Analyzing the Curriculum Critique - Essay Example

? Analyzing the Curriculum - Posner First Analyzing the Curriculum – Posner In his book “Analyzing the Curriculum” GeorgePosner focuses on showing how various components of the curriculum blend efficiently together and consequently help students recognize the assumptions surrounding the curricula. Doing so, students are better placed to build up the ability to establish why different students work better with some curricula as opposed to others as well as to learn teaching methods that are compatible with a specific kind of curriculum , the challenges encountered in employing a particular curriculum and the various adjustments that students, parents together with the administration are bound to make in the use of a particular curriculum. Curriculum concepts are defined as planned experience, which in actuality comprises all experiences planned by a school (Posner, 2003). As students go through school, the culmination of that education is marked by graduating. Curriculum concepts are, therefore, all the requirements that need to be fulfilled at school in order for a student to finally graduate. Curriculum concept means that learning is a chain process with a series of courses that students are required to learn following specified procedures and principles. An example of a curriculum concept is the case where a specific course is taught using a specific text with clearly outlined instructions that will enable the students to attain specific objectives at the end. Scope and sequence is a series of intended learning outcomes (Posner, 2003). This is to say that learning varies by levels, and each level of learning covers a specific subject matter that students at that level are expected to master as they move through different levels. Scope and sequence in education play the role of guiding how the instructions are given at a particular level and how evaluations are done compatible with the specific grade to prevent students from attaining information that is beyond their level of knowledge capacity, and that is why different grades have stipulated syllabuses and are only examined on what they have covered at their level and not outside the syllabus. There is a written curriculum, this is what gives the basic lesson plan to be followed, and it includes objectives, sequence, and materials (Posner, 2003). An official curriculum is a written guide from the learner’s perspective clearly describing a designed plan to make both teaching and learning more effective. In education, an official curriculum provides a basis for accountability; it is a framework outlining the specific procedure and plan to be used in the teaching of the content. As a student, you will often notice that different courses have different instructions and resources that can be used to achieve the course objectives that not only state what is expected of the student, but also what is expected of the teacher. Operational curriculum is defined as what is taught by the teacher and how it is communicated (Posner, 2003). An operational curriculum states what students are required to learn in a specific subject, and the knowledge and skills they are to acquire from a particular subject. Operational curriculum helps to gauge how well a student understands the content by relating what is taught in class and the specific learning outcomes for the student. For example, the instructional content of mathematics is taught and communicated differently at different grades to ensure the concepts like multiplication and addition are understood proficiently. The hidden curriculum includes the norms and values of the surrounding society (Posner, 2003). The community most often demands that a school curriculum should be able to promote the right values, and as much as the school educational curriculum may be perceived suitable for children in terms of promoting such values, children might be vulnerable to few elements within the society which might pervert the educational process. For this reason, the hidden curriculum ensures that the school instills values while delivering knowledge according to society norms. For example, school curriculum always incorporates both social and religious studies in the curriculum as well as physical education not to undo what children have already been taught both at home and at church. According to Posner’s method of curriculum study, Reflective Eclecticism, there are three assumptions to be considered in making curriculum decisions such as choosing a curriculum; and they include the fact that different situations require different practices. There are numerous or myriad alternatives available. Thirdly, Posner stressed the importance of understanding each alternative and the assumptions that were behind and unpack them appropriately. This means that every model stressed the following criteria: validity – which implies that it should be based on theories that are in existence, utility – which ensures that the curriculum model can be used in different types of contexts and relevance – the model must be applicable in the context in which it is to be implemented and suit local conditions (Pawilen, 2012). Traditional Perspective is based on the belief that the past curriculum always sets precedence for the following curriculum making it a reference for the new curriculum. This perspective is more concerned with the cultural heritage, and how it is passed down across generations. It was designed to solve the contemporary problem of universal schooling in an increasingly urban society with the aim of making all school going children to learn and understand the facts about race. Stereotypes on race had been created by the media and this perspective was to act as an anti-dote for that. The traditional perspective was to enable children