• "Development" describes the process of curriculum-making.

• "Design" describes the end result, or the product of curriculum development.

• The Four Steps of Curriculum Development"The Tyler Rationale"

•         1.   What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? 

        2.   What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes? 

        3.   How can they be organized?          4.   How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained? 

• #1:  What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

• What Aims, Goals, and Objectives should be sought? 

• Educational objectives become the criteria for selecting materials, content outlined, instructional methods developed, and tests prepared. 

• How to write objectives• Objectives often incorrectly stated as activities

the instructor must do, rather than statements of change for students. 

• Objectives are also listed as topics, concepts, or generalizations; however, this approach does not specify what the students are expected to do with these elements such as apply them to illustrations in his/her life or unify them in a coherent theory explaining scientific deliberation. 

• Objectives can be indicated as generalized patterns (To Develop Appreciation,   To develop broad  interests.)  These are more goals than objectives.  It is necessary to specify the content to which this  behavior applies. 

• Should specify the Kind of Behavior and the Content or Area in which the behavior is to operate. 

• Examples:  • To create a simple web page using a text editor. 

To apply Dewey's theory of the child and the curriculum to the process of developing a curriculum  module. 

•                 Or:  • Upon completion of this module, students will be able to: 

...compute the selling price of an automobile given information about list price, taxes, options, and  destination charges  ...construct a timeline showing the relationship among at least 20 major events in the Roman empire  ...describe the steps necessary for creating complete Web-based curriculum modules 

• Example nonpreordinate objective:  "Students will attend a Shakespeare play." 

• 2.   What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?

• Criteria for selecting experiences; are they:  • valid in light of the ways in which knowledge and skills will be applied in out-of-school

experiences? • feasible in terms of time, staff expertise, facilities available within and outside of the

school, community expectations? • optimal in terms of students' learning the content? • capable of allowing students to develop their thinking skills and rational powers? • capable of stimulating in students greater understanding of their own existence as

individuals and as members of groups? • capable of fostering in students an openness to new experiences and a tolerance for

diversity? • such that they will facilitate learning and motivate students to continue learning? • capable of allowing students to address their needs? • such that students can broaden their interests? • such that they will foster the total development of students in cognitive, affective,

psychomotor, social, and spiritual domains?

• Curriculum Content• Criteria for selecting content:  • what will lead to student self-sufficiency? • what is significant?

– Two definitions of "significance": • having or conveying a meaning; expressive, suggesting or implying deeper

or unstated meaning  • important, notable; consequential 

• what is valid (authentic, "true")? • what is interesting?

– note:  student may not even KNOW his own interests • what is useful? • what is learnable? • what is feasible?

• 3.   How can the educational experiences be organized?• Education experiences must be organized to reinforce each other.  • Vertical vs. horizontal organization  • Continuity - refers to the vertical reiteration of major curricular

elements.  Reading social studies materials continued up through higher grades 

• Sequence -  refers to experiences built upon preceding curricular elements but in more breadth and detail. Sequence emphasizes higher levels of treatment. 

• Integration - unified view of things.  Solving problems in arithmetic as well as in other disciplines. 

• We aim for educational effectiveness and EFFICIENCY.  • Most institutionalized education is MASS education: we want to be

able to teach GROUPS instead of  individuals.  • Most education is DEPARTMENTALIZED, because we expect

someone trained in a specific topic to be more likely to be able to teach that topic.  (This is based upon the notion that WORKERS will have higher productivity if they do the same thing over and over again, related to the "social efficiency" theories of Frederick Taylor.) 

• Generally, we arrange educational experiences from easiest to hardest, and from most general to more specific.  (There is some evidence that this is not the best way to teach--that students are more likely to learn if specific skills or topics are introduced first.) 

4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?

Different Perspectives on Curriculum Development

• Curriculum development produces curriculum designs.

• Development can be articulated as a series of steps, such as: 

• define educational purposes • construct activities/experiences that can

meet these purposes • organize activities/experiences • evaluate whether purposes have been met

• (These are the "steps" in the Tyler Rationale)  • Designs can be articulated or described as an

arrangement of curricular "elements" or "components," such as: 

• "aim" • "rationale" • "audience" • "objectives" • etc. • In discussing "development," it is possible to describe

several competing "approaches" to development. 

