Curriculum Development: A Guide to Practice

by Jon W. Wiles

education is being redefined by many forces, but especially by globalization, interdependence, and the new technologies that can deliver learning directly to the individual.

beginning of the 20th century, the general conception of education was uniformly a process of becoming knowledgeable.

Curriculum development is a process whereby the choices of designing a learning experience for clients (students) are made and then activated through a series of coordinated activities

A useful way to think about curriculum and the development process is to use the model of architecture. An architect cannot design a home until some information is provided about style preferences. This style is analogous to a philosophy in education. Once the architect knows the style, be it ranch, colonial, or modern, he or she can then proceed to the more detailed functions (rooms, layout, decor, and so forth). Without clarification, the possibilities for error in design are great. Likewise, the curriculum developer cannot easily develop a program of study without knowing why the program exists. The historical practice of layering on new curricula on top of existing or old curricula has resulted in conceptual confusion in many educational institutions. The absence of such preliminary clarification also explains why so much change in education is not lasting.

Seeing curriculum development as a cycle or a system

Regular foundational areas ...

foundational areas are social forces (the society), knowledge, human deve...

fifth area—techno...

Use of data in decision making

Involving others in the planning process

change t...

Assessing r...

currere , which means “to run” or “to run...

The definition of “curriculum” as a product, or as a completely contained experience, has proved highly unsatisfactory to most educators involved in the development of

learning programs.

planned and unplanned (the hidden curriculum), technical learning, and practical learning.

Hollis Caswell and Doak Campbell (1935) wrote of the socializing function of the schooling experience. The curriculum, they said, “is composed of all of the experiences children have under the guidance of the school” (p. 66 ).

seeing curriculum as an experience...

The curriculum is now generally considered to be all of the experiences that learners have under the auspices of the sc...

It was recognized that students also had experiences at school (the hidden curriculum) n...

The curriculum is all of the learning of students, which is planned by and directed by the school to attain its educat...

A curriculum is a plan for learning. ( Saylor & Alexander, 1974 , p. 6 )

The linear, sequential, easily quantifiable ordering system dominating education today could give way to a more complex, pluralistic, unpredictable system or network. Such a complex network will, like life itself, always be in transition, in process. ( W. Doll, 1993 , p. 3 )

desired goal or set of values that can be activated through a development process, culminating in experiences for learners.

There are few global principles to guide leaders.

Harold Rugg, who wrote: “There are, indeed, three critical factors in the educational process: the child, contemporary American society, and standing between them, the school” ( Rugg, 1926

Taba (1962), a curriculum specialist concerned with the development aspects of curriculum: Semantics aside, these variations in the conception of the function of education are not idle or theoretical arguments. They have definite concrete implications for the shape of educational programs, especially the curriculum. . . . If one believes that the chief function of education is to transmit the perennial truths, one cannot but strive toward a uniform curriculum and teaching. Efforts to develop thinking take a different shape depending on whether the major function of education is seen as fostering creative thinking and problem solving or as following the rational forms of thinking established in our classical tradition. As such, differences in these concepts naturally determine what are considered the “essentials” and what are the “dispensable frills” in education. (p. 30 )

If Rip Van Winkle were to wake up after a long sleep, he would at least recognize schools anywhere in the world.

The introduction of the new interactive technologies in schools, using the Internet and other wireless technologies, are making much of the existing condition irrelevant. Curriculum developers will be hard pressed to even catalog, let alone control, select, and order, all of the new information available to learners. Real-time delivery, anywhere delivery, and nonlinear delivery of information to the learner via the Internet does not fit easily into the historical curriculum construct of knowledge mastery. New paradigms and new models will be needed if the process of curriculum development in schools is to survive the rush of the technological age.

ward off the work of the Devil,

“literate citizen”

promoting the common good and for bringing about desired c...

Kalamazoo case,

Research this case

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)

Johann Pestalozzi (1746–1827),

Friedrich Froebel (17...

Johann Herbart (17...

Charles Darwin (1809–1882)

John Dewey (1859–1952) is usually credited with bridging this gap from an older and more traditional definition of education to the newer and distinctly American definition of progressive education . Dewey built on those earlier European thoughts to advocate a new and very active definition of education for children. Seeing the mind as something to be developed (not filled or shaped), Dewey suggested taking old principles of learning and demonstrating practical applications as defined by the experiences of the learner. The goal of education, according to Dewey, was to both organize and activate knowledge. But, said Dewey, the learner rather than the teacher is the source of such organization. Each individual, he proposed, must find ideas that work in practical experience and see these ideas as truth.

Here, children learned by doing through something called project work. Dewey later advocated the need for citizens in a democracy to find the truths of participation during the school years by living in a democratic institution. His

Seven Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education,

Health 2. Command of fundamental processes 3. Home membership 4. Vocation 5. Citizenship 6. Use of leisure time 7. Ethical character

The concept of e pluribus unum (“from many, one”) was deemed inapplicable to some populations. Blacks, Hispanics, women, lesbians, gay males, handicapped persons, and other populations were forced to use law and demonstration to establish their place in U.S. society.

Coupled with this unveiling of the “real school” was an accountability movement born out of sheer financial need. As the inflation of the 1970s and 1980s ate into school budgets, the cry for outcome-based education and results eroded general support for schools. Alternative forms of school were invented and even legislated.

The richness and variety of the Internet completely discounted student dependence on a teacher or any other single source of learning for information.

Aronowitz and Giroux, in their text Postmodern Education, advised that “curriculum’s historic function was to name and privilege particular histories and experiences. In its current and dominant form, the curriculum does so in such a way as to marginalize or silence the voices of subordinate groups”

Curriculum is a century-old area of study in education, and it is experiencing massive change.

Technology, with its new ways of treating information, requires a different paradigm for curriculum leaders.