Wednesday, August 1, 2007

The curriculum development/planning process

The curriculum development process can be puzzling to new teachers. The process is often discussed in the literature as a blueprint for developing a curriculum that has applicability across a range of subjects (i.e., a macro view); however, it is also defined as the plan teachers adopt in the classroom for organizing learning activities (i.e., a micro view). Both interpretations of curriculum development are valid and helpful in conceiving and continually implementing successful learning activities for students. Having developed a conceptual framework and an understanding of the essence of curriculum design, it is important for aspiring teachers to become familiar with macro and micro level planning, learning theory, and student assessment/program evaluation.

Macro level curriculum planning in North America, whether highly centralized or decentralized, is often the result of task force reports and competing prescriptions of what should be taught in schools. The end products of such processes are interesting to analyze. The Commonwealth of Virginia (1992), for example, has produced a statewide technological education curriculum for its schools and school teachers. That curriculum has been carefully and professionally crafted, covers a specific band of the technological education curriculum spectrum, provides educators with excellent curriculum materials, and demonstrates one process for developing curriculum. An alternative approach has been adopted in the Province of Ontario, where only general learning outcomes are specified at the provincial level. Responsibility for the more detailed development of the curriculum has been embraced by school boards and systems of school boards. Both approaches to the development of a new curriculum-one centralized, the other decentralized-are valid and merit ongoing analysis and study.

Given the rapidly changing social needs and conditions facing North American school systems, it is difficult to imagine curriculum planning taking place only at the macro level. Pratt warns about the pitfalls of removing the planning process too far from the learner. He asserts, "in most schools, the programs offered reflect the areas of expertise and interest of teachers rather than an analysis of the needs of learners" (p. 52). Pratt (1989) is convinced senior educators act too arbitrarily on behalf of the many constituents served by schooling:

… the clients of the schools-parents, employers, taxpayers-are ordinarily excluded from curriculum committees. Nor are their views accessed by means of needs assessment. Curriculum development is a process carried out almost entirely by educators, and the need for client opinion is ignored. Also ignored is the need for empirical data, both from needs assessment before the curriculum is developed and from field testing after development. The approach therefore is almost entirely bureaucratic and political: the development of curriculum is viewed as a quasi-legislative activity of writing rules and regulations. (p. 308)

Curriculum planning that is guided or informed by some rational process would seem to merit the attention of all educators. Before curriculum can be formulated, the curriculum designer must take into account a combination of constituent needs-including community, schools, teachers, and students. Because communities and regions are very different, student groups vary, schools differ, and teachers are not all alike, the idea of one prescribed curriculum for everyone is limiting.

With respect to the individual learner, one observation is central to curriculum planning; learning is an interactive process. Constructivist learning theorists (Driver & Bell, 1985; Scott, 1987) may have a valid argument when they claim that learners have a base of experience through which new meaning can be constructed. They also may be right in assuming that people are purposive beings who set their own goals and control their own learning. In short, learning is best characterized as an adaptive process as articulated in principle number three, in which learners interact with their environment. The role of instructor is an intermediary one.

Another element in the curriculum planning process involves program evaluation. Few issues among education practitioners garner as much attention as assessment of student achievement and the relation of such assessment to program effectiveness. It is risky to make easy generalizations about the study and practice of program evaluation (macro or micro level). Measuring student achievement and determining the effectiveness of planned learning activities are, right or wrong, integral elements of schooling as it has evolved. Kramer (1990) provides an interesting perspective for consideration and a provocative illustration of how assessment of student achievement might be portrayed.

Kramer (1990) advocates that an evaluation scheme that (a) recognizes hard work, (b) provides opportunities for students to interact formally and informally, (c) promotes engagement between instructors and students, and (d) creates avenues for out-of-class use of skills. The object of curriculum planning, according to Kramer, is not to make an obstacle course. Schools and technology teachers would do well to consider Kramer's four rules of engagement:

A successful program would always feature or be characterized as having a hard working student body;
Students participating in a successful program talk a lot;
A successful curriculum would be one in which students and instructors were genuinely engaged; and
The context in which performance is usually assessed should reach beyond the school or institution (e.g., technological education students design a computer program for a hospital in which they are volunteers).
Meaningful learning experiences in school classrooms can be designed, presented, and shaped through a rational process. The importance of community input and support in that process cannot be overstated.

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