Curriculum Design - Literature review Example

Title: Your name: Institution name: Curriculum Design Curriculum design is an element of education profession which focuses on developing curricula for students. Some people in education field specialized in designing curriculum, and will spend most of their time working on curricula, rather than teaching in classroom. In other cases, teachers will develop their own curricula for their students. a parent can also design a curriculum for their homeschooling children, sometimes with the guidance of an education professional. In many countries, governments set benchmark in education to ensure that student in those countries achieve a similar level of education. For example, the government can dictate at what age children should enroll in grade 1, set standards for reading ability, when school going children to start learning multiplication and division, and so forth. Many countries have education framework policy that touched on national qualifications (Gagné, Briggs & Wager 1992). In the past, traditional curriculum design focused on the teachers rather than the students or learners. However, there has been a paradigm shift to a learner-centered curriculum. This paradigm shift from teaching to learning has improved the curriculum design process. Recently, much focus has been on learning in terms of skills, knowledge and competencies within the modules and courses. The emphasis is on the design of effective learning environments and how the students learn. There are many models that have been used to design a curriculum. In the process of designing a curriculum, the key is to forge educationally logical and sound links between students needs, learning outcomes, aims, learning and teaching strategies, resources, assessment criteria and evaluation. Curriculum development has been found to be a process which doesn’t have an end, in other words a project. Many experienced teachers in learning institutions are able to cope with any reform projects (Dadds 2001). Therefore, the first issue in curriculum reform is to change curriculum development from ‘project thinking’ to ‘process thinking’. It is important to consider the role of schools, municipalities and teachers in curriculum designing/reform (Gagné, Briggs & Wager 1992). One aspect of curriculum design involves reviewing education standards and determining how new standards can be met or exceeded. Another aspect will involve thinking about the learners or students themselves, and what type of curriculum would best suit them (Gagné, Briggs & Wager 1992). Learners or students come from different background and culture; therefore, a curriculum should not be designed to be a one size fits all approach. For example, a method that will work well for a school located in an upper class, the same method will not necessary work for a school located in an area where many immigrants who English is their second or third language, or a method used with learners who are language learners, the same method will not be appropriate for children with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, a person who has the responsibility of designing a curriculum needs to think about the needs of the learners (Gagné, Briggs & Wager 1992). Limitation is another aspect that may be considered while designing a curriculum. For example, a home schooling child might have the opportunity to go on a trip to Paris to see historical items in museum and learn in context, while an entire classroom in a poor neighborhood cannot reasonably replicate this experience. Limitations can include issues like access to textbooks, funding, moral norms in the region where the school is located, and limitations set by the school authority. Flexibility is another aspect that should be considered when designing a curriculum. Teachers are the ones working with learners or students which have different levels of ability. Therefore, teachers are required to adjust the curriculum so that they can be able to keep all the learners learning and engaged. It also necessary to consider the ability of students during designing a curriculum, for example, students in classroom might have difficulties in learning a certain concept than their teacher expect them. Therefore, the teacher needs to spend more time on the concept, rather than rushing on to the next subject and leaving learners confused. It has been suggested that teachers bring to the classroom an inbuilt informal theory of teaching. Therefore, it is important for teachers to realize there is no universal way of teaching. According to Brown and Atkins (1991) they argue that different learners will use different learning strategies on different tasks. Brown and Atkins (1991) stress the importance of learning-for-knowledge and learning-for-understanding orientations because learning is a continuous process of development among the students. Therefore, it is important for teachers to be aware on the concepts of surface and deep approaches to learning (Biggs 1999). When a teacher incorporate the following: relating new ideas to previous knowledge; sustained interaction with context and others; structuring in a reasonable student workload; providing explicit explanations and a clear knowledge base to students; ensuring an appropriate formative and summative assessment strategy, it will foster a deep approach to learning. Curriculum Implementation Loucks and Lieberman (1983) define curriculum implementation as the trying out of a new practice and what it looks like when actually used in a school system. The aim of curriculum implementation is to make a difference to students or learners. In other words, curriculum implementation is bringing about improvement and hopefully changes in learners. Implementation has been termed