caswell and Doak Cambell

• “the curriculum consists of the ongoing experiences of children

under the guidance of the school.”-Gene Shepherd and William Ragan

• “a program” that a school “offers to its students,” a “planned series

of educational hurdles and an entire range of experiences a child
has within the school.” -Elliot Eisner

• “experiences in the classroom that are planned and enacted.”

-Collin March and George Willis
3.) Curriculum is a system for dealing with people. The
system can be linear or nonlinear.

4.) Curriculum can be defined as a field of study with its

own foundations, knowledge, domains, research,
theory, principles, and specialists.

5.) Curriculum can be defined in terms of subject

matter or content.
Curriculum:
1. It includes all the experiences of children for which
the school is responsible,

2. It has content,

3. It is a system for dealing with people,

4. It is planned, and

5. It is a series of courses to be taken by the students.

 CHANGING CONCEPT OF CURRICULUM
 Curriculum can e defined as prescriptive, descriptive or both

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive

• Prescriptive Curriculum definitions provide us with what “ought” to
happen, and they more often that not take the form of a plan,
an intended program, or some kind of expert opinion about what
needs to take place in the course of study. (Ellis, 2004,p-4)

• Descriptive Curriculum goes beyond the prescriptive terms as

they force thought about the curriculum “not merely in terms of
how things ought to be…but how things are in real classrooms.”
(Ellis, 2004,p-5) Also called experienced curriculum.
 Prescriptive Definitions of Curriculum
Date Author Definitions

1902 John Curriculum is a continuous reconstruction, moving from the

Dewey child’s present experiences out into that represented by the
organized bodies of truth that we call studies…the various
studies…are themselves experience-they are that of the
race. (pp. 11-12)
1918 Franklin Curriculum is the entire range of experiences, both directed
Bobbitt and undirected, concerned in unfolding the abilities of the
individual. (p. 43)
1927 Harold The curriculum is a succession of experiences and
O. Rugg enterprises having a maximum life-likeness for the
learner…giving the learner that development most helpful
in meeting and controlling life situations. (p. 8)
Cont.
1935 Hollis The curriculum is composed of all the experiences
Caswell in children have under the guidance of teachers. Thus,
Caswell & curriculum is considered as a field of study
Cambell representing no strictly limited body of content, but
rather a process or procedure. (pp. 66,70)
1957 Ralph Tyler The curriculum is all the learning experiences planned
and directed by the school to attain its educational
goals. (p. 79)
1967 Robert Curriculum is a sequence of content units arranged in
Gagne such a way that the learning of each unit may be
accomplished as a single act, provided the
capabilities described by specified prior units (in the
sequence) have already been mastered by the
learner. (p. 23)
Cont.
1970 James Curriculum is all planned learning outcomes for
Popham & which the school is responsible. Curriculum refers to
Eva Baker the desired consequences of instruction. (p.48)
1997 J. L. McBrien Curriculum refers to a written plan outlining what
& R. Brandt students will be taught (a course of study).
Curriculum may refer to all the courses offered at a
given school, or all the courses offered at a school
in a particular area of study.

2010 Indiana Curriculum means the planned interaction of pupils

Department with instructional content, materials, resources, and
of Education processes for evaluating the attainment.
 Descriptive Definitions of Curriculum
Date Author Definitions

1935 Doak Caswell All the experiences children have under the
& Doak guidance of teachers.
Campbell
1941 Thomas Those learnings each child selects, accepts, and
Hopkins incorporates into himself to act with, on, and upon,
in subsequent experiences.
1960 W. B. Ragan All experiences of the child for which the school
accepts responsibility.
1987 Glen Hass The set of actual experiences and perceptions of
the experiences that each individual learner has
of his or her program of education.
Cont.
1995 Daniel The reconstruction of knowledge and experience
Tanner & that enables the learner to grow in exercising
Laurel intelligent control of subsequent knowledge and
Tanner experience.
2006 D. F. Brown All student school experiences relating to the
improvement of skills and strategies in thinking
critically and creatively, solving problems, working
collaboratively with others, communicating well,
writing more effectively, reading more analytically,
and conducting research to solve problems.
2009 E. Silva An emphasis on what students can do with
knowledge, rather than what units of knowledge
they have, is the essence of 21st century skills.
 The definitions provided for prescriptive and descriptive
curricula vary primarily in their breadth and emphasis.

2 criteria for the definition

1)It should reflect the general understanding of the term as used by
educators, and
2)It should be useful to educators in making operational distinctions.
 Emphasis:
1. Curriculum includes both the plans made for learning and
the actual learning experiences provided.

2. The phrase “retrievable documents’’ is sufficiently broad in

its denotation to include curricula stored in digital form.

