approaches to curriculum design essay

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Innovative Approaches To Curriculum Design

Welcome to discovering new ways to design a curriculum that engages students. In today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape, fostering active participation and enthusiasm among students is crucial for effective learning outcomes.

This article explores different methods teachers can use to make their teaching plans more interesting and involving for students. By embracing innovation in curriculum design and educators can cultivate an environment where students are motivated, inspired, and actively involved in their learning journey.

Approaches To Curriculum Design

Curriculum design encompasses a spectrum of methodologies and philosophies for structuring educational experiences. Traditional approaches to curriculum design often focus on content delivery, but innovative practices prioritize student-centered learning and holistic development.

Ideas like constructivism, asking questions, and working on projects can make learning more active and lively.

Innovation In Curriculum

Being creative is key to making a good teaching plan. By embracing emerging technologies, interdisciplinary studies, and real-world applications, educators can create curriculum frameworks that resonate with students’ interests and aspirations.

Adding digital fun tools , games, and different types of media can make learning more interesting and help students learn in their own way. Moreover, fostering creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration empowers students to become active participants in their education.

Principles Of Curriculum Design

Good teaching plans focus on useful, sensible, and flexible topics that can be changed if necessary. By aligning learning objectives with real-world challenges that follow the ethical principles of curriculum design and career pathways, educators can instil a sense of purpose and relevance in the curriculum.

Furthermore, incorporating interdisciplinary connections and experiential learning opportunities fosters holistic development and prepares students for the complexities of the modern world.

Curriculum Design And Development

Making a teaching plan is a process that includes working together, thinking about what’s been done, and making changes. Teachers need to always check what students need, see how well they’re learning, and improve how they teach.

By embracing a growth mindset, focusing on adequate curriculum design and development and fostering a culture of innovation, schools can create dynamic curriculum frameworks that evolve with the changing needs of society.

Types Of Curriculum Design

There are many different ways to make a teaching plan to fit different schools and goals. Teachers can choose from many different ways to make a teaching plan, from focusing on subjects to looking at what students can do.

Apart from these different types of curriculum design, hybrid models that combine elements of different approaches offer flexibility and customization to accommodate diverse learning styles and preferences.

The Role Of Learning Management Systems In Enhancing Student Engagement

In today’s education scene, incorporating Learning Management Solutions (LMS) is key for boosting student involvement and supporting innovative approaches to curriculum development .

These online learning platforms provide a wide range of tools and materials that enable teachers to create engaging learning experiences tailored to each student’s needs.

With interactive content, collaboration features, and AI personalized learning paths, LMS not only increases student participation but also gives teachers valuable insights to improve their teaching methods continually.

Promoting student engagement through innovative approaches to curriculum design is essential for fostering a dynamic and enriching learning environment. By embracing student-centered methodologies, integrating emerging technologies, and prioritizing relevance and flexibility, educators can empower students to become active participants in their education. With features of curriculum teaching plans need to change, too, to help students succeed in a world that keeps changing.

1. What Are Some New Ways To Plan A Curriculum That Get Students More Interested?

Fresh methods for designing a curriculum aim to make students more actively involved and excited. Some good ideas include:

Asking students to come up with questions, investigate, and explore topics on their own (Inquiry-based learning).
Getting students involved in practical projects that tackle real-life problems and encourage teamwork (Project-based learning).
Changing the usual class setup by having students learn basic material on their own before class so that class time can be used for more interactive and personalized learning experiences (Flipped classroom model).
Adding game elements like rewards, challenges, and competition into learning to make it more engaging and motivating (Gamification)

2. How Does Technology Help Make New Curriculum Ideas More Interesting For Students?

Technology can be a big help in getting students more interested and making new curriculum ideas work. Here are some ways it can be used:

Using digital resources like videos, interactive activities, and online tools to make learning more interesting and fit different ways of learning.
Using educational programs and systems that help students learn at their own pace, keep track of how they’re doing, and give feedback right away.
Giving students ways to talk and work together online, like through chat rooms, forums, and virtual classrooms, so they can learn from each other and stay connected with teachers.
Trying out new technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence to make learning more real and exciting.

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What is curriculum? Exploring theory and practice

Curriculum theory and practice.the organization of schooling and further education has long been associated with the idea of a curriculum. but what actually is curriculum, and how might it be conceptualized we explore curriculum theory and practice and its relation to informal education..

Contents : introduction · curriculum as transmission · curriculum as product · curriculum as process · curriculum as praxis · curriculum and context · curriculum and informal education · further reading · links · how to cite this article

The idea of curriculum is hardly new – but the way we understand and theorize it has altered over the years – and there remains considerable dispute as to meaning. It has its origins in the running/chariot tracks of Greece. It was, literally, a course. In Latin curriculum was a racing chariot; currere was to run. A useful starting point for us here might be the definition offered by John Kerr and taken up by Vic Kelly in a standard work on the subject. Kerr defines curriculum as, ‘All the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school. (quoted in Kelly 1983: 10; see also, Kelly 1999). This gives us some basis to move on – and for the moment all we need to do is highlight two of the key features:

L earning is planned and guided . We have to specify in advance what we are seeking to achieve and how we are to go about it.

The definition refers to schooling. We should recognize that our current appreciation of curriculum theory and practice emerged in the school and in relation to other schooling ideas such as subject and lesson.

In what follows we are going to look at four ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice:

1. Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted . 2. Curriculum as an attempt to achieve certain ends in students – product . 3. Curriculum as process . 4. Curriculum as praxis .

It is helpful to consider these ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice in the light of Aristotle’s influential categorization of knowledge into three disciplines: the theoretical , the productive and the practical .

Here we can see some clear links – the body of knowledge to be transmitted in the first is that classically valued as ‘the canon’; the process and praxis models come close to practical deliberation; and the technical concerns of the outcome or product model mirror elements of Aristotle’s characterization of the productive. More this will be revealed as we examine the theory underpinning individual models.

Curriculum as a syllabus to be transmitted

Many people still equate a curriculum with a syllabus. Syllabus, naturally, originates from the Greek (although there was some confusion in its usage due to early misprints). Basically it means a concise statement or table of the heads of a discourse, the contents of a treatise, the subjects of a series of lectures. In the form that many of us will have been familiar with it is connected with courses leading to examinations – teachers talk of the syllabus associated with, say, the Cambridge Board French GSCE exam. What we can see in such documents is a series of headings with some additional notes which set out the areas that may be examined.

A syllabus will not generally indicate the relative importance of its topics or the order in which they are to be studied. In some cases as Curzon (1985) points out, those who compile a syllabus tend to follow the traditional textbook approach of an ‘order of contents’, or a pattern prescribed by a ‘logical’ approach to the subject, or – consciously or unconsciously – a the shape of a university course in which they may have participated. Thus, an approach to curriculum theory and practice which focuses on syllabus is only really concerned with content. Curriculum is a body of knowledge-content and/or subjects. Education in this sense, is the process by which these are transmitted or ‘delivered’ to students by the most effective methods that can be devised (Blenkin et al 1992: 23).

Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge that they wish to transmit. ‘It is also because this view of curriculum has been adopted that many teachers in primary schools’, Kelly (1985: 7) claims, ‘have regarded issues of curriculum as of no concern to them, since they have not regarded their task as being to transmit bodies of knowledge in this manner’.

Curriculum as product

The dominant modes of describing and managing education are today couched in the productive form. Education is most often seen as a technical exercise. Objectives are set, a plan drawn up, then applied, and the outcomes (products) measured. It is a way of thinking about education that has grown in influence in the United Kingdom since the late 1970s with the rise of vocationalism and the concern with competencies. Thus, in the late 1980s and the 1990s many of the debates about the National Curriculum for schools did not so much concern how the curriculum was thought about as to what its objectives and content might be.

It is the work of two American writers Franklin Bobbitt (1918; 1928) and Ralph W. Tyler (1949) that dominate theory and practice within this tradition. In The Curriculum Bobbitt writes as follows:

The central theory [of curriculum] is simple. Human life, however varied, consists in the performance of specific activities. Education that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and adequately for these specific activities. However numerous and diverse they may be for any social class they can be discovered. This requires only that one go out into the world of affairs and discover the particulars of which their affairs consist. These will show the abilities, attitudes, habits, appreciations and forms of knowledge that men need. These will be the objectives of the curriculum. They will be numerous, definite and particularized. The curriculum will then be that series of experiences which children and youth must have by way of obtaining those objectives. (1918: 42)

This way of thinking about curriculum theory and practice was heavily influenced by the development of management thinking and practice. The rise of ‘scientific management’ is often associated with the name of its main advocate F. W. Taylor. Basically what he proposed was greater division of labour with jobs being simplified; an extension of managerial control over all elements of the workplace; and cost accounting based on systematic time-and-motion study. All three elements were involved in this conception of curriculum theory and practice. For example, one of the attractions of this approach to curriculum theory was that it involved detailed attention to what people needed to know in order to work, live their lives and so on. A familiar, and more restricted, example of this approach can be found in many training programmes, where particular tasks or jobs have been analyzed – broken down into their component elements – and lists of competencies drawn up. In other words, the curriculum was not to be the result of ‘armchair speculation’ but the product of systematic study. Bobbitt’s work and theory met with mixed responses. One telling criticism that was made, and can continue to be made, of such approaches is that there is no social vision or programme to guide the process of curriculum construction. As it stands it is a technical exercise. However, it wasn’t criticisms such as this which initially limited the impact of such curriculum theory in the late 1920s and 1930s. Rather, the growing influence of ‘progressive’, child-centred approaches shifted the ground to more romantic notions of education. Bobbitt’s long lists of objectives and his emphasis on order and structure hardly sat comfortably with such forms.

The Progressive movement lost much of its momentum in the late 1940s in the United States and from that period the work of Ralph W. Tyler, in particular, has made a lasting impression on curriculum theory and practice. He shared Bobbitt’s emphasis on rationality and relative simplicity. His theory was based on four fundamental questions:

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 these educational experiences be effectively organized?

4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained? (Tyler 1949: 1)

Like Bobbitt he also placed an emphasis on the formulation of behavioural objectives.

Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ pattern of behaviour, it becomes important to recognize that any statements of objectives of the school should be a statement of changes to take place in the students. (Tyler 1949: 44)

We can see how these concerns translate into a nicely-ordered procedure: one that is very similar to the technical or productive thinking set out below.

Step 1 : Diagnosis of need Step 2 : Formulation of objectives Step 3 : Selection of content Step 4 : Organization of content Step 5 : Selection of learning experiences Step 6 : Organization of learning experiences Step 7 : Determination of what to evaluate and of the ways and means of doing it. (Taba 1962)

The attraction of this way of approaching curriculum theory and practice is that it is systematic and has considerable organizing power. Central to the approach is the formulation of behavioural objectives – providing a clear notion of outcome so that content and method may be organized and the results evaluated.

There are a number of issues with this approach to curriculum theory and practice. The first is that the plan or programme assumes great importance. For example, we might look at a more recent definition of curriculum as: ‘A programme of activities (by teachers and pupils) designed so that pupils will attain so far as possible certain educational and other schooling ends or objectives (Grundy 1987: 11). The problem here is that such programmes inevitably exist prior to and outside the learning experiences. This takes much away from learners. They can end up with little or no voice. They are told what they must learn and how they will do it. The success or failure of both the programme and the individual learners is judged on the basis of whether pre-specified changes occur in the behaviour and person of the learner (the meeting of behavioural objectives). If the plan is tightly adhered to, there can only be limited opportunity for educators to make use of the interactions that occur. It also can deskill educators in another way. For example, a number of curriculum programmes, particularly in the USA, have attempted to make the student experience ‘teacher proof’. The logic of this approach is for the curriculum to be designed outside of the classroom or school, as is the case with the National Curriculum in the UK. Educators then apply programmes and are judged by the products of their actions. It turns educators into technicians.