as a critical phase in the cycle of planning and teaching a curriculum. The success of curriculum implementation will not only depend on the actual use of the curricular but also it will largely depend on the attitude of those people in-charge of implementing it. The attitudinal disposition is important in a learning institution where teachers have the opportunity to choose the curriculum package they would want to implement. In order for implementation to be successful there must a change. Change results from new knowledge. However the present for new knowledge is not sufficient for change. It has been seen many people are reluctant to embrace change because they are comfortable with what they are currently doing. So in order for change to happen, people must recognize the need for change. Therefore, Individual are more likely to recognize change if they understood the change and how the change will work. Kurt (1951) argues that people will be faced with two competing forces: (1) driving forces, forces that push a person to do something and change in a particular direction (people tend to initiate a change and keep it going); (2) restraining forces, these are forces that prevents a person from changing or doing something; and (3) equilibrium, the status quo, when these two forces are equal. Kurt (1951) emphasized that change is more likely to happen if the power of the restraining forces is reduced rather than increase the driving forces. For example, an autocratic principal in a school setting who pressure his/her employees may bring about change in the short run. In other words, restraining forces has been overpowered by driving forces for the change to take place. Curriculum implementation will require the involvement of different people. Each person is a ‘key player’ (such as teachers, principals, students, education officers, curriculum developers, parents, academics, and so forth) in the change process and without involvement of these key players; the implementation program will encounter many problems (Altrichter 2005). There are two extreme views about curriculum implementation: (1) “let-alone” approach or laissez-faire approach. This approach in implementing a curriculum involves giving teachers powers to determine what they can implement in the classroom. In other words, teachers are able to teach what they believe is appropriate for the students and in whatever way they wish to teach their lessons. This type of approach does not have monitoring or control whatsoever. (2) Authoritarian control approach. In this approach, teachers are directed what to teach by authority to follow a curriculum. Teachers have no leeway or control over the things or subject they teach in class. This approach is where a principal will exercise his/her power to direct teachers to teach in a specific ways. In other words, this approach is dictatorial way of imposing curricular implementation in the classroom. Curriculum Evaluation Deno (1987) defines curriculum evaluation as a “set of measurement procedure that is used to make direct observation and recording of a student’s performance in a local curriculum as a basis for gathering information to make instructional decisions” (in Shinn, 1989; p. 62). Evaluation helps in clarifying audiences and their identifying needs, values, conceptualizing a design, considering alternative ways to meet needs, implementing and delivering the instruction, improving the evaluation itself, managing learning experience and developing actual and prototypes units with various combinations of learning objects. In every evaluation process it must assemble all the standards that are associated with learners, objects, instructional theories, and other stakeholders values (Deno 1985). There are several models that can be used to evaluate a curriculum. Models has been found to be useful to in evaluating curriculum because they help experts to define the parameters of an evaluation such as what concept to be used in the study and the procedures that will be used to get important data. There are many evaluation models but the common evaluating model is CIPP (context, input, process and product) model. Although approaches that are used to evaluate curriculum vary in many ways, all the approaches emphasize the fact that curriculum evaluation is done for particular participants who are different. Additionally, evaluation must be done in a manner which is systematic and fair if the participants in the evaluation process are to have interest in using the evaluation results (Stufflebeam 1987). Daniel Stufflebeam’s CIPP (context, input, process and product) Model has been used for many years to evaluate curriculum. This evaluation model is the most popular one and is simple system model that can be applied to education program evaluation. The model is an open system that includes process input and output. But Stufflebeam (1971) added context that included input process, and relabeled output with the term product. This evaluation model is used to determine if a particular educational effort is working (has a positive change) in learning institutions. The main aspect for this model is centered on decision making or an act of making up one’s mind about a particular program to be introduced into the educational system. Daniel Stufflebeam’s CIPP (context, input, process and product) Model relies on both summative and formative evaluation to determine the effectiveness of a curriculum program. Evaluation in the curriculum is usually required at all levels of the program implemented. Context evaluation is the most basic kind of evaluation that can be used to provide a rationale for the objectives. In this process, environment is defined in which the curriculum will be implemented which could be a training department