• Technical-scientific approach • curriculum as plan or blueprint • definable process • activity, or task, analysis • means/end analysis • usually "preordinate" (or preordained) objectives • emphasis on efficiency • the "Chicago School" • extremely influential approach • criticized as too linear, dehumanizing •  

• Tyler approach modified by others, especially Taba, who listed 7 steps:

• diagnosis of needs • formulation of objectives • specification of content • organization of content • selection of learning experiences • organization of learning activities • evaluation and means of evaluation

• Taba also wanted TEACHERS to be primary curriculum developers

• Hunkins adds initial step of "conceptualization and legitimization, involving deliberation of the nature of curriculum and its value

• Hunkins also adds "feedback loops" among various steps, showing that curriculum development is an iterative process

• This approach has found new life since mid-1980s as "Outcome-based Education."

• Nontechnical-nonscientific approach – questions some assumptions of technical-scientific approach:

• questions universality, objectivity, logic • t-s approach abstracts knowledge from context • t-s approach overemphasizes articulation of aims • t-s approach too linear • t-s approach takes modernism too seriously

– stress personal, subjective, aesthetic, heuristic, and transactional nature of curriculum

– stress focus on LEARNER, not on "products" of education – view learning as holistic – student as participant in curriculum development – denies logical positivism – may stress "nonpreordinate" objectives (open-ended outcomes: 

"Students will be transformed through their participation in the high ropes course.")

• Examples: • Glatthorn's Naturalistic Model

– Assess the alternatives – Stake out the territory – Develop a constituency – Build the knowledge base – Block in the unit – Plan quality learning experiences – Develop the course examination (or other assessment tools) – Develop the learning scenarios – The Deliberation Model – "deliberation is the essential process engaged in curriculum development.

Through deliberation, individuals engage in curriculum decision making." – celebrate social dimension of curriculum work – acknowledges circularity of development process – involves acknowledgment of eternal "incompleteness" of curriculum – Proceeds generally from PROBLEM to PROPOSALS to SOLUTION (with

CONTEXT)

• Participants in Curriculum Development Process• Possible participants  • teachers • students • principals • curriculum specialists • associate superintendent • superintendent • boards of education • lay citizens • federal government • state agencies • regional organizations • educational publishers • testing organizations • professional organizations • other groups

• Curriculum Design

• What are the "parts" of a curriculum, and how do they interrelate?  Most curricula include: 

• aim, goals, objectives

• subject-matter

• learning experiences

• evaluation approaches

• Types of Curriculum Designs

• In developing specific learning activities for a given set of objectives, curriculum designers need to decide whether they want to place the subject-matter, the learners, or problems at the center.  The following sections discuss each category of activity

• Subject-centered• Many learning activities in schools emphasize subject-

matter or academic disciplines. Either a particular subject-area, the broader themes of a discipline, interdisciplinary concepts or themes, the coronations among two or more subject areas, or particular processes can serve as this organizing center.  In each case, the characteristics of the subject-matter, and the procedures, conceptual structures or relationships which are found within or among the subject-matter, dictate the kinds of activities that will be selected. 

• Learner-centered• Dewey’s emphasis on native impulses of

the child (socialize, construct, inquire, create)  Negotiated curriculum  Interest-centered curriculum  Freierian dialogic education  Hunkins: disrupt the status quo of students’ understanding 

• Humanistic• Can emphasize development of fully-functioning

students, through focus on subjective, feeling, perceiving, becoming, valuing, growing (Maslow); curriculum encourages the tapping of personal resources of self-understanding, self-concept, personal responsibility (Carl Rogers)  Confluent education: strive to blend subjective and intuitive with the objective  Curriculum should provide students with alternatives from which they can choose what to feel  Participation, nonauthoritarian  Development of self as most important objective 

• Transcendent education• Concept of wholeness of experience 

Give students opportunity to take a journey, to reflect on that journey, and to relate that journey to others, past, present, future, emphasizes dispositions of humans for hope, creativity, awareness, doubt and faith, wonder, awe, and reverence (O+H p. 257) 

• Problem-centered• Planned prior to arrival of students, but willing to adjust

to fit needs of students  Problem can be interdisciplinary  Life situations  core designs  social problem/reconstructionist designs  Social problems, social reconstructionism; educators potentially affect social change through curriculum development  Engages learner in analyzing severe problems facing mankind  Furthering the good of society 

• Example problems (Clift and Shane, quoted in O+H p 262).:• What policies shall govern our future use of technology? 

At a global level, what shall be our goals, and how can we reach them?  What shall we identify as the “good life”?  How shall we deploy our limited resources in meeting the needs of various groups of people?  How shall we equalize opportunity, and how shall we reduce the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots”?  How can we maximize the value of mass media, especially television?  What shall be made of psychological, chemical, and electronic approaches to behavioral modification?  What steps can we take to ensure the integrity of our political, economic, and military systems?  What, if anything, are we willing to relinquish, and in what order?  And, what honorable compromises and solutions shall we make as we contemplate the above questions?