3. The definition notes two key dimension of actualized

curriculum: the curriculum as experienced by the learner and
that which might be observed by a disinterested observer.

4. The experienced curriculum takes place in an environment

that influences and impinges on learning, constituting what is
usually termed the hidden curriculum.
 Instruction is viewed as an aspect of curriculum, and its function and
importance change throughout the several types of curricula.
 In the written curriculum, when the curriculum is a set of documents
that guide planning, instruction is only one relatively minor aspect of
the curriculum.
 Those retrievable documents used in planning for learning typically
specify 5 components:
A rationale for the curriculum
The aims, objectives, and content for achieving those objectives
Instructional methods
Learning materials and resources
Tests or assessment methods
 Consequently, instruction is a component of the planned curriculum.
 Types of Curricula
-Allan Glatthorn
1. Recommended Curriculum
 recommended by scholars and professional organizations.
 encompasses the curriculum requirements of policy making groups.
 stresses oughtness, identifying the skills and concepts that ought to be
emphasized.

2. Written Curriculum
 intended primarily to ensure that the educational goals of the system
are being accomplished; it is a curriculum of control.
 specific and comprehensive.
 important component of authentic literacy the ability to read, write,
and think effectively.
3. Taught Curriculum
 is the delivered curriculum, a curriculum that an observer sees in
action as the teacher teaches.

4. Supported Curriculum
 includes those resources that support the curriculum-textbooks,
software, and other media.

5. Assessed Curriculum
 is that which appears in tests and performance measure: state
tests, standardized tests, district test, and teacher-made tests.
6. Learned Curriculum
 the curriculum the students actually learn.

7. Hidden Curriculum
 unintended curriculum. What students learn from the physical
environment, the policies, and the procedures of the school.
 Characteristics of a Good Curriculum

1. The curriculum is continuously evolving.

2. The curriculum is based on the needs of the people.

3. The curriculum is democratically conceived.

4. The curriculum is the result of a long term effort.

5. The curriculum is a complex of details.

6. The curriculum provides for the logical sequence of
subject matter.

7. The curriculum complements and cooperates with

other programs of the community.

8. The curriculum has educational quality.

9. The curriculum has administrative flexibility.

 DISTINCTION BETWEEN CURRICULUM AND OTHER RELATED
TERMINOLOGIES

Curriculum and Syllabus

is the content of the school subjects offered in the
school, and it is a sub-set of the curriculum.

Curriculum and Scheme of Work

is a breakdown of the contents of what students are
expected to learn in a given period.
Curriculum and Course of Study
an educational programme leading to the award of a
certificate at the end of the programme for a particular
set of learners.

Curriculum and Lesson Note

or lesson plan, is a guide for teachers to assist them in the
orderly presentation of a lesson to the learners in order to
facilitate learning.
syllabus

Scheme of work

Lesson note
 Nature of Curriculum in School
-Ralph Tyler (1949)

1. What educational purpose should the school seek to attain?

(objectives)

2. What educational experiences can be provided to attain these

purposes?

3. How can these educational experiences be organized effectively to

achieve these purposes?

4. How can we determine whether or not the expected objectives

have been achieved?
 Importance of Curriculum in Schools

curriculum is the very heart of the school system.

no school if there is no curriculum.

 Curriculum as a Process and as a Product
Process
 curriculum process is a collective term that encompasses all of
the considerations about which curriculum workers ponder and
ultimately use to make choices in the development and
evaluation of a curriculum project.

 curriculum development, understood as a process implying a

wide range of decisions concerning learning experiences, taken
by different actors at different levels: politicians, experts, and
teachers: at the national, provincial, local, school and also
international levels.
1. Top-down curriculum development process
4 Phases
1. The curriculum presented to teachers
2. The curriculum adopted by teachers
3. The curriculum assimilated by learners
4. The evaluated curriculum

2. Bottom-up curriculum development process

4 Phases
1. What the society or the parents want
2. Responses provided by teachers in the schools
3. The collection of these responses and the effort to identify some common
aspects
4. The development of common standards and their evaluation.
-Braslavsky, 1999
Products
 curriculum products or projects result from curriculum
development process and provide the bases for instructional
decisions in classrooms.
 curriculum projects include:
 curriculum guides-”details about the topics to be taught,
predetermined teaching goals and suggestions for
instructional strategies” (Ben-Peretz, 1990, p.25)
 courses of study,
 syllabi,
 resource units,
 lists of goals and objectives, and
 other documents that deal with the content of schooling.
 CONCLUSION

Curriculum may be said to be a total package of what

schools do to make learners become what society
expects them to become, namely good citizens, who are
not only able to understand or learn certain school
subjects, but fully integrated individuals that are able
to it into society and contribute their own share as
well, to the progress of that society.