EDUCATION CURRICULUM: THEORETICAL AND FUNCTIONAL DEFINITION

Curriculum means a written description of what happens in the course. A curriculum differs from a syllabus in that a syllabus is an outline of subjects or even topics students will cover in a course.

Curriculum is the totality of formal and informal content that imparts the skills, attitudes, and values considered important in achieving specific educational goals.

Historical conception

In The Curriculum, the first textbook published on the subject, in 1918, John Franklin Bobbitt said that curriculum, as an idea, has its roots in the Latin word for race-course, explaining the curriculum as the course of deeds and experiences through which children become the adults they should be, for success in adult society. Furthermore, the curriculum encompasses the entire scope of formative deed and experience occurring in and out of school, and not experiences occurring in school; experiences that are unplanned and undirected, and experiences intentionally directed for the purposeful formation of adult members of society.

Curriculum in formal schooling

In formal education or schooling (cf. education), a curriculum is the set of courses, course work, and content offered at a school or university. A curriculum may be partly or entirely determined by an external, authoritative body (i.e. the National Curriculum for England in English schools).

In the U.S., each state, with the individual school districts, establishes the curricula taught. Each state, however, builds its curriculum with great participation of national academic subject groups selected by the United States Department of Education, e.g. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) for mathematical instruction. In Australia each state’s Education Department establishes curricula. UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education primary mission is studying curricula and their implementation worldwide.

Curriculum means two things: (i) the range of courses from which students choose what subject matters to study, and (ii) a specific learning programme.

In the latter case, the curriculum collectively describes the teaching, learning, and assessment materials available for a given course of study. Currently, a spiral curriculum (or tycoil curriculum) is promoted as allowing students to revisit a subject matter’s content at the different levels of development of the subject matter being studied. The constructivist approach, of the tycoil curriculum, proposes that children learn best via active engagement with the educational environment, i.e. discovery learning.

Crucial to the curriculum is the definition of the course objectives that usually are expressed as learning outcomes’ and normally include the programme’s assessment strategy. These outcomes and assessments are grouped as units (or modules), and, therefore, the curriculum comprises a collection of such units, each, in turn, comprising a specialised, specific part of the curriculum. So, a typical curriculum includes communications, numeracy, information technology, and socials kills units, with specific, specialized teaching of each.

Aims, Goals, Objectives Focus:

The AGO is a strategy to get students to focus directly and deliberately on the intention behind actions. Being able to define objectives helps the student’s thinking in such areas as decision making and planning.

Aim is the general direction Goal is an ultimate destination

Objective is a recognizable point of achievement along the way

Objectives: AGO = Aims, Goals, Objectives

You can do something out of habit, because everyone else is doing it, or as a reaction to a situation. There are also times when you do something “in order to” achieve some purpose or objective. It can help your thinking if you know exactly what you are trying to achieve. It can also help you to understand other people are thinking if you can see their objectives.

Principles:

• If you know exactly what your objectives are, it is easier to achieve them.
• In the same situation, different people may have different objectives.
• On the way to a final objective, there may be a chain of smaller objectives,
• Each one following from the previous one.
• Objectives should be near enough, real enough and possible enough for
• A person to really try to reach them.