Module 2
Module 2
THE
Module Overview:
Module 2 describes the school curriculum in terms of its definition, its nature and scope,
which are needed by the teacher as a This module provides a wider perspective for the teachers
about the curriculum, in terms of curriculum approach, curriculum development process, some
curriculum models and the foundations upon which curriculum is anchored.
TODAY'S HEADLINES
1. DepEd Reviews The K to 12 Curriculum
2. Suicide incidence in Schools Has Become Alarming
3. Teachers are Reluctant to Try New Things in the Curriculum
4. Co-curricular Activities: Learning Opportunities or Distractions?
5. The Use of ICT Gains Ground in the Public Schools
What can you say of these headlines? Do these reflect what are going on in our schools?
Should the public know and be involved in the schooling of their citizens? What are the
implications of each headline to the classroom curriculum?
Each member of society seems to view school curriculum differently, hence there are
varied demands on what schools should do and what curriculum should be taught. Some would
demand reducing content and shifting emphasis to development of lifelong skills. Others feel that
development of character has been placed at the back seat of some schools. More debates are
emerging on the use of languages in the classroom. Should it be mother tongue, the national
language or the global language?
There seems to be confusion about what curriculum should really be. To have a common
understanding of what curriculum really is, this lesson will present some definitions as given by
authors. Likewise, you will find in this lesson the description of the nature and scope of curriculum
from several points of view. This lesson will also explain how curriculum is being approached. It
further shows a development process as a concept and as a process as applied to school curriculum.
The nature of curriculum has given rise to many interpretations, depending on a person's
philosophical beliefs. Let us put all of these interpretations in a summary.
CURRICULUM is what is taught in school, a set of subjects, a content, a program of
studies, a set of materials, a sequence of courses, a set of performance objectives, everything that
goes within the school. It is what is taught inside and outside of school directed by the teacher.
everything planned by school, a series of experiences undergone by learners in school or what
individual learner experiences as a result of school. In short, curriculum is the total learning
experiences of the learner under the guidance of the teacher.
Lesson 2.2 Approaches to the School Curriculum
From the various definitions, we realize that curriculum is viewed in many ways. Let us look
back and use the definitions as a way of classifying how curriculum is viewed. In this lesson, let
us look at the curriculum as either a Content, a Process or a Product to fully understand the different
perspectives of what curriculum is all about. This can be one way of approaching a curriculum.
There are four ways of presenting the content in the curriculum. These are:
1. Topical Approach, where much content is based on knowledge, and experiences are included;
2. Concept Approach with fewer topics in clusters around major and sub-concepts and their
interaction, with relatedness emphasized;
3. Thematic Approach as a combination of concepts that develop conceptual structures, and
4. Modular Approach that leads to complete units of instruction.
Palma in 1952 proposed that the contents in the curriculum should be guided by Balance,
Articulation, Sequence, Integration and Continuity. However, in designing a curriculum contents
Hunkins and Ornstein (2018) added an important element which is Scope, hence from BASIC to
BASICS initials of Balance, Articulation, Sequence, Integration, Continuity.
Balance. Content should be fairly distributed in depth and breadth. This will guarantee that
significant contents should be covered to avoid too much or too little of the contents needed with
in the time allocation. Articulation. As the content complexity progresses with the educational
levels, vertically or horizontally, across the same discipline smooth connections or bridging should
be provided. This will assure no gaps or overlaps in the content. Seamlessness in the content is
desired and can be assured if there is articulation in the curriculum. Thus, there is a need off team
among writers and implementers of curriculum.
Sequence. The logical arrangement of the content refers to sequence or order. This can be done
vertically for deepening the content or horizontally for broadening the same content. In both ways,
the pattern usually is from easy to complex, what is known to the unknown, what is current to
something in the future.
Integration. Content in the curriculum does not stand alone or in isolation. It has some ways of
relatedness or connectedness to other contents. Contents should be infused in other disciplines
whenever possible. This will provide a wholistic or unified view of curriculum instead of
segmentation. Contents which can be integrated to other disciplines acquire a higher premium than
when isolated.