Second, there are questions around the nature of objectives. This model is hot on measurability. It implies that behaviour can be objectively, mechanistically measured. There are obvious dangers here – there always has to be some uncertainty about what is being measured. We only have to reflect on questions of success in our work. It is often very difficult to judge what the impact of particular experiences has been. Sometimes it is years after the event that we come to appreciate something of what has happened. For example, most informal educators who have been around a few years will have had the experience of an ex-participant telling them in great detail about how some forgotten event (forgotten to the worker that is) brought about some fundamental change. Yet there is something more.

In order to measure, things have to be broken down into smaller and smaller units. The result, as many of you will have experienced, can be long lists of often trivial skills or competencies. This can lead to a focus in this approach to curriculum theory and practice on the parts rather than the whole; on the trivial, rather than the significant. It can lead to an approach to education and assessment which resembles a shopping list. When all the items are ticked, the person has passed the course or has learnt something. The role of overall judgment is somehow sidelined.

Third, there is a real problem when we come to examine what educators actually do in the classroom, for example. Much of the research concerning teacher thinking and classroom interaction, and curriculum innovation has pointed to the lack of impact on actual pedagogic practice of objectives (see Stenhouse 1974; and Cornbleth 1990, for example). One way of viewing this is that teachers simply get it wrong – they ought to work with objectives. I think we need to take this problem very seriously and not dismiss it in this way. The difficulties that educators experience with objectives in the classroom may point to something inherently wrong with the approach – that it is not grounded in the study of educational exchanges. It is a model of curriculum theory and practice largely imported from technological and industrial settings.

Fourth, there is the problem of unanticipated results. The focus on pre-specified goals may lead both educators and learners to overlook learning that is occurring as a result of their interactions, but which is not listed as an objective.

The apparent simplicity and rationality of this approach to curriculum theory and practice, and the way in which it mimics industrial management have been powerful factors in its success. A further appeal has been the ability of academics to use the model to attack teachers:

I believe there is a tendency, recurrent enough to suggest that it may be endemic in the approach, for academics in education to use the objectives model as a stick with which to beat teachers. ‘What are your objectives?’ is more often asked in a tone of challenge than one of interested and helpful inquiry. The demand for objectives is a demand for justification rather than a description of ends… It is not about curriculum design, but rather an expression of irritation in the problems of accountability in education. (Stenhouse 1974: 77)

So what are the other alternatives?

Curriculum as process

We have seen that the curriculum as product model is heavily dependent on the setting of behavioural objectives. The curriculum, essentially, is a set of documents for implementation. Another way of looking at curriculum theory and practice is via process. In this sense curriculum is not a physical thing, but rather the interaction of teachers, students and knowledge. In other words, curriculum is what actually happens in the classroom and what people do to prepare and evaluate. What we have in this model is a number of elements in constant interaction. It is an active process and links with the practical form of reasoning set out by Aristotle.

Teachers enter particular schooling and situations with

an understanding of their role and the expectations others have of them, and

a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter.

Guided by these, they encourage

out of which may come

They

Perhaps the two major things that set this apart from the model for informal education are first, the context in which the process occurs (‘particular schooling situations’); and second, the fact that teachers enter the classroom or any other formal educational setting with a more fully worked-through idea of what is about to happen. Here I have described that as entering the situation with ‘a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter’.

This form of words echoes those of Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) who produced one of the best-known explorations of a process model of curriculum theory and practice. He defined curriculum tentatively: ‘A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice’. He suggests that a curriculum is rather like a recipe in cookery.

It can be criticized on nutritional or gastronomic grounds – does it nourish the students and does it taste good? – and it can be criticized on the grounds of practicality – we can’t get hold of six dozen larks’ tongues and the grocer can’t find any ground unicorn horn! A curriculum, like the recipe for a dish, is first imagined as a possibility, then the subject of experiment. The recipe offered publicly is in a sense a report on the experiment. Similarly, a curriculum should be grounded in practice. It is an attempt to describe the work observed in classrooms that it is adequately communicated to teachers and others. Finally, within limits, a recipe can varied according to taste. So can a curriculum. (Stenhouse 1975: 4-5)

Stenhouse shifted the ground a little bit here. He was not saying that curriculum is the process, but rather the means by which the experience of attempting to put an educational proposal into practice is made available. The reason why he did this, I suspect, is that otherwise there is a danger of widening the meaning of the term so much that it embraces almost everything and hence means very little. For example, in a discussion of the so-called ‘youth work curriculum’ (Newman & Ingram 1989), the following definition was taken as a starting point: ‘those processes which enhance or, if they go wrong, inhibit a person’s learning’. This was then developed and a curriculum became: ‘an organic process by which learning is offered, accepted and internalized’ (Newman & Ingram 1989: 1). The problem with this sort of definition, as Robin Barrow (1984) points out, is that what this does is to widen the meaning of the term to such an extent that it just about becomes interchangeable with ‘education’ itself. More specifically, if curriculum is process then the word curriculum is redundant because process would do very nicely! The simple equation of curriculum with process is a very slap-happy basis on which to proceed.

We also need to reflect on why curriculum theory and practice came into use by educators (as against policy-makers). It was essentially as a way of helping them to think about their work before, during and after interventions; as a means of enabling educators to make judgments about the direction their work was taking. This is what Stenhouse was picking up on.

As a minimum, a curriculum should provide a basis for planning a course, studying it empirically and considering the grounds of its justification. It should offer:

A. :

1. Principle for the selection of content – what is to be learned and taught

2. Principles for the development of a teaching strategy – how it is to be learned and taught.

3. Principles for the making of decisions about sequence.

4. Principles on which to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of individual students and differentiate the general principles 1, 2 and 3 above, to meet individual cases.

B. :

1. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of students.

2. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of teachers.

3. Guidance as to the feasibility of implementing the curriculum in varying school contexts, pupil contexts, environments and peer-group situations.

4. Information about the variability of effects in differing contexts and on different pupils and an understanding of the causes of the variation.

C. :

A formulation of the intention or aim of the curriculum which is accessible to critical scrutiny.

Stenhouse 1975: 5

There are a number of contrasts in this model of curriculum theory and practice as compared with the product model. First, where the product model appeals to the workshop for a model, this process model looks to the world of experimentation.

The idea is that of an educational science in which each classroom is a laboratory, each teacher a member of the scientific community… The crucial point is that the proposal is not to be regarded as an unqualified recommendation but rather as a provisional specification claiming no more than to be worth putting to the test of practice, Such proposals claim to be intelligent rather than correct. (Stenhouse 1975: 142)

Thus, in this sense, a curriculum is a particular form of specification about the practice of teaching. It is not a package of materials or a syllabus of ground to be covered. ‘It is a way of translating any educational idea into a hypothesis testable in practice. It invites critical testing rather than acceptance’ (Stenhouse 1975: 142).

Second, and associated with the above, given the uniqueness of each classroom setting, it means that any proposal, even at school level, needs to be tested, and verified by each teacher in his/her classroom ( ibid : 143). It is not like a curriculum package which is designed to be delivered almost anywhere.

Third, outcomes are no longer the central and defining feature. Rather than tightly specifying behavioural objectives and methods in advance, what happens in this model of curriculum theory and practice is that content and means develop as teachers and students work together.

Fourth, the learners in this model are not objects to be acted upon. They have a clear voice in the way that the sessions evolve. The focus is on interactions. This can mean that attention shifts from teaching to learning. The product model, by having a pre-specified plan or programme, tends to direct attention to teaching. For example, how can this information be got over? A process approach to curriculum theory and practice, it is argued by writers like Grundy (1987), tends towards making the process of learning the central concern of the teacher. This is because this way of thinking emphasizes interpretation and meaning-making. As we have seen each classroom and each exchange is different and has to be made sense of.

However, when we come to think about this way of approaching curriculum in practice, a number of possible problems do arise. The first is a problem for those who want some greater degree of uniformity in what is taught. This approach to the theory of curriculum, because it places meaning-making and thinking at its core and treats learners as subjects rather than objects, can lead to very different means being employed in classrooms and a high degree of variety in content. As Stenhouse comments, the process model is essentially a critical model, not a marking model.

It can never be directed towards an examination as an objective without loss of quality, since the standards of the examination then override the standards immanent in the subject. This does not mean that students taught on the process model cannot be examined, but it does mean that the examinations must be taken in their stride as they pursue other aspirations. And if the examination is a by-product there is an implication that the quality the student shows in it must be an under-estimate of his real quality. It is hence rather difficult to get the weak student through an examination using a process model. Crammers cannot use it, since it depends upon a commitment to educational aims. (Stenhouse 1975: 95)

To some extent variation is limited by factors such as public examinations. The exchange between students and teachers does not float free of the context in which it arises. At the end of the day many students and their families place a high premium on exam or subject success and this inevitably enters into the classroom. This highlights a second problem with the model we have just outlined – that it may not pay enough attention to the context in which learning takes place (more of this later).

Third, there is the ‘problem’ of teachers. The major weakness and, indeed, strength of the process model is that it rests upon the quality of teachers. If they are not up to much then there is no safety net in the form of prescribed curriculum materials. The approach is dependent upon the cultivation of wisdom and meaning-making in the classroom. If the teacher is not up to this, then there will be severe limitations on what can happen educationally. There have been some attempts to overcome this problem by developing materials and curriculum packages which focus more closely on the ‘process of discovery’ or ‘problem-solving’, for example in science. But there is a danger in this approach. Processes become reduced to sets of skills – for example, how to light a bunsen burner. When students are able to demonstrate certain skills, they are deemed to have completed the process. As Grundy comments, the actions have become the ends; the processes have become the product. Whether or not students are able to apply the skills to make sense of the world around them is somehow overlooked (Grundy 1987: 77).

Fourth, we need to look back at our process model of curriculum theory and practice and what we have subsequently discussed, and return to Aristotle and to Freire. The model we have looked at here does not fully reflect the process explored earlier. In particular, it does not make explicit the commitments associated with phronesis. And it is to that we will now turn.

Curriculum as praxis

Curriculum as praxis is, in many respects, a development of the process model. While the process model is driven by general principles and places an emphasis on judgment and meaning making, it does not make explicit statements about the interests it serves. It may, for example, be used in such a way that does not make continual reference to collective human well-being and to the emancipation of the human spirit. The praxis model of curriculum theory and practice brings these to the centre of the process and makes an explicit commitment to emancipation. Thus action is not simply informed, it is also committed. It is praxis.

Critical pedagogy goes beyond situating the learning experience within the experience of the learner: it is a process which takes the experiences of both the learner and the teacher and, through dialogue and negotiation, recognizes them both as problematic… [It] allows, indeed encourages, students and teachers together to confront the real problems of their existence and relationships… When students confront the real problems of their existence they will soon also be faced with their own oppression. (Grundy 1987: 105)

We can amend our ‘curriculum as process’ model to take account of these concerns.

Teachers enter particular schooling and situations with

a personal, but shared idea of the good and a commitment to human emancipation,

an ability to think critically, -in-action

an understanding of their role and the expectations others have of them, and

a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter.

Guided by these, they encourage

conversations between, and with, people in the situation

out of which may come

informed and committed action.

They

continually evaluate the process and what they can see of outcomes.

In this approach the curriculum itself develops through the dynamic interaction of action and reflection. ‘That is, the curriculum is not simply a set of plans to be implemented, but rather is constituted through an active process in which planning, acting and evaluating are all reciprocally related and integrated into the process’ (Grundy 1987: 115). At its centre is praxis : informed, committed action.

