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CurriculumMethods and content together make up the curriculum. Curriculum was formerly seen as a body of knowledge, the content of education, to which the students needed to be exposed. The term is often used in this sense. But curriculum is much wider than just a list of subjects to be studied; it is not just what you say but how you say it! Curriculum is all the planned experiences which the learner may be exposed to, in order to achieve the learning goals. Five elements make up the curriculum:
(a) Philosophical framework:part of the curriculum which the learners learn consists of those attitudes which underlie all of our teaching. Local history may be taught as a leisure pursuit or as part of community development, and this difference will show in the way it is taught. Woodwork may be seen as a series of techniques or as part of a concern for good design and good living; family planning may be taught on its own, in isolation from all other subjects, or as part of a holistic approach to personal growth and family development and human sexuality. The philosophical framework relates to overall goals; in particular, it will reflect our assumptions as to whether the education we are engaged in is designed to reproduce or transform existing social systems, whether it is aimed to lead to conformity or to liberation. (b) Context:the learners will also learn much from the way in which the Course is organized. There are two main aspects to this:
The most important factor in creating the climate in any programme of adult and continuing education is the staffing of the course. A series of lectures given by different experts may tend not only to create problems for the students in relating both to the teachers and also to the subject matter (overlap or gaps between the lecture material or contradictions or establishing the relationships between the different material in each lecture); but it will also arouse a series of questions about the nature of knowledge itself and the relationship of the learners to knowledge. Are they expected, for example, to know everything that each of their different lecturers know? If not, which parts are important and which not? Who does knowledge belong to - the expert or the learner? Can the learner ever become an expert, and how? A course with continuity of teacher-learner contact will reveal a care to help the learner to learn. It will indicate that learning is a continuous process, to be pursued consecutively, not a spasmodic series of episodes; that learning goes on all the time, not just in the lectures. Again, frequent and arbitrary changes of timetable to suit the demands of the organizers and/or teacher will teach the learners the level of importance which the agent attaches to the programme - and the learners may begin not to take the course seriously themselves. A commitment to honour the learning contract, clear indicators that the learners come first in every case, will form part of the learning experiences of the course; these will teach the learners much that is not discussed formally as part of the course. c) Content:the material to be covered clearly forms part of the curriculum. But in addition, there is the sequence In which It is handled, and the conditions attached to the learning. The sequence is planned to facilitate learning; If a change is introduced because a particular teacher or resource is not available, the participants may learn that the order in which the material is pursued does not much matter or that the requirements of the teacher/organizer are more important than the requirements of the learners. And the level of performance, the speed at which the task should be completed and so on, all form part of the curriculum. What is required of the learner is as much part of the learning experience as the subject matter itself. The content of a course is often referred to as the syllabus. But syllabuses frequently include elements of methods as well as subject matter. A management course syllabus may include not just topics such as "personnel recruitment; selection procedures; career development; staff training; promotion criteria" etc, but also activities such as "workshops; syndicate work; group discussion with report back to plenary session" and the like. (d) Events:such activities, which the teacher plans and the learners experience, and the sequence in which they occur are all part of the curriculum. Some events of course occur which are not planned: the interruption of a course because of the weather or the interruption of a class by an organizer or supervisor to collect fees, mark a register or make an announcement, all form part of the learning experiences of the student participants. Such unplanned events will either contribute to or distract from the learning; and one of the traits of an effective teacher is the ability to innovate, to use such happenings as they occur to help forward the learning process, to direct even distractions towards the learners' goals. (e) Processes of evaluation:Among the experiences of the learners are those planned processes of evaluation - examinations and tests, if they are used; activities for feedback; criticism and assessment; ways in which the learners can express their satisfactions and so on. These too form part of the total planned curriculum. All these five elements go to make up the curriculum. We do not of course spend an equal amount of time on planning each of these but they all contribute to that sequence of experiences and the philosophy which embraces them which together go to make up the learning. It is the curriculum that brings the content and methods of our courses close together. Source : Rogers Teaching Adults OUP1986 |
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