Continuity. Content when viewed as a curriculum should continuously flow as it was before, to
where it is now, and where it will be in the future. It should be perennial. It endures time. Content
may not be in the same form and substance as seen in the past since changes and developments in
curriculum occur. Constant repetition, reinforcement and enhancement of content are all elements
of continuity.
Scope. The breadth and depth of the curriculum content are vital in a curriculum. Scope consists
of all the contents, topics, learning experiences comprising the curriculum. In layman's term scope
refers to coverage. The scope shall consider the cognitive level, affective domain and psychomotor
skills in identifying the contents. Other factors will be considered but caution is given to
overloading of contents. "More contents is not always better."
2. Curriculum as a Process
We have seen that the curriculum can be approached as content. On the other hand, it can
also be approached as a process. Here, curriculum is not seen as a physical thing or a noun, but as
a verb or an action. It is the interaction among the teachers, students and content. As a process,
curriculum happens in the classroom as the questions asked by the teacher and the learning
activities engaged in by the students. It is an active process with emphasis on the context in which
the occur. Used in analogy of a recipe in a cookbook, a recipe is the content while the ways of
cooking are the process.
Curriculum as a process is seen as a scheme about the practice of teaching. It is not a
package of materials or a syllabus of content to be covered. The classroom is only part of the
learning environment where the teacher places action using the content to achieve an outcome.
Hence the process of teaching and learning becomes the central concern of teachers to emphasize
critical thinking, and heads-on, hands-on learning and many others.
As a process, curriculum links to the content. While content provides materials on what to
teach, the process provides curriculum on how to teach the content. When accomplished, the
process will result to various curriculum experiences for the learners. The intersection of the
content and process is called the Pedagogical Content Knowledge or PCK. It will address the
question: If you have this content, how will you teach it?
This section will not discuss in detail the different teaching strategies from where learning
experiences are derived. Rather, it will describe how the process as a descriptor of curriculum is
understood. The content is the substance of the curriculum, how the contents will be communicated
and learned will be addressed by the process.
To teachers, the process is very critical. This is the other side of the coin: instruction,
implementation, teaching. These three words connote the process in the curriculum. When
educators ask teachers: What curriculum are you using? Some of the answers will be:
1. Problem based.
2. Hands-on, Minds-on
3. Cooperative Learning
4. Blended Curriculum
5. On-line
6. Case-based and many more.
These responses approach curriculum as a Process. These are the ways of teaching, ways
of managing the content, guiding learning, methods of teaching and learning and strategies of
teaching or delivery modes. In all of these, there are activities and actions that every teacher and
learner do together or learners are guided by the teacher. Some of the strategies are time tested
traditional methods while others are emerging delivery modes.
Curriculum is a dynamic process. In curriculum development, there are always changes that
occur that are intended for improvement. To do this, there are models presented to us from well-
known curricularists like Ralph Tyler, Hilda Taba, Galen Saylor and William Alexander which
would help clarify the process of curriculum development. There are many other models, but let
us use the three for this lesson.
1. Curriculum planning considers the school vision, mission. and goals. It also includes the
philosophy or strong education belief of the school. All of these will eventually be translated to
classroom desired learning outcomes for the learners.
2. Curriculum designing is the way curriculum is conceptualized to include the selection and
organization of content, the selection and organization of learning experiences or activities and the
selection of the assessment procedure and tools to measure achieved learning outcomes. A
curriculum design will also include the resources to be utilized and the statement of the intended
learning outcomes.
3. Curriculum implementing is putting into action the plan which is based on the curriculum
design in the classroom setting or the learning environment. The teacher is the facilitator of
learning and together with the learners, uses the curriculum as design guides to what will transpire
in the classroom with the end in view of achieving the intended learning outcomes. Implementing
the curriculum is where action takes place. It involves the activities that transpire in every teacher's
classroom where learning becomes an active process.
4. Curriculum evaluating determines the extent to which the desired outcomes have been
achieved. This procedure is on going as in finding out the progress of learning (formative) or the
mastery of learning (summative). Along the way, evaluation will determine the factors that have
hindered or supported the implementation. It will also pinpoint where improvement can be made
and corrective measures, introduced. The result of evaluation is very important for decision-
making of curriculum planners and implementors.