How might we recognize this? First, I think we should be looking for practice which does not focus exclusively on individuals, but pays careful attention to collective understandings and practices and to structural questions. For example, in sessions which seek to explore the experiences of different cultural and racial groups in society, we could be looking to see whether the direction of the work took people beyond a focus on individual attitudes. Are participants confronting the material conditions through which those attitudes are constituted, for example?

Second, we could be looking for a commitment expressed in action to the exploration of educators’ values and their practice. Are they, for example, able to say in a coherent way what they think makes for human well-being and link this with their practice? We could also be looking for certain values – especially an emphasis on human emancipation.

Third, we could expect practitioners committed to praxis to be exploring their practice with their peers. They would be able to say how their actions with respect to particular interventions reflected their ideas about what makes for the good, and to say what theories were involved.

Curriculum in context

To round off this discussion of curriculum we do need to pay further attention to the social context in which it is created. One criticism that has been made of the praxis model (especially as it is set out by Grundy) is that it does not place a strong enough emphasis upon context. This is a criticism that can also be laid at the door of the other approaches. In this respect the work of Catherine Cornbleth (1990) is of some use. She sees curriculum as a particular type of process. Curriculum for her is what actually happens in classrooms, that is, ‘an ongoing social process comprised of the interactions of students, teachers, knowledge and milieu’ (1990: 5). In contrast, Stenhouse defines curriculum as the attempt to describe what happens in classrooms rather than what actually occurs. Cornbleth further contends that curriculum as practice cannot be understood adequately or changed substantially without attention to its setting or context. Curriculum is contextually shaped. While I may quibble about the simple equation of curriculum with process, what Cornbleth does by focusing on the interaction is to bring out the significance of context.

First, by introducing the notion of milieu into the discussion of curriculum she again draws attention to the impact of some factors that we have already noted. Of especial significance here are examinations and the social relationships of the school – the nature of the teacher-student relationship, the organization of classes, streaming and so on. These elements are what are sometimes known as the hidden curriculum. This was a term credited to Philip W. Jackson (1968) but it had been present as an acknowledged element in education for some time before. For example, John Dewey in Experience and Education referred to the ‘collateral learning’ of attitudes that occur in schools, and that may well be of more long-range importance than the explicit school curriculum (1938: 48). A fairly standard (product) definition of the ‘hidden curriculum’ is given by Vic Kelly. He argues it is those things which students learn, ‘because of the way in which the work of the school is planned and organized but which are not in themselves overtly included in the planning or even in the consciousness of those responsible for the school arrangements (1988: 8). The learning associated with the ‘hidden curriculum’ is most often treated in a negative way. It is learning that is smuggled in and serves the interests of the status quo. The emphasis on regimentation, on bells and time management, and on streaming are sometimes seen as preparing young people for the world of capitalist production. What we do need to recognize is that such ‘hidden’ learning is not all negative and can be potentially liberating. ‘In so far as they enable students to develop socially valued knowledge and skills… or to form their own peer groups and subcultures, they may contribute to personal and collective autonomy and to possible critique and challenge of existing norms and institutions’ (Cornbleth 1990: 50). What we also need to recognize is that by treating curriculum as a contextualized social process, the notion of hidden curriculum becomes rather redundant. If we need to stay in touch with milieu as we build curriculum then it is not hidden but becomes a central part of our processes.

Second, by paying attention to milieu, we can begin to get a better grasp of the impact of structural and socio-cultural process on teachers and students. As Cornbleth argues, economic and gender relations, for example, do not simply bypass the systemic or structural context of curriculum and enter directly into classroom practice. They are mediated by intervening layers of the education system (Cornbleth 1990: 7). Thus, the impact of these factors may be quite different to that expected.

Third, if curriculum theory and practice is inextricably linked to milieu then it becomes clear why there have been problems about introducing it into non-schooling contexts like youth work; and it is to this area which we will now turn.

Curriculum as the boundary between formal and informal education

Jeffs and Smith (1990; 1999) have argued that the notion of curriculum provides a central dividing line between formal and informal education. They contend that curriculum theory and practice was formed within the schooling context and that there are major problems when it is introduced into informal forms of pedagogy.

The adoption of curriculum theory and practice by some informal educators appears to have arisen from a desire to be clear about content. Yet there are crucial difficulties with the notion of curriculum in this context. These centre around the extent to which it is possible to have a clear idea, in advance (and even during the process), of the activities and topics that will be involved in a particular piece of work.

At any one time, outcomes may not be marked by a high degree of specificity. In a similar way, the nature of the activities used often cannot be predicted. It may be that we can say something about how the informal educator will work. However, knowing in advance about broad processes and ethos isn’t the same as having a knowledge of the programme. We must, thus, conclude that approaches to the curriculum which focus on objectives and detailed programmes appear to be incompatible with informal education. ( Jeffs & Smith 1990 : 15)

In other words, they are arguing that a product model of curriculum is not compatible with the emphasis on process and praxis within informal education.

However, process and praxis models of curriculum also present problems in the context of informal education. If you look back at at our models of process and compare them with the model of informal education presented above then it is clear that we can have a similar problem with pre-specification. One of the key feature that differentiates the two is that the curriculum model has the teacher entering the situation with a proposal for action which sets out the essential principles and features of the educational encounter. Informal educators do not have, and do not need, this element. They do not enter with a clear proposal for action. Rather, they have an idea of what makes for human well-being, and an appreciation of their overall role and strategy (strategy here being some idea about target group and broad method e.g. detached work). They then develop their aims and interventions in interaction. And what is this element we have been discussing? It is nothing more nor less than what Stenhouse considers to be a curriculum!

The other key difference is context. Even if we were to go the whole hog and define curriculum as process there remain substantive problems. As Cornbleth (1990), and Jeffs and Smith (1990, 1999) have argued, curriculum cannot be taken out of context, and the context in which it was formed was the school. Curriculum theory and practice only makes sense when considered alongside notions like class, teacher, course, lesson and so on. You only have to look at the language that has been used by our main proponents: Tyler, Stenhouse, Cornbleth and Grundy, to see this. It is not a concept that stands on its own. It developed in relation to teaching and within particular organizational relationships and expectations. Alter the context and the nature of the process alters . We then need different ways of describing what is going on. Thus, it is no surprise that when curriculum theory and practice are introduced into what are essentially informal forms of working such as youth work and community work, their main impact is to formalize significant aspects of the work. One of the main outcome of curriculum experiments within youth work has been work, for example in the field of health promotion, which involve pre-specified activities, visiting workers, regular meetings and so on. Within the language of youth work these are most often called programmes or projects ( Foreman 1990 ). Within a school they would be called a course.

What is being suggested here is that when informal educators take on the language of curriculum they are crossing the boundary between their chosen specialism and the domain of formal education. This they need to do from time to time. There will be formal interludes in their work, appropriate times for them to mount courses and to discuss content and method in curriculum terms. But we should not fall into the trap of thinking that to be educators we have to adopt curriculum theory and practice. The fact that so many have been misled into believing this demonstrates just how powerful the ideas of schooling are. Education is something more than schooling.

We have explored four different approaches to curriculum theory and practice:

Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted . Curriculum as an attempt to achieve certain ends in students – product . Curriculum as process . Curriculum as praxis .

In a number of respects these different bodies of curriculum theory and practice link to the four main forces in North American curriculum-making in the twentieth century: the liberal educators; the scientific curriculum makers; the developmental/person-centred; and the social meliorists (those that sought more radical social change) (after Kliebart 1987).


Guardians of an ancient tradition tied to the power of reason and the finest elements of the Western cultural heritage	Human life consists in the performance of specific activities. Education that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and adequately for these specific activities.	The natural order of development in the child was most significant and scientifically defensible basis for determining what should be taught	Schools as a major, perhaps the, principal force for social change and social justice
Systematic development of reasoning power and the communication of ‘the canon’.	Influenced by the rise of scientific management and notions of social efficiency. Focus on setting objectives (the statement of changes to take place in the students) and the organization of schooling to meet these.	Sought a curriculum in harmony with the child’s ‘real’ interests, needs and learning patterns	Corruption and vice, inequalities of race and gender, and the abuse of privilege and power should be addressed directly. with the aim of raising a new generation equipped to deal effectively with these abuses.
Charles W. Taylor	Franklin Bobbitt and Ralph W. Tyler	G. Stanley Hall	Lester Frank Ward
transmission	product	process	praxis

We shouldn’t push the similarities too far – but there are some interesting overlaps – and this does alert us both to the changing understanding and to shifting policy orientations over time.

For the moment we are having to operate within a policy environment that prizes the productive and technical. Furthermore, the discourse has become so totalizing that forms of education that do not have a curricula basis are squeezed. The temptation is always there to either be colonized by curriculum theory or adopt ways of describing practice that do not make sense in terms of the processes and commitments involved. Kleibart’s analysis provides us with some hope – things will change. However, there is no guarantee that they will move in a more edifying direction.

An Approach to Curriculum Design

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Curriculum Development and the 3 Models [+ Free Course Plan Template]

Learner-centric curriculum development can improve engagement, participation and outcomes in any online or in-person learning environment

Amanda Stutt

Curriculum Development and the 3 Models [+ Free Course Plan Template]

Curriculum development can be defined as the step-by-step process used to create positive improvements in courses offered by a school, college or university. As the world continues to evolve, new discoveries have to be roped into the education curricula. Innovative teaching techniques and strategies (such active learning or blended learning ) are also constantly being devised in order to improve the student learning experience. As a result, an institution must have a plan in place for acknowledging these shifts—and then be able to implement them in the college curriculum.

This article will explain what curriculum development is, why it’s important for an instructor’s pedagogy, and how the three different models of curriculum design can be used to set any course up for success. You’ll understand why a thoughtful course plan is essential to the success of any classroom—and any group of students. Plus, we’ll guide you through building your own curriculum using our fully customizable course planning template .

What is curriculum development, what is curriculum design, what are the three models of curriculum design.

What are the different categories of curriculum development?

What is curriculum planning?

What is curriculum development and renewal, what’s the difference between curriculum development and curriculum design, how to create your own college curriculum [with free course planning template].

The way we understand and theorize curriculum today has changed significantly over the years. Today, the most simple definition of the word “ curriculum ” is the subjects that make up a course of study at schools, universities or colleges. The word curriculum has roots in Latin. It originally meant “racing chariot” and came from the verb currere , “to run.” Curriculum development is synonymous with course planning or course development.

It’s important to recognize that differences in course design exist: a math course taken at one university may cover the same material, but the educator may teach it in a different way. However, the core fundamentals of curriculum development remain the same.

Higher education institutions must balance two opposing schools of thought. On the one hand, some believe students should have a foundation of common knowledge, through core curriculum requirements. Others believe that students should be able to choose their own educational pursuits, by choosing their own courses or area of study. This fundamental disagreement is a frequently discussed topic in higher education environments, due to Harvard University’s core course requirement restructuring process.

An important element of curriculum design is identifying the prerequisites for each course. This can include prior courses taken, as well as relevant work experience or entrance exam completion. Typically, more advanced courses in any subject require some foundation in basic courses, but some coursework requires study in other departments, as in the sequence of biology classes for upper-level biochemistry courses.

The curriculum is the foundation for educators and students in outlining what is critical for teaching and learning. The curriculum must include the required goals, methods, materials and assessments to allow for effective instruction.

Goals: Goals within a curriculum are the expectations based on course standards for learning and teaching. The scope and skills required to meet a goal are often made explicitly clear to students. Goals must include the range and level of detail that instructors must teach.

Methods: Methods are the instructional approaches and procedures that educators use to engage inside and outside the classroom. These choices support the facilitation of learning experiences in order to promote a student’s ability to understand and apply content and skills. Methods are differentiated to meet student needs and interests, task demands, and learning environment. Methods are adjusted based on ongoing review of student progress towards meeting the goals.