to learn and appreciate their cultures and be able to embrace other people cultures. Experiential Perspective focuses on students’ experiences. It is based on the assumption that everything that students encounter in the course of their learning plays a part in their lives, thus all school activities should be connected with the normal life activities. For this reason, the curriculum must be thought of in a more wider perspective, in terms of what can be expected of students both within and outside the schools as well as in terms of all the unforeseen consequences of each situation that a student experiences. Such results may include not only how content is learned in a formal sense, but also constitute the thoughts, feelings, and tendency to action that the situation brings about in those individuals experiencing it. However, individuals differ, and it cannot be guaranteed that two people can experience a situation in the same way. Experiential Perspective, thus, puts this assumption into consideration (Posner, 2003). The structure of the disciplines focuses on subjects at school. The American education has been accused of being intellectually narrow for a long time, and over the years students have been arriving at the University without necessary preparation since the information possessed by high school graduates is irrelevant and inconsistent to what is being taught at the University. This perspective is created to breach the gap between high school students and University students enabling students to derive basic knowledge from a fundamental concept taught in class for the achievement of national goals. Behavioral Perspective does not only focus at the content of what is being taught at school, but also at what student should be able to do as a result of the behaviors they learn. Teachers also need to carefully put into consideration how students learn and acquire behaviors. Content standards need to be set to identify what students can learn and the knowledge and skills that come with a specific subject. Everything that happens within the context of schooling needs to be evaluated on how it impacts the behavior of the student. This can range from social interactions and all special activities. Cognitive Perspective is the belief that knowledge was somehow innate and that children are born with ideas and that all that education does is the crystallizing of them and that the curricula required are just for triggering the learners’ use of their inborn knowledge in activities like decision-making and problem solving. Cognitive Perspective finds its roots in Plato who believed that most knowledge was just a recall of what the students had already knew and inbuilt into their brain and being. Traditional Perspective has been promoted by Harris William Torrey who believed that education was meant to pay close attention towards transmitting the cultural heritage of Western civilization. According to Harris, education is the process through which an individual grows into a species, therefore, the education curriculum should incorporate the subject of race to serve as a remedy for the opinions on race dominating the media. Basically, Harris believes that the most important goal of education in a human community is acculturation; where children acquire the same information that is used by adults to enable people to effectively communicate with one another. Having knowledge of culture automatically equips an individual with the essential information needed to thrive in the modern world. Experimental Perspective was promoted by John Dewey. He was greatly concerned with balancing intelligence with the development of socially useful skills for a healthy growth of experience within an individual (Posner, 2003). He criticized the traditional perspective saying it viewed reality as being external to the individual. Instead, Dewey is of the belief that reality is not external to the individual, but instead it is found within the experience of the individual, which comprises both the internal reactions such as feelings and thoughts as well as the external reactions. For Dewey, therefore, the only way of confirming a belief is testing it practically; true beliefs will impact the development of the experience of an individual. The structure of the disciplines that has been promoted by Jerrold Zacharias, a scientist who for a long time had been attempting to improve the physics curriculum and saw this perspective as an avenue for incorporating modern physics into it. He is of the opinion of teaching only the most fundamental concepts and at the same time teaching students how to derive the rest of the knowledge from the same concept; and in the process of learning a lot of things can be applied practically and less of theory which will just remain in the mind. Behavioral Perspective has been promoted by Edward Thorndike, the founder of behavioral psychology. He provided the necessary scientific theory for behavior through his works on behavioral objectives, in Arithmetic he was able to contribute greatly into the creation of a behavioral curriculum. The Cognitive Perspective has its promoters in science such as Piaget who spent a lot of time trying to understand how children’s minds work and how different their thinking was from that of adults and how it was that they got to “learn” things that were abstract in nature. He shows how children need to be ready for the cognitive learning process to take place. References Pawilen, G. T. (2012, March). A model for developing curriculum standards for preschool teacher education. Education Quarterly, 70(1), 14-25. Retrieved from http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/edq/article/viewFile/3391/3153 Posner, G. J. (2003). Analyzing the curriculum. (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Read More