Tyler's model shows that in curriculum development, the following considerations should be
made:
1. Purposes of the school
2. Educational experiences related to the purposes
3. Organization of the experiences
4. Evaluation of the experience
Foundations of Curriculum
1. Philosophical Foundations
Educators, teachers, educational planners and policy makers must have a philosophy or
strong belief about education and schooling and the kind of curriculum in the teachers' classrooms
or learning environment. Philosophy of the curriculum answers questions like: What are schools
for? What subjects are important? How should students learn? What methods should be used?
What outcomes should be achieved? Why?
The various activities in school are influenced in one way or another by a philosophy. John
Dewey influenced the use of "learning by doing", he being a pragmatist. Or to an essentialist, the
focus is on the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic, the essential subjects in the
curriculum.
(Philosophers: Plato, Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas; Wiliam Bagley; John Dewey; Theodore
Brameld)
2. Historical Foundations
Where is curriculum development coming from? The historical foundations will show to
us the chronological development along a time line. Reading materials would tell us that
curriculum development started when Franklin Bobbit (1876-1956) wrote the book "The
Curriculum."
(Contributors: Franklin Bobbit; Werret Charters; William Kilpartick; Harold Rugg; Hollis
Caswell; Ralph Tyler; Hilda Taba; Peter Oliva)
Philosophical Foundations
Group 1: (Philosophers: Plato, Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas; Wiliam Bagley; John Dewey;
Theodore Brameld)
Historical Foundations
Group 2: (Contributors: Franklin Bobbit; Werret Charters; William Kilpartick; Harold Rugg;
Hollis Caswell; Ralph Tyler; Hilda Taba; Peter Oliva)
Psychological Foundation of Curriculum (Part 1)
Group 3: Association and Behaviorism (Ivan Pavlov; Edward Thorndike; Robert Gagne)
and Cognitive Information Processing Theory (Jean Piaget; Lev Vygotsky; Howard
Gardner; Daniel Goleman)
Psychological Foundation of Curriculum (Part 2)
Group 4: Humanistic Psychology (Gestalt; Abraham Maslow; Carl Rogers) and Social
Foundations of Curriculum (Schools and Society; Emile Durkheim; Alvin Toffler; (Other
Theorists: Paolo Freire; John Goodlad; William Pinar)
GROUPINGS:
Group 3
Group 1
Dela Sala, Argie L.
Abarca, Faye Karen
Delos Santos, Analyn L.
Abarca, Rudy Jay M.
Delos Santos, Dina S.
Abrahan, Leizl L.
Dones, Nidalyn C.
Abrogar, Arvy S.
Dumagat, Cecille R.
Abucejo, Rachelle
Gultiano, Shaina Rose O.
Acebedo, Maria Nicolle S.
Langcuyan, Vima R.
Aguiadan, Byron A.
Latiban, Yvette Faye S.
Alvarico, Cherry Mae
Latiban , Shenny R.
Ampidan , Jessa M.
Ligasan, Janna Marie C.
Apostol, Lovely Mae G.
Linaza, Nikka Kris D.
Apostol, Rhea Joy A.
Toroba, Rizamae B.
Silvosa, Jela L.
Group 4
Group 2
Lopez, Ivy C.
Betualla, Aleyah C.
Lumor, Gloria Mae D.
Betualla, Alyssa C.
Macaalin, Janessa T.
Bolante, Mary Cris L.
Manligoy, John Mark A.
Boluso, Aldin D.
Moreno, Crezel Jane F.
Boton, Jewett L.
Niez, Jonaly E.
Butulan, Ace Philip P.
Orgada, Frelly Joy D.
Cabanog, Rosavel C.
Pawaon, Leah A.
Ceriaca, Novia B.
Peras, Jepot C.
Claros, Archie R.
Ravelo, Richie C.
Cogonon, Libeth A.
Reyes, Mica A
Cueva, Cristina P.
Toralba, Avemelic C.
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