Materials: Materials are the tools selected to implement methods and achieve the goals of the curriculum. Materials are intentionally chosen to support a student’s learning. Material choices reflect student interest, cultural diversity, world perspectives, and address all types of diverse learners.

Assessment: Assessment in a curriculum is the ongoing process of gathering information about a student’s learning. This includes a variety of ways to document what the student knows, understands, and can do with their knowledge and skills. Information from assessment is used to make decisions about instructional approaches, teaching materials, and academic supports needed to enhance opportunities for the student and to guide future instruction.

Take your curriculum development to the next level with our Course Planning Template

Now that we’ve covered curriculum development and planning, let’s discuss curriculum design . Curriculum design is the deliberate organization of course activities and delivery within a classroom. When higher ed instructors design their curriculum, they identify:

Learning objectives
Method(s) of delivery
Timely and relevant bridge-ins
Course content and readings
Both low- and high-stakes assessments

Remember that the curriculum contains the knowledge and skills that a student needs to master in order to move to the next level. By thinking about how their curriculum is designed, teachers ensure they’ve covered all the necessary requirements. From there, they can start exploring various approaches and teaching methods that can help them achieve their goals.

Download Now: Free Course Planning Template

There are three models of curriculum design : subject-centered , learner-centered , and problem-centered design.

Subject-centered curriculum design

Subject-centered curriculum design revolves around a particular subject matter or discipline, such as mathematics, literature or biology. This model of curriculum design tends to focus on the subject, rather than the student. It is the most common model of standardized curriculum that can be found in K-12 public schools.

Instructors compile lists of subjects and specific examples of how they should be studied. In higher education, this methodology is typically found in large university or college classes where teachers focus on a particular subject or discipline.

Subject-centered curriculum design is not student-centered, and the model is less concerned with individual learning styles compared to other forms of curriculum design. This can lead to issues with student engagement and motivation and may cause students who are not responsive to this model to fall behind.

Learner-centered curriculum design

Learner-centered curriculum design, by contrast, revolves around student needs, interests and goals. It acknowledges that students are not uniform but individuals, and therefore should not, in all cases, be subject to a standardized curriculum. This approach aims to empower learners to shape their education through choices. Differentiated instructional plans provide an opportunity to select assignments, teaching and learning experiences, or activities that are timely and relevant. This form of curriculum design has been shown to engage and motivate students. The drawback to this form of curriculum design is that it can create pressure to form content around the learning needs and preferences of students. These insights can be challenging to glean in an online or hybrid learning environment. Balancing individual student interests with the course’s required outcomes could prove to be a daunting task. Download our free course planning template that takes a learner-centered approach to building your curriculum.

Problem-centered curriculum design

Problem-centered curriculum design teaches students how to look at a problem and formulate a solution. A problem-centered curriculum model helps students engage in authentic learning because they’re exposed to real-life issues and skills, which are transferable to the real world. Problem-centered curriculum design has been shown to increase the relevance of the curriculum and encourages creativity, innovation and collaboration in the classroom. The drawback to this model is that the individual needs and interests of students aren’t always accounted for.

By considering all three models of curriculum design before they begin planning, instructors can choose the model that is best suited to both their students and their course.

Download: Free Course Planning Template

What are the different types of curriculum development?

Current curriculum can be broken down into two broad categories: the product category and the process category. The product category is results-oriented. Grades are the prime objective, with the focus lying more on the finished product rather than on the learning process. The process category, however, is more open-ended, and focuses on how learning develops over a period of time. These two categories need to be taken into account when developing curriculum.

Curriculum planning involves implementing different instructional strategies and organizational methods that are focused on achieving optimal student development and student learning outcomes. Instructors might structure their curriculum around daily lesson plans, a specific assignment, a chunk of coursework, certain units within a class, or an entire educational program.

During the curriculum planning phase, educators consider factors that might complement or hinder their lesson. These include institutional requirements, for example. Each administrator at a university or college will have guidelines, principles and a framework that instructors are required to reference as they build out their curricula. Educators are responsible for ensuring that their curriculum planning meets students’ educational needs, and that the materials used are current and comprehensive.

Educators should employ the curriculum process that best incorporates the six components of effective teaching. These components are applicable at both the undergraduate and graduate level:

To demonstrate knowledge of content
To demonstrate the knowledge of students
To select suitable instructional strategy goals
To demonstrate knowledge of resources
To design coherent instruction
To assess student learning

Curriculum development and renewal are vital components of higher education course planning, as they are critical for maintaining the quality and relevance of academic programs. Curriculum development involves the strategic design and creation of educational pathways, ensuring that courses align with institutional objectives and evolving industry needs. It encompasses the establishment of clear learning outcomes, pedagogical approaches, and assessment methods. Given the constantly changing educational landscape, curriculum development is crucial to incorporating emerging knowledge, technologies, and instructional strategies, fostering dynamic and engaging learning experiences. Regular review and updates are essential to keep the curriculum current, reflecting the dynamic nature of disciplines and the evolving requirements of the job market.

Curriculum renewal is equally indispensable, as it allows institutions to revisit and refresh existing academic programs, thus enhancing their quality and continued relevance. It responds to the recognition that curricular content and instructional methods may become outdated over time, necessitating adjustments to maintain program effectiveness. Curriculum renewal involves a comprehensive analysis of program outcomes, stakeholder feedback, and assessment data, ultimately leading to curriculum redesign, the integration of emerging best practices, or the development of new courses and concentrations. The primary aim of curriculum renewal is to ensure that higher education institutions offer programs that equip students with the knowledge and skills needed for success in an ever-changing world while adhering to the expectations of accreditation bodies and the needs of employers, thereby ensuring the value and competitiveness of their educational offerings.

Get our Free Course Planning Template

Curriculum development and curriculum design are two interrelated but distinct processes in the field of higher education. Curriculum development involves the overarching conceptualization and creation of a curriculum, often guided by educational goals, institutional mission, and learner needs. It encompasses the identification of key learning outcomes, the selection of appropriate content, and the sequencing of courses or modules. Curriculum development also involves decisions about assessment strategies, teaching methods, and the overall structure of the educational program. It’s a strategic and long-term endeavor that sets the direction for the educational experience.

Conversely, curriculum design refers to the more detailed and tactical aspects of implementing the curriculum that has been developed. It involves crafting the specific learning materials, activities, and assessments to achieve the established goals and outcomes. Curriculum design focuses on the day-to-day organization of individual courses, determining the order and timing of lessons, and creating instructional materials, such as syllabi, assignments, and assessments. It’s about translating the broader curriculum into practical, actionable plans that educators can use to guide their teaching and students can use to navigate their learning journey. In essence, curriculum development sets the vision, while curriculum design brings that vision to life in the classroom.

Now that we’ve outlined the three models of curriculum development, how do you get started on building out your own course plan? An effective course plan will highlight your proposed curriculum for the semester along with your individual lesson plans. Developing an engaging course plan means considering how learning occurs before, during and after your class. Here are some factors to consider.

Before your lesson, consider your learning objectives and source meaningful content
During your lesson , administer relevant formative assessments to gauge pre-existing—and current—understanding of course concepts
After your lesson , determine what students have learned by facilitating summative assessments

A thoughtful course plan is an essential piece of the instructional design process. Not only does it help you track progress towards your learning objectives, it ensures lectures are balanced with adequate opportunities for reflection, application of knowledge and community building. Here are a few questions to ask yourself pertaining to your learning objectives, assessments and course content.


Do my learning objectives indicate what students will accomplish by the end of the lesson?	Do my formative assessments measure students’ ability to meet my learning objectives?	Does my course content allow students to accomplish my learning objectives?
Do my learning objectives reflect what learners will do in a given unit (versus what you will do)?	Do my summative assessments equitably and fairly test students in any modality (face-to-face, hybrid, online)?	Does my course content provide a mix of lecturing, comprehension and reflection?

These steps and questions are only just the tip of the iceberg. Depending on the curriculum model, educators must make a concerted effort to design and deliver content that strengthens a sense of belonging, participation and performance in and out of class.

Curriculum design tips

These curriculum design tips can help higher education instructors manage every step of designing their classroom curriculum:

Identify stakeholder needs as early as possible when designing the curriculum. By conducting data analysis on a group of learners, instructors can uncover data what learners already know and what they still need to learn, in order to be proficient in a particular area or skill. It may also include information about a student’s strengths and weaknesses.
Try making a curriculum map in order to evaluate the order and flow of instruction. Curriculum mapping provides educators with indexes or visual diagrams of a curriculum. This way, educators can easily identify potential learning gaps, repetition or ordering issues in instruction plans.
Establish evaluation methods that will be implemented throughout the duration of the term to better understand instructor and learner achievement, as well as the efficacy of the curriculum. Evaluation will help instructors better understand if the curriculum design is achieving its desired results. The most effective evaluation is summative, and ongoing throughout the duration of the term.
Remember that curriculum design is not a one-step process ; continuous improvement is a necessity. The design of the curriculum should be assessed periodically and refined based on assessment data. This may involve making alterations to the design partway through the course to ensure that learning outcomes or a certain level of proficiency will be achieved at the end of the course.

Use our Free Course Planning Template

Developing, designing and implementing an education curriculum is no easy task—especially with online and hybrid learning. With educational technology playing an increasingly essential role in higher education and with today’s diverse student body, instructors have their work cut out for them. But by following the fundamental guidelines and framework of curriculum development, educators will be setting themselves—and their students—up for long-term success.

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Introduction to Theory and Curriculum Design

Paolo Oprandi; Ikedinachi Ogamba; and Dr Andrew Middleton

Within this theme, we discuss the radical redesign of teaching and learning for active learning.

Active learning should not be an add-on to a curriculum: for it to work well and not to be resisted by colleagues and students, it should be embedded deep into the curriculum design. Additionally, active learning is about providing opportunities to practise the application of knowledge (Pratt-Adams et al., 2020). In an active learning, curriculum knowledge is constructed, applied and evaluated through activity, which might include physical, mental and emotional acts of learning (Taylor et al., 2019). While the core aims tutors have for their students’ learning does not need to change, it is likely that the aims will need to reflect the active learning tasks and some changes in emphasis will need to be made. Furthermore, learning activities and assessment are interwoven and aligned. If students have engaged in actively applying knowledge to their contexts then assessments need to reflect this new activity (Ruge et al., 2019).

Under this theme heading, we consider the institutional approaches to applying active learning across the campus in terms of decentralising knowledge production, welcoming the students’ contributions to the discipline they are studying and changing the educational processes and physical spaces. We then move on to consider designing the curriculum for active learning at a modular level. Finally, we consider the particular challenges to curriculum design that the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown presented and the active learning solutions that tutors came up with.

Institutional Approaches

In universities across the UK there are an increasing number of institutional projects supporting active learning curricula (Pratt-Adams et al., 2020). Where approaches to teaching and assessment are introduced across the organisation the ease with which tutors can apply it to their teaching and the potential impact on student learning is much greater. The reason for this is manyfold. Physical spaces, such as classrooms, and organisational regulations, such as assessment processes and timetabling, can be designed for active learning, and cultural barriers posed by traditional teaching and assessment can be lowered. For example, expectations from colleagues, moderators and external examiners can be aligned to active learning curricula and the expectations students have for active engagement can be embedded on transition from school to HE.

In Radically collaborative learning environments Betts talks of radical changes to education that active learning curricula might involve. The importance of creating curricula using student-centred pedagogy is well understood, but Betts’ vision is more radical. He talks of the need to decentralise education in terms of design, content, delivery, questioning and the construction of knowledge. His ideas include sharing responsibility for teaching and learning between student and teacher, and the co-creation of learning artefacts. He introduces terms such as re-constructive alignment and backward design (Emory, 2014), which includes ideas of aligning learning outcomes and teaching with student involvement and input, one or more times through the term.