or a school (Stufflebeam 1987). The evaluator in the context evaluation will determine the need that was not met and tries to reason why that need in the curriculum was not met. This process will also try to identify the problems and shortcomings in the curriculum that is under review, for example, the ration of learners to computer is large. In other words, context evaluation will determine the background in which things or objects are being implemented. The technique that is used to collect data in context evaluation will include observation in the learning institution, background statistics of interviews or teachers involved in the implementation of the curriculum. The purpose of input evaluation is to provide information that will be used to determine how resources have been utilized in achieving the objective of the curriculum that has been formulated. In input evaluation, the resources of the learning institution and those designs that were used to carry out the curriculum will be considered. At this stage, the person involved in the evaluation will decide on which procedure to be used. While, in process evaluation is the provision of periodic feedback that has been put in place during the curriculum implementation. Product evaluation is the outcomes of the initiative of the curriculum implementation. At this stage data will be collected to determine if the curriculum was indeed able to accomplish it set out objective or achievement. This process also involves measuring of achievement of curriculum objectives, interpreting the data and providing with information that will enable the evaluators to determine whether to continue, modify or terminate the new curriculum. For example, product evaluation might show that learners have become more interested in physics and are more positive towards the subject after implementation of the new physics curriculum. Based on this outcome the decisions of evaluators will be to implement the program throughout the nation. Curriculum Analysis Standards-based curriculum has been found to present a challenge to learning institutions. Learning institutions should ensure all learners have been given an opportunity to achieve high levels and embrace the belief that different that exists in learners performances are as a results of conditions that are unrelated to learners capacity to learn (Taylor, 1994; Darling-Hammond, 1994). The paradigm shift from teaching to learning has been found to represent a different mission for learning institutions because it has been found to put much emphasis on the accountability for student’s success. In the past, curriculums were mostly fixed, while products of that curriculum varied. For example, some students failed other passed; most students learned at least what was designed in the curriculum. Therefore, in order to enable all learners to learn at high levels, many instructional strategies are needed to implement the curriculum. In most cases, the means to reach these standards are also varied. A curriculum should be for all learners and should be based on the same expectations for what learners should be able to do and know. Curriculum development should be integrated with subject matter that is organized around task that real, instruction, and the pace of these instructions should be based on the learner’s progress rather than how much contents teachers can be able to cover in a certain period. If there are no clear standard that has been put in place for what all learners should learn and how well learners should learn, it will create a challenge in the education system. Without consensus or clarity about what all learners should be able to do and know, “many learners have left schools without ever being challenged to their full potential”. Curriculum develop should be driven by today’s global requirement. “The issues that must that must be put forward is whether learning institutions are better or worse than they used to be, but rather whether learning institutions are able to prepare learners for these challenges” (Lachat 1994). A realist approach in curriculum implementation should be between two extremes. Teachers are required to follow the curriculum guideline and they should not miss any component/topic. In most curriculum implementation, when teachers are able to follow the prescribed syllabus in teaching a lesson, they are considered to have fidelity of implementation or fidelity of use. Therefore, in-order to promote fidelity of implementation, teachers should be able to identify those subjects that need more focus. In conclusion, “if learning institutions are to meet the challenge of educating increased numbers of learners with diverse needs”, teachers or tutors are supposed to embrace curricular and instruction that encourage and engage all learners or students. Many research findings have indicated the importance of several interrelated educational strategies: developmentally appropriate practice; heterogeneous student grouping; and inclusive curriculum that focus on student’s strengths yet accommodates their needs; ongoing professional development and so forth, should be encouraged when developing a curriculum. References Altrichter, H. (2005) The role of the "professional community" in teacher research. In Educational Action Research) 13, 1, 11 -25. Deno, S. L., (1985). Curriculum-based measurement: the emerging alternative. Exceptional Children, 52(3), 219-232. Gagné, R. M., Briggs, L. J., & Wager, W. W. (1992). Principles of instructional design, (4th ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Stufflebeam, Daniel L. (1987). The CIPP Model for Program Evaluation. In G.F. Madus et al., (Eds). Evaluation Models: Viewpoints on Educational and Human Services Evaluation. Boston:Kluwer:Nijhoff Publishing. Read More