Beggs ’ chapter illustrates the process that took place at Ulster University leading to the transition to a campus that supports active learning – including many of the change management strategies that this transition required. Replicating the need for teaching and learning to be inclusive, the move to an active learning campus incorporated inclusive design as a fundamental to the project, building a community of practice with staff and students and a shared understanding of the project. Importantly the transition required a redesign of physical spaces and classrooms.

Going forward, if we want to change education for the better, the importance of thinking about active learning at an institutional level is paramount. In terms of student learning, the success of an active learning curriculum is much greater when it is supported at an institutional level. Betts introduces some radical redesign ideas, while Beggs suggests some practical steps to achieving this.

Active Learning Curricula

Chickering and Gamson (1987) establish a well-cited set of principles for undergraduate teaching, however, frameworks have been used subsequently to explain how to create engaging teaching. The chapters in this section set out practical frameworks for use in either design workshops or for independent use. Design frameworks allow the active learning community to answer an essential challenging question for the promotion of active curricula: how can teachers transition their practice to the active learning paradigm to enhance or transform the ways they engage with their students? (Nicol & Draper, 2009)

Whether the academic is designing afresh or transitioning to active practice, Bel and Tomczak offer six facets which create a form of constructive alignment (Biggs & Tang, 2011) and enable the designer to build upon a learner’s intrinsic motivations towards their development as constructors of knowledge. The tool encourages the academic to incorporate exploratory pedagogies that encourage learning by making safe mistakes, thereby recognising the importance of risk-taking in the active philosophy.

Curriculum design involves an interplay of designing both holistically and at the detailed level. It requires a thorough understanding of the rationale behind taking an active approach and for making sound decisions about which methods should be used. The Be ACTIVE Framework formulated by Broderick, O’Leary et al. helps us to develop that understanding while providing a guided and supported approach, along with a useful accompanying infographic and linked video tutorials. The framework is intended to help all those who teach or who develop policy to make the commitment to active learning. The framework is equally theoretical, structured, and exploratory, and prompts thinking about how to design the situation holistically as much as it is about developing specific techniques.

Fox et al.’s focus is on Engaging and Empowering the Early Career Academic as active learning curriculum designers. Their aim has been to develop flexible approaches to curriculum design and delivery that focus on skills development through work-integrated learning; approaches that are experiential and which involve peers in project-based activities and as problem solvers. The models explored in this chapter are less determined by the systematic transmission of knowledge framed to meet a given set of learning outcomes and more focused on accommodating an ecology of self-determined learning.

Oprandi focuses on Curriculum Design that Welcomes Students into the Discipline and how theoretical frameworks can be used to counter feelings of disciplinary alienation. He provides a framework to help us develop ‘welcoming’ designs that promote inclusion and learner agency. This focuses our attention on the experiential nature of disciplinary knowledge: where it has come from, how theories can be interrogated and applied, and how students ‘come to know’ and learn to contest the knowledge they find. With this in mind, and using examples from Linguistics and Chemistry, Oprandi advises that students can be engaged in topics by asking them to apply disciplinary theoretical framings in application tasks before involving students in a discussion about the validity of the theory.

Schwittay discusses the use of scenario building to engage students in active learning (Lyon, 2016). The unique nature of this approach, as presented in this chapter, is that it promotes critical analysis of various social, economic and ecological challenges, and on another hand facilitates the design of possible responses and solutions. This idea is useful for integrating education for sustainable development in curriculum design, teaching, and learning in the classroom. It will help in developing the learner who would be ready to problem-solve and tackle the global challenges of the modern world.

These chapters, and many others in this collection, reflect Barnett’s (2009) idea of an education in which the student exists in a state of ‘coming to know’ and learning agency.

Blended & Hybrid Curricula

Blended and hybrid curriculum design aims to meet the needs of various individual learners and group through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities online and/or face-to-face. These approaches have become more popular within higher education following changes to teaching and learning and design and delivery during the Covid-19 pandemic (Plews et al.; 2021; Zeivots & Shalavin, 2021). These chapters provide inspirations, ideas and models to empower academics and students to adopt and engage in active learning in a blended and hybrid teaching and learning context.

Stirling introduces the “sandwich model” which suggests a three-stage cycle for delivery flipped learning as opposed to the traditional two-stage flipped classroom. The model involves the “sandwiching” of asynchronous self-directed student learning between two staff-directed synchronous sessions of lectures and group discussion. It proposes a core principle for enhancing active learning, which is applicable in designing teaching and learning sessions in various disciplines as “two points of synchronous engagement between which self-directed learning is sandwiched”.

Cullen and McCabe discuss the TREC model for designing, delivering and engaging students in active learning in “live” online classes. They presented a 4-stage active learning journey involving Trigger, Review, Expectations/Evidence and Consolidation (TREC) adopted and implemented in Manchester Metropolitan University for online teaching and learning. The model does not only enhance active learning but also it helps learners to develop academic skills to analyse, evaluate and synthesise information, communication, problem-solving and other transferable skills.

Finally, Middleton presents the Unified Active Learning (UAL) framework for hybrid curriculum design and evaluation that uses a set of design principles. They developed four different high-level models (blended bubbles; location neutral; hives and observers; and connected co-creators) with which these principles could be applied to create accessible connected classroom and engaging students actively wherever the location or learning environment might be. The design principles allows for creativity in the design of teaching while at the same time following the basic principles that would ensure that active learning takes place.

Barnett, R. (2009). Knowing and becoming in the higher education curriculum. Studies in Higher Education, 34 (4), 429-440. http://doi.org/10.1080/03075070902771978

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university: What the student does (4th ed.). Open University Press.

Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 3, 7.

Emory, J. (2014). Understanding backward design to strengthen curricular models. Nurse Educator, 39(3) , 122-125. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000034

Lyon, P. (2016). Design education: learning, teaching and researching through design . Routledge.

Nicol, D., & Draper, S. (2009). A blueprint for transformational organisational change: REAP as a case study. In: T. Mayes, D. Morrison, H. Mellar, P. Bullen & M. Oliver (Eds.) Transforming higher education through technology-enhanced learning . https://www.reap.ac.uk/reap/public/Papers/NIcol_Draper_transforming_assessment_feedback.pdf

Plews, R., Sweet, M., Sudbury, L., Malan, W., Waterbury, C., Savage, J., Provensal, E., Rose-Sinclair, K., & Chavez, M. (2021). From emergency remote teaching to hybrid NUflex: a collaborative approach to developing faculty into learning designers. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education , (22). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi22.743

Pratt-Adams, S., Richter, U., & Warnes, M. (2020). Introduction. In S. Pratt Adams, U. Richter & M. Warnes (Eds.) Innovations in active learning in higher education . University of Sussex Press. https://doi.org/10.20919/9781912319961

Ruge, G., Tokede, O., & Tivendale, L. (2019). Implementing constructive alignment in higher education–cross-institutional perspectives from Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 38 (4), 833-848. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1586842

Taylor H., Garnham W., & Ormerod, T. (2019). Active Essay Writing: Encouraging independent research through conversation In: W. Garnham, T. Betts, P. Oprandi, W. Ashall, J. Kirby, M. Steinberg, H. Taylor & V. Walden (Eds.) Disrupting traditional pedagogy: active learning in practice ( pp. 58-78). University of Sussex Library. https://doi.org/10.20919/9780995786240

Zeivots, S., & Shalavin, C. (2021). Hybrid teaching workshops: upskilling educators to deliver hybrid classes. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education , (22). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi22.673

About the authors

institution: University of Sussex

Dr Paolo Oprandi is a Doctor in Education with an academic background which at different times has spanned the sciences, humanities and social sciences. He has worked in the area of learning technologies for 20 years and is currently a Senior Learning Technologist in the Technology Enhanced Learning team at the University of Sussex. His research has focussed on curriculum development that welcomes diversity into the academic disciplines, using the appropriate teaching, learning and assessment technologies.

institution: Coventry University

Ike Ogamba has a broad experience of leading the design and delivery of learning and teaching in HE and leadership and management experience in global health and development practice. He is a Senior Fellow of the HEA, with Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) interests in design, innovation, digital education, e-learning, inclusive and authentic curriculum.

institution: Anglia Ruskin University

Andrew Middleton is a National Teaching Fellow committed to active learning, co-operative pedagogies, media-enhanced teaching and learning, authentic learning, postdigital learning spaces. Key publication: Middleton, A. (2018). Reimagining Spaces for Learning in Higher Education. Palgrave.

100 Ideas for Active Learning Copyright © 2022 by Paolo Oprandi; Ikedinachi Ogamba; and Dr Andrew Middleton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.20919/OPXR1032/1

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16 Curriculum Innovations

“Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by indicating knowledge, skills, and values to be taught to students. It may express not only what should be taught to students, but also how the students should be taught.”- – Kiira Kärkkäinen

Introduction

Innovation means doing things in new ways, and in curriculum, it means adopting different designs for learning to help make learning more meaningful for 21st-century learners. Some practices in education have become outmoded, and learning experiences should be redesigned to be more relevant to student interests, abilities, and cultures. An additional challenge is that with a more diverse population of students who have a broad range of abilities, innovations must be linked to curriculum goals as well as being challenging and differentiated to provide for an array of learning experiences.

Essential Questions

What are the three main models of curriculum innovation? How are they the same? How are they different?
What are the most important change agents in a school?
What are the STEM and STEAM initiatives?
What are the implications regarding what has been learned about curriculum in the past ten years according to Sal Khan?

Curriculum Change

From Curriculum Studies , pp. 108-113

Curriculum change is inevitable in any society. These changes occur because there is not perfect curriculum, and there is most often a need to adjust to the economic, technological, social, political, and ideological needs in the society. Change can be perceived at three levels.

Minor changes involve re-arrangement of subject content, learning activities, re-organization of personnel, addition of topics or methods in the curriculum project.

Medium changes involve not only organizing of content, materials or facilities, but it involves integration of subjects or new approaches to the existing subjects. On the other hand;

Major change involves an overhaul of the existing curriculum. It may entail a complete re-organization of the conceptual design of the curriculum, changes in structure, content, methods and approaches.

Changes in resources and facilities can also lead to a totally new curriculum plan or program. For curriculum change to occur, there are certain agencies involved in the process. Let us examine some of them.

Agencies of Curriculum Change

Agencies of change include institutes of education, curriculum development centers, research institutes, schools, colleges, universities, departments of education, publishing companies, school districts, school boards, and communities.

Curriculum Innovations

Innovation involves the introduction of something new in curriculum that deviates from the standard practice, often because society has changed and so must the curriculum. To meet these changes, innovations are created.

An innovation must fit in with the goals and objectives of education which usually reflect the needs, interests, values and problems of the society. An innovation must be appropriate, economical in terms of time, space and resources and be aligned with the philosophy of the society and the school and rooted in sound educational theory.

Models of Curriculum Innovation

Various scholars have proposed different models of innovation. For instance, Ronald Havelock (1969) identified three main models of innovation:

Research, Development, and Diffusion (RD&D) model
Social Interaction (SI) model
Problem-Solving (PS) model

The Research, Development and Diffusion (RD&D) Model

In this model, an idea or practice is conceived at the central planning unit and then fed into the system. RD&D is effective where curriculum development is done on a large scale and ideas have to reach wide geographical areas and isolated users. It is a highly organized, rational approach to innovation. Following is a logical sequence of activities in using the RD&D model:

basic research by a central project team which develops a new curriculum, devises and designs prototyped materials,
field trials of the prototyped materials, and redesigns them where necessary,
mass dissemination or diffusion of the innovation through courses, conferences, and workshops, and
implementation of the innovation by the users (school, teachers, and pupils).

The model can be summarized as follows:

Research, Development and Diffusion Model

This model is used in areas that have centralized systems of education, such as universities or departments of education.

The Social Interaction (SI) Model

The model grew out of the progressive education movement in the 1930s when it split into two camps: one that focused on the individual student as a learner and the other on society as an education laboratory (Ellis, 2004). This view sees students as capable of reforming society with support from leadership to provide a curriculum that may become “a classroom without walls” and a community where students and teachers can ultimately change the world (Ellis, 2004).

This model operates through social interaction and emphasizes communication. It stresses the importance of interpersonal networks of information, opinion of leadership, personal contacts, and social integration. The model also has its roots in the notion of democratic communities “helping students to be as well as to become.” (Sergiovanni, 1994).

The SI model also stresses the relationship of the individual to other people and society, and the instructional methods used by teachers in the classroom to facilitate group work. The model is student-centered, and students are encouraged to interact with each other in a structured setting. When implementing this strategy, students often serve as facilitators of content and help their peers construct meaning. The students are to question, reflect, reconsider, seek help and support, and participate in group discussions. The three most common strategies include:

group projects,
group discussions, and
cooperative learning (Patel, 2013).

The interactions are often face-to-face but may also be interactive using online tools and technologies. The steps of instruction using social interaction often vary, but they have these steps:

Flowchart outlining the steps of the SI Model

The Problem Solving (PS) Model

The PS model is based on the assumption that innovation is part of a problem-solving process. The following steps are characteristic of the PS model.

The PS model is referred to as a “periphery-center” approach to innovation. The innovations are initiated, generated, and applied by the teachers and schools based on their needs. Such innovations have strong user commitment and the best chance for long term survival.

In this model, the receiver is actively involved in finding an innovation to solve their own unique problem. The model is flexible enough to encompass all types of innovations, including materials, methods, and groupings of learners.

Thus, the PS model is local in nature, usually limited in size, and may not be of high quality compared with more centralized approaches to curriculum development.

The following STEM and STEAM initiatives incorporate innovative strategies to promote problem-solving as part of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curriculums.

STEM Initiative

The term “STEM” was introduced as a way to refer to careers and curriculum centered around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. These curriculum disciplines are closely connected to many industries in the U.S. and other countries. The government and private companies are continually challenged to develop cutting-edge technological innovations to stay competitive globally. For this reason, the integration of more STEM education in school curriculums has gained a lot of traction (Thomas, 2020).

The STEM initiative falls under the first innovation model, RD&D, because of the various components of the initiative that are research-based. One of the innovative strategies that has been successful in spreading is the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP). This modifies the way of teaching and the classroom design so that interaction and activity-based learning is maximized (Foote, et al, 2014).

STEM Explained

From Wikipedia Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

In 2018, Pew Research revealed that Americans identified several issues that influence STEM education, including unconcerned parents, disinterested students, obsolete curriculum materials, and too much focus on state parameters.

More than 50 percent of survey respondents pointed out that one main problem of STEM is the lack of students’ concentration during learning.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) recently included Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) assessment measures that reported how students could apply technology and engineering skills to real-life situations. TEL uses interactive scenario-based tasks to gauge what students know and can do. The TEL assessment was given in 2018 to approximately 15,400 students in grade 8. The report showed a gap of 28 points between low-income students and their high-income counterparts. The same report also indicated a 38-point difference between white and black students (NAEP, 2021).

The Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) announced the release of a five-year strategic plan by the Committee on STEM Education of the National Science and Technology Council on December 4, 2018. The plan is entitled “Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education.” The objective is to propose a federal strategy anchored on a vision for the future so that all Americans are given permanent access to premium-quality education in STEM. In the end, the United States can emerge as a world leader in STEM mastery, employment, and innovation. The goals of this plan are building foundations for STEM literacy; enhancing diversity, equality, and inclusion in STEM; and preparing the STEM workforce for the future.

Employment in STEM occupations has grown 79 percent since 1990, from 9.7 million to 17.3 million, outpacing overall U.S. job growth. There’s no single standard for which jobs count as STEM, and this may contribute to several misperceptions about who works in STEM and the difference that having a STEM-related degree can make in workers’ pocketbooks.

National funding for K-12 STEM programs increased from $700 million to almost $1 billion from 2005 to 2007 alone (US DOE, Report of the Academic Competitiveness Council, 2007, p. 51).

STEM education is more than just a new name for the traditional approach to teaching science and mathematics because it crosses the traditional barriers between the four disciplines by integrating them into a cohesive means of teaching and learning. The engineering component emphasizes the process and design of solutions instead of just the solutions themselves. This allows students to explore math and science in a more meaningful context and helps students develop critical thinking skills that can be applied to their work and academic lives. The technology component allows students to apply what they have learned, by using computers with specialized and professional applications like CAD and computer animation. These and other applications of technology allow students to explore STEM subjects in greater detail and in a practical manner (National High School Alliance, 2010).

Many STEM programs focus on post-secondary education, but there is an increasing number that focus on K-12 programs. This is a serious STEM challenge at the K-12 level. What are the characteristics of high-quality STEM programs? Research has identified the following characteristics of effective STEM programs:

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE),
National Research Council (NRC), the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM),
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).
Programs should address student engagement (by illustrating the value of STEM in students’ lives, as well as building interest in STEM fields and encouraging students to pursue STEM-related careers).
Programs should have an over-arching STEM “framework” which maps standards for knowledge, skills, and dispositions to curricular activities.
Programs should integrate the teaching of all four STEM areas into a “meta-discipline.”

STEM in Action

From BIO-MED Science Academy STEM School

One example of an exemplary STEM school is the Bio-Med Science Academy in Ohio which opened in 2012. This STEM school serves students in grades 2nd-12th on three campuses, and the students experience STEM learning within the framework of a balanced curriculum that integrates the arts, humanities, and sciences. Additionally, BMSA leverages our region’s great scientific, medical, academic, and business assets to engage students directly with practicing professionals. Students gain exposure to a range of industries through speakers, internships, field experiences, and other opportunities that prepare them for real-world living and working. The result is an inquiry-based, individualized learning experience that positions students to succeed in any number of career fields, including, perhaps, fields yet to be created. The Academy seeks to produce not just future mathematicians, engineers, doctors, and scientists, but leaders in all fields.

The first class of 69 ninth graders came from 27 school districts across 5 counties, and the school received formal STEM designation in 2013. It is a member of the Ohio STEM Learning Network (OSLN), and is recognized with other STEM schools across the state and the nation.

The Academy is the only STEM school in the United States housed on an academic health center campus, and one of few located in a rural area. This unique positioning gives rural Ohio students and their teachers direct access to sophisticated research laboratories, scientists, professors, and medical professionals. The environment creates a dynamic learning experience for the Academy students. There are many excellent STEM programs across the country.

Students working on STEM projects at Biomedical Science Academy

OER Commons has an overwhelming amount of STEM resources. Finding STEM OER that works for you can be quite a task. Access the OER Commons website and utilize the following STEM OER Commons Scavenger Hunt to guide you through strategies for accessing the different STEM resources OER Commons has to offer. Have fun!

STEM OER Scavenger Hunt

Steam education.

After STEM became a force in the world of education, a new, and very similar term emerged — STEAM. The “A” in steam refers to arts. And this addition plays a critical role in how we need to be preparing our youth for the future.

Why Add Art to The STEM Framework?

To provide a better understanding of how STEAM came about and the importance of implementing a STEAM learning environment, it is important to look at what the “A” or art brings to the table, and how educators can implement this framework to enhance students’ education and development.

STEAM is a progression of the original STEM acronym, with an additional element: art. Why the change? The integration of the arts into STEM learning has allowed educators to expand the benefits of hands-on education and collaboration in a variety of ways, promoting creativity and curiosity at the core. (Thomas, 2020).

Another reason for the addition of arts is that creative scientists are needed in a world with a greater population, global interconnection, technological advancement, and more large-scale problems than ever before in human history. Complex problems require sophisticated problem-solving skills and innovative, complicated solutions (Madden, et. al, 2013). In the United States, scientists are educated in colleges and universities using an approach that began decades ago, even though there are now different demands on science with new challenges. Traditional science training is built on a solid foundation of facts and basic science techniques, but it seldom includes creative, cross-disciplinary problem identification, and solving skills (Madden, et. al, 2013). Many leading corporations are eager to identify ways to promote creativity in science that encourage innovations and will be needed to solve complex problems.

It is important to empower students with creativity and critical thinking skills because it will give them additional opportunities to be successful in real-world, professional settings, and problem-solving situations (Thomas, 2020).

In a report titled “ Critical Evidence: How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement ,” the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) shared data showing why it is important to keep the arts strong in schools, and how students benefit from the integration of arts in the curriculum. In the study, researchers found that students scored higher on standardized tests when they were more active in the arts — compared to those who were less active in the arts. The same students reportedly also watched less TV, felt less bored in school, and participated in more hours of community service (Thomas, 2020).

RD&D Initiative That Supports PS and SI

There are several examples of the RD&D curriculum model, but one of the most established initiatives that is research-based and designed to support K-12 curricula is the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education or CIESE at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. For the past 20 years, it has strengthened the STEM initiative by designing and promoting multidisciplinary STEM curricula for educators that can be accessed globally for K-12 school curriculums. The lessons and projects are research-based, and also promote problem-based learning, collaboration, higher-order thinking skills, and critical analysis through the integration of science, technology, engineering, mathematics as well as language arts and social studies. Many of the CIESE projects use real-time data from scientific and government databases. These curricula engage students in global collaboration using pooled data from shared databases, and also involve student publishing on the Web.

Unique and primary source information is available to students. One of the innovative features of the CIESE program, the Real-World Learning Objects, has a library of instructional activities that supports the teaching of discrete topics such as exponential functions in mathematics or genetic traits in biology that are appropriate for high school (CIESE, Stevens Institute of Technology, 2020).

Access the catalog of projects, lessons, and activities that are currently offered as part of the CIESE K-12 Curriculum and Resources for more information.

The interdisciplinary STEM projects that make use of online real-time data focus on collaborative projects that connect students to peers and experts around the world, so there is an element of the SI as well as the PS models. This initiative fits into all three categories of curriculum innovation at varying levels.

The project catalog is organized by science (life, Earth, physical, environmental); technology (real-time data, online collaboration, primary sources, robotics); engineering (systems, civil, mechanical, electrical, general); math (numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, data analysis). Most of the projects overlap more than one category.

SI Technology

With the swift progression of in-class to online teaching, technology has taken center stage with online learning platforms, remote class and small group meetings, and individual student-teacher conferences, and a host of tech tools that are being developed. Since the SI model depends on the students interacting with each other, technology can support learning in other ways such as discussion forums and chat rooms.

Teachers can monitor students, promote on-task behaviors, and help students through e-conversations. The primary source of information is the internet which opens the door to a vast amount of data that may or may not be accurate or relevant. It is up to the teacher to show students strategies for sifting this information.

Since the curriculum is based on social issues and democracy in the classroom, students must have a say in the curriculum (Bean, 1997). It also requires students to practice social skills so they can learn effectively in a group.

Innovative Curriculums Can Be Built by Teams

The Alain Locke PK-8 Charter School in Chicago, Illinois, has been designated as a demonstration site for urban schools. The school’s goal is to produce globally competitive students. It has a learner-centered approach that prepares students for college, as well as an extended day center, and a year-round academic program with a short summer break. Ninety-four percent of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch prices.

The curriculum includes Spanish, technology, the arts, music, library, and physical education as well as personal and social development. It has an additional 10 days of instruction per year with three-in-a-half extra hours of instruction a day.

The Alain Lock School was profiled by the U.S. Department of Education for making significant growth towards closing the achievement gap in their community.

Pat Ryan, co-founder of the Alain Locke Charter School has stated that there are three counterintuitive truths about great schools:

Figure 16.6 – Three Counterintuitive Truths about Great Schools

Visit the Alain Lock School for more information.

In another interpretation of Great Schools, Dr. John Hattie of Melbourne University believes there are many great schools that “invite kids to learn” and they are the schools that students find inviting because they are a great place to learn. Students get information on their progress, and teachers know they can influence character development and a moral purpose. It is the effort that makes the difference.  The excellent teachers are the ones who make an impact on students by helping them achieve and also build character.

Dr. Hattie explains this in more detail in What Great Schools Do – John Hattie – VASSP2012 .

Innovations Can Be Built by One Person

(The following is taken from an interview with Sal Khan from The Harvard Business School Alumni Stories by Garry Emmons in 2012).

Sal Khan had three degrees from M.I.T. and an MBA from Harvard and was working for a hedge fund in Boston when he got a phone call from his nine-year-old cousin, Nadia. “Sal,” she asked, “can you please help me with my homework?” That simple question led to amazing and dynamic innovation in education. Using Yahoo! Doodle as a shared notepad, Sal tutored Nadia in math via computer and telephone. Soon, other cousins and their schoolmates wanted help, too. Khan said, “It was getting crazy, so in 2006, a friend suggested that rather than reteaching the same points over and over again to different kids, he should make videos of each lesson and put them on YouTube.” He was skeptical. YouTube was for cats playing the piano, not serious mathematics! Then he had an idea and made a couple of videos. The initial feedback from the cousins was good so he kept going.

By 2009, Khan had quit his job to work on the videos—and the software—full time. To date, he has made around 3,000 videos—and loves doing them—on dozens of subject areas, ranging from physics to finance to history. It’s all free to everyone and anyone, and all kinds of learners seem to like them. As the website says, the tally as of early February is now “119,074,255 lessons delivered.”

What is the Secret of the Success of the Videos?

Khan tries not to talk down or be judgmental, and he is off-camera—the less distraction the better—so it’s just a voice-over—and informal and without a script. He does his best to give students a deeper understanding rather than just learning things by rote. The screen image is of a chalkboard, simulated through software, and he “writes” on it as the lesson develops. His cousins have told him they like this “virtual Sal” better than the real-life one. In response Sal said, “They can start and stop and repeat me at will.”

The Khan Academy and Experimentation with Nearby Schools

The Los Altos school system, which is close to where Khan lives, is using his Academy on an experimental basis. It’s early, but the results look promising. Students spend part of class time—and some time at home—working at their own pace on videos and exercises. They get immediate feedback, and there are game mechanics—points and badges—to provide even more motivation. Every interaction with the system is logged, and this data is used to give students, teachers, and parents real-time reports on student progress. In the same classroom, there will be some fifth graders working on trigonometry and some reviewing basic arithmetic. The teacher no longer spends class time lecturing but focusing instead on small-group interactions with students who need help. The students also teach each other. Every student is working at their own pace, and time is freed up in class to work on more open-ended projects. Khan says that even more than the student-to-teacher ratio, this optimizes the student-to-valuable-time-with-the-teacher ratio.

This model gels with the best learning experiences Khan had in his own public school in Louisiana. “Whether it was being on the math team, the school paper, or the wrestling team, the teachers in those situations were more like mentors with whom you worked collaboratively to achieve personal and team goals. Teammates would help, too. Everybody was trying to get the best possible result, without that teacher versus student antagonism. That’s the way learning should happen.”

Future Plans for the Khan Academy

Khan plans to eventually open a brick-and-mortar school because he believes they are effective, but it will have a different environment and setup because he believes that traditional schools “can be dehumanizing, and students are sometimes belittled, not allowed to talk, interact or be creative. They don’t allow students to move at their own pace.”

Khan also believes that he and his team of about 20 people are creating something that hasn’t existed before (true innovation!) that will still be around in 200 or 300 years. He wants his website to be something that has the content and tools of a world-class that is free or provides a low-cost education for everyone, the way clean drinking water and electricity are today. His website is free, but he knows there is a cost for computers and bandwidths, which are relatively inexpensive and are becoming cheaper.

Sal Khan believes there is a hunger for deep learning, and he wants to remain a not-for-profit so Khan Academy is accessible to everyone who wants to learn. In fact, he would like to feel that he has helped give “billions of people around the world access to a truly first-rate education.”

What Have We Learned About Curriculum in the Last Decade?

As an innovator, Sal Khan sums up what he thinks we have learned about curriculum in the past decade:

Graphic outlining the three things learned about curriculum.

It is inspiring to find out about the many innovations that are taking place in education today. Some are the result of changes in society, some are born out of a simple question like, “Can you please help me with my homework?”

It is interesting to me, as an educator with several decades of teaching experience, to find out that innovators in education see teachers as the “unwavering center of schooling,” and that students need a grade-level curriculum that is rigorous. Despite today’s challenges, public schools are making progress. The new, not-so-secret piece of the puzzle that also helps make it work for everyone is the ethic that education can and should be available to all people who want to learn at low or no cost, such as the Khan Academy and other Open Educational Resources.

As an educator, I am excited to see these innovations in education. It makes my personal curriculum journey very interesting and one well worth continuing.

Curriculum changes occur because societies have new needs and issues. These changes may be in response to curriculum evaluations or reviews, or the culture. Curriculum may also change in response to economic, social, and political issues as well as access to technology and curricular innovations. On the other hand, it is the introduction of something new that makes the difference from previous practices. Exemplary initiatives, programs, and schools make use of innovations. STEM and STEAM curriculums can support students to achieve in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as art, social studies, and literacy by integrating these subjects. Many exemplary schools focus on closing the achievement gap for students who live in high needs areas. Sal Khan is an innovator who has a vision for the future of education that will benefit people in the U.S. and globally.

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Curriculum Design Explained + 5 Tips for Educators

Educators are always seeking out ways to bring energy into their classrooms and into their lessons. But regardless of grade level, creating engaging and relevant curricula that meets standards while also effectively teaching subject matter can feel like an impossible effort.

The good news for teachers is that there are resources out there to help them reinvigorate or simply refine their lessons. Whether they’ve been teaching for two years or 20, a cur riculum design refresher can help teachers find new, innovative ways to motivate their students.

What is Curriculum Design & Why Is It Important?

Curriculum desig n is generally defined as “the deliberate organization of curriculum within a course or classroom. When instructors design their curriculums, they identify what will be done, who will do it and when, as well as what the objective of each course is. Curriculum design involves planning activities, readings, lessons, and assessments that achieve educational goals.”

Curriculum design is important because it centers a teacher’s practice based on individual needs in the classroom. Any curriculum development effort should focus on being an effective educator, as it involves rethinking lessons that already exist to re-envision what would better prioritize the needs of the students. The process of design and creation of new or revised curriculum brings fresh and up-to-date ideas to the classroom.

What is Curriculum Planning?

A component of curriculum design and development is curriculum planning — identifying and selecting teaching strategies and organizational methods based on individual student needs that will result in improved student growth and student learning outcomes.

Curriculum planning should incorporate the 6 elements of effective teaching , from the Danielson Framework for Teaching :

Demonstrate knowledge of content and pedagogy;
Demonstrate the knowledge of students;
Set instructional outcomes;
Demonstrate knowledge of resources;
Design coherent instruction;
Design student assessments.

Curriculum Models: Product vs. Process

Curriculum models are the first step in curriculum development, and they help educators determine what type of curriculum design is appropriate for their students and their learning goals. They have long-existed and act as formulaic guides for teachers as they design their new or existing curricula.

Curriculum models have five areas they define:

Focus — Subject or student. Where is the emphasis?
Approach — Traditional or modern. What type of instruction will be used?
Content — Topic based or content based. How will units or strands be written?
Process — Formative or summative. How will assessments be used?
Structure — System, linear or cyclical. How often does the curriculum get reviewed?

From there, there are two models of curriculum development that are widely used today — the product model and the process model. The Journal of Education and Practice defines them as:

Product model: Product models emphasize the outcome of a learning experience. The product model of the curriculum leads to some kind of desirable end product. Examples given are knowledge of certain facts, mastery of specific skills and competencies, and acquisition of certain “appropriate” attitudes and values.
Process model: With process models, the emphasis is on learning acquired from experience of work and life, that is experiential learning. It comprises open-ended student activities with developing tendencies and capacities. The emphasis is on the quality of the learning as it takes place rather than on predetermined outcomes.

Think of it like this — the product model is assessment driven; like a target for the teacher and students to prepare toward the end of a unit. All the lessons that come before the product drive toward the end result. Whereas a process approach depends more on developing skills and revision of work based on continually assessing student needs.

7 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE SELECTING A CURRICULUM DESIGN COURSE

Download eBook: 7 Questions to Ask Before Selecting a Curriculum Design Course

Types of Curriculum Design

There are three categories of curriculum design, differentiated by who or what the primary focus of the lessons will be.

Focuses on a specific discipline/subject
Subject-centered curriculum design describes what needs to be studied and how it should be studied
Most common type of curriculum used in the U.S.
Downside — not student-centered, constructed without taking into account the specific learning styles of the students, which can reduce student engagement and motivation
Focuses on students’ own interests and goals
Acknowledges that students have individual learning styles, and therefore should not be subject to a standardized curriculum
Aims to empower learners to shape their education
Downside — it can create pressure on the educator to source materials specific to each student’s learning needs
Focuses on specific issues and their solutions
Teaches students how to be problem solvers
Considered an authentic form of learning because students are exposed to real-life issues, so they develop skills that are transferable to the real world
Downside — this format does not always consider individual learning styles

Benefits of Utilizing Curriculum Design

Educators are already asked to handle more than their fair share of tasks in their career, so if they’re going to add anything to their workloads, it must clearly improve things for them and their students. Thankfully, curriculum design benefits them both by:

Creating a curriculum with a purpose and concrete goals — a goal-oriented curriculum that has been crafted with student learning styles and outcomes in mind has been shown to improve participation, improve retention, foster collaborative learning and ultimately make learning more fun.
Ensures that standards are being met — While they don’t have to be the singular focus of curriculum design, educators do have to ensure that their subject matter is meeting standards and helping students successfully reach the benchmarks of their grade and age levels. With updated curriculum design, educators can more clearly demonstrate how their courses meet standards.
Improves the teaching process — When lessons or curricula have been in circulation for years, they can get stale for both the students and the teacher. With a refreshed curriculum design, educators can find new and exciting ways to teach the subject matter they’re passionate about, making their jobs more fun and students more engaged.
Improves student outcomes — With a curriculum that is learner-centered or problem-centered, the teaching methodologies are more likely to align with student learning styles which, in theory, should improve their performance in the classroom.

Curriculum Design Tips

Curriculum design should be an intentional process, and it can be guided by a teacher’s own experience, or perhaps in a workshop setting, or even part of a curriculum design course . Regardless of the inspiration, there are a few curriculum design tips all educators should keep in mind.

Identify student needs: A student-centered curriculum obviously must originate with students’ needs. However, even if they aren’t considering that type of curriculum design, teachers should have a clear understanding of these needs and use them as a compass as they revamp their course curriculum.
Have a clear set of goals: Clearly defined learning outcomes or course goals will help guide educators as they design new curriculum. These can be state standards, individual student goals or even goals for themselves as educators, but having identifiable benchmarks makes it easier to assess both student and educator success.
Acknowledge limitations: In an ideal world, teachers would have endless resources and time to ensure that all components of their lesson plans and overall curriculum are taught to completion. But in reality, there are limitations, in terms of bandwidth, class time, student abilities and more. When they are designing or updating course curriculum, teachers must acknowledge these limitations and ensure that realistic expectations are set.
Select your instructional methods — Choosing to redesign curriculum is an opportunity for educators to formulate lessons and strategies that play to their strengths. In planning out a refreshed course plan, they should select instructional methods that they enjoy, that are effective with students and that they are proficient in.
Establish an evaluation process — While curriculum design is an opportunity to play to one’s strengths, it is also an opportunity to reflect and more clearly see the effectiveness of certain teaching strategies. During this process, educators should implement a solid evaluation process that gives them high-quality feedback on their lessons and helps inform improvements for the next time.
Lastly, and most importantly, educators should consider taking a curriculum design course . In these courses, teachers are afforded the time to do the curriculum-enriching work for their school, district and classrooms that they may not have had during the school year. At the University of San Diego’s Division of Professional and Continuing Education, our experienced professional educators provide meaningful and timely feedback throughout our curriculum design program, centering each individual teacher’s needs based on their grade level, subject and coursework plan. At the end of the course, teachers are ready to inspire their students with a fresh, engaging new curriculum.

To learn more visit the University of San Diego’s Curriculum Design program

Curriculum covered in this article

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55. Curriculum Development: A Stepwise Design

Published: August 2024
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Curriculum development for medical education is a complex process that can be achieved in a variety of ways. Two commonly used methods are the Six-Step Approach and Competency-Based Approach. Both provide a step-by-step roadmap for curriculum developers to follow. The Six-Step Approach is descriptive and allows for dynamic steps that can be performed in the order identified, any order, or multiple steps at a time. The competency-based approach is more prescriptive; it always starts with the identification of a competency after which all other steps must follow. Although these methods differ, several of the steps overlap. The two approaches can be used alone or in combination to achieve a curriculum development goal.

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Redrawing the cross-curricular map: An interdisciplinary approach to curriculum design across the humanities

Perspective Article
Published on: January 31, 2022

Curriculum |
Subject expertise

ANDREW COVENTON, ASSISTANT HEAD OF SIXTH FORM, DOVER GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, UK

Can a curriculum be truly ‘broad’ and ‘coherent’ if opportunities are missed to forge insightful inter-disciplinary connections between subjects?

Mary Myatt (2018, p. 128) suggests that ‘cross-curricular planning has had a bad rap in recent years’. Cross-curricular initiatives have often failed due to a muddled genericism and a doomed attempt to forge tenuous connections based on vague ‘themes’ or universalised domain-independent skills such as ‘communication’, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’. Kirschner and Hendrick (2020, p. 15) draw on the work of John Sweller to claim that these skills ‘don’t exist’ as ‘domain-independent’ entities and that students can only achieve a sense of true academic mastery through the acquisition of subject-specific substantive knowledge.

However, to treat subjects as hermetically sealed ‘silos’ is to miss valuable opportunities for powerful cross-curricular interleaving An approach to learning where, rather than focusing on one piece of content at a time (known as blocking) then moving on to the next, students alternate between related concepts and dialogue across what might be termed ‘meta-domains’ such as the humanities and STEM. Moreover, it is to miss a valuable opportunity to connect each humanities subject within the deeper structural schema of the ‘history of ideas’: the story of the development of the key principles that have shaped Western culture, from ancient Greek notions of aesthetics, ethics and liberty to 21st-century conceptions of feminism, decolonisation and identity.

Opportunities might also be missed to make interdisciplinary connections at a procedural level, in areas such as essay writing and debating. Daniel Willingham (2016, p. 6) emphasises that teachers should ‘include opportunities to… connect… new material to prior knowledge wherever possible’. Surely, then, it is useful for teachers to be aware of how common elements of substantive and procedural knowledge have been taught previously in other humanities subjects so that insightful connections can be made when students encounter them again through a different disciplinary lens?

This critical perspective will explore what a research-informed approach to cross-curricular planning might look like across the meta-domain of the humanities (defined here as encompassing English, history, religious studies (RS), geography and the arts). Attempts at cross-curricular planning have often failed because leaders start with an abstract idea or skill and try to shoehorn multiple subjects into its service. I will argue instead for a cross-curricular approach that starts with a discussion of the unique, knowledge-rich curriculum maps within each subject domain and encourages teachers to find points of authentic substantive and procedural connection. I will argue that these points of rich connection should be explored in everyday lessons and not just in one-off inquiry days.

How, then, can insightful cross-curricular connections be made across the history of ideas without compromising the integrity of each unique subject discipline?

Substantive connections

At its worst, cross-curricular planning is driven by a vague ‘theme [which] is extended to every subject regardless of whether it fits’ (Myatt, 2020, p. 128). The logical extreme of this temptation, as considered by Peter Hyman (2021), is to argue that students should study ‘interdisciplinary courses, not just single subject courses’ and that we should follow the lead of ‘some independent and state schools [who] are devising their own [interdisciplinary] courses on migration and climate change’. The problem with this approach is that it risks eroding the boundaries between subjects and reducing students’ disciplinary knowledge so that they miss out on the unique lenses, perspectives and procedures for epistemological inquiry that each discipline can provide on an issue.

A better starting point for curriculum leaders seeking to find interdisciplinary connections across the humanities would be a comparative discussion surrounding the authentic subject-specific curriculum maps designed by each department. If these curriculum documents are sufficiently knowledge-rich and informed by an understanding of the ‘chronological axis’ (Ashbee, 2021, p. 81) and the history of ideas within each subject, then it is likely that points of natural conceptual connection will emerge.

The ‘chronological axis’ that underpins history, English, RS and the arts can be harnessed to provide a strong organising principle for the elucidation of these points of comparison. In history, the chronological axis involves ‘the [simple] idea that events happen over time and relate to each other over time’ (Ashbee, 2021, p. 81). However, the notion of a history of ideas is another chronological lens that might be applied to the discipline, enabling historians to trace the development of concepts such as liberty and empire through distinct intellectual epochs such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In the case of English, art and music, this chronological axis involves an elucidation of the ways in which changing socio-historical contexts have shaped the development of literature and other art forms and the ways in which individual artists and artistic movements, such as Romanticism or modernism, are influenced by and reacting against previous practitioners and movements. In RS, the chronological axis can be fruitfully employed to trace the development of the Abrahamic religions, from the origins of Jewish monotheism to the growth of Christianity and Islam and the seismic convulsions caused by the Reformation and post-Darwinist secularism.

Faced with the power of the chronological axis, one temptation might be to arrange the curricula in history, English, the arts and RS in parallel so that each subject starts with Ancient Greece and ends with the post-modern era. However, while some form of chronological narrative within each subject domain is likely to be beneficial, a rigidly parallel cross-curricular approach to chronological organisation is likely to be both impractical and suboptimal for long-term knowledge acquisition. According to Ebbinghaus’s ‘spacing effect’ (1913) and Bjork and Bjork’s notion of ‘desirable difficulties’ (2011), a more fruitful approach would be to ensure that key areas of cross-curricular connection are spaced out and interwoven across Key Stage 3 rather than massed in immediate succession, so that long-term schema acquisition is enhanced.

Thus, knowledge gained in a Year 8 unit on the Russian Revolution in history can be revisited and strengthened through retrieval practice in a Year 9 English unit on Animal Farm . However, for this process to happen effectively, it is vital that dialogue occurs between the relevant departments so that sequencing decisions are optimised. Thus a history leader might conclude that it would be better to move their unit on the Reformation until later on in the year so that students encounter key Catholic conceptions of transubstantiation and the sanctity of marriage in RS first.

If curriculum maps across the humanities are compared and discussed with an awareness of the wider framework of a ‘history of ideas’, then it is likely that some shared conceptual threads will emerge. If climate change emerges as a cross-curricular theme, then leaders might decide to make its status more explicit as an interwoven thread – so, for example, students learn about the physical mechanisms underpinning climate transformation in geography, before examining the socio-political consequences of climatic disturbance in history (from the Ice Age to the Industrial Revolution) and literary expressions of resistance to pollution in the work of the Romantic poets. This interwoven approach is likely to be more effective than Hyman’s notion of an interdisciplinary ‘climate change course’ because the unique insight provided by each disciplinary lens is preserved.

Another example of a cross-curricular concept that might emerge is the tension between free will and determinism, a concept that has its roots in religious and philosophical enquiry but has come to shape debates in areas such as intentionalism versus structuralism in history, theories of tragedy in English literature, and notions of geographical and biological determinism in the sciences and anthropology. Additional examples might be empire and post-colonial identity, capitalism, equality, liberty and the ambiguous and unreliable nature of language. Once elucidated, these transcendent concepts can prompt teachers and students to activate prior knowledge and make insightful connections between subjects without compromising the epistemic integrity of each unique domain.

On the other hand, if there are little or no obvious points of connection, then this might act as a salutary wake-up call to the subject leader. If there are no obvious connections to the history curriculum, then is the English curriculum sufficiently rooted in context? If a history curriculum has little or no connection to RS, then is the curriculum sufficiently informed by the theological principles at the heart of the history of ideas?

Insightful connections can also be established at ‘word level’ if a shared schematic language is developed across the humanities. Alex Quigley emphasises the importance of Beck et al.’s (2007) finding that ‘students need to encounter new words at least ten times before… reproducing them in their own speech and writing’ (Quigley, 2017, p. 71). These tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary ‘encounters’ are likely to be more frequent and more effective if departments across the humanities have identified word-level connections across their respective schemes of work.

For example, if vocabulary lists and curriculum maps are compared and definitions and etymological stories surrounding key words such as ‘colony’, ‘capitalist exploitation’, ‘missionary’ and ‘post-colonial identity’ are shared at cross-curricular meetings between the English, geography and history departments, then students are much more likely to build a strong schema surrounding the concept of colonialism, while also appreciating how each subject provides a unique critical lens through which to examine the legacy of empire.

Procedural connections

Once areas of substantive connection are established between humanities subjects, attention can be turned to procedural knowledge.

Drawing on Christine Counsell’s notion of subjects as ‘truth quests’, Ruth Ashbee (2021, p. 38) argues that ‘theology, history, literary criticism, art and some aspects of geography’ are all subjects that involve ‘interpretive quests’ that eschew the search for ‘objectivity or single truth’ prioritised in science and mathematics.

Essay-writing provides the dominant form for this discursive ‘interpretive quest’ within the humanities. However, attempts to establish common procedural steps for essay-writing have often resulted in reductive straightjackets such as ‘PEE’ (point, evidence, explanation), which warp students’ writing into simplistic descriptive overviews rather than genuinely discursive arguments.

A more sophisticated interdisciplinary approach would be to prioritise the explicit teaching of a sophisticated essay ‘meta-language’ across the humanities, so that students become familiar with concepts such as ‘thesis statements’ and ‘counter-arguments’ and begin to craft their essays into discursive arguments. Humanities teachers can make this explicit by developing a shared approach to encouraging argument, debate and diversity The recognition of individual differences in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, physical ability, religious beliefs and other differences of interpretation in lessons – for example, giving students contentious thesis statements concerning historical events or literary characters and asking them to generate counter-arguments, or through the explicit modelling of tentative academic language to tease out differences of interpretation.

Secondly, while it is important to preserve the integrity of the unique essay style within each subject discipline, it is arguably fruitful for middle leaders to work together to identify areas of similarity within the step-by-step essay-writing procedures across the humanities . Hochman and Wexler’s The Writing Revolution (2017) provides a framework for the systematic teaching of crucial procedures for essay-writing that transcends individual humanities subjects, from ‘single paragraph outlines’ to the crafting of compelling thesis statements and topic sentences. Hochman and Wexler’s approach can liberate students from restrictive writing frames because the focus is on mastering a variety of sentence forms – from appositives and subordinating conjunctions to statements of causation and contrast using ‘because, but, so’ – that students can employ in various permutations at different stages of an essay.

Ruth Ashbee (2021, p. 22) reflects the mood of much of the current discourse surrounding the curriculum when she argues that leaders should prioritise ‘subject specialisms over genericism’.

However, while the integrity of the individual subject must always come first, there is arguably an opportunity cost for schools who fail to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue across the meta-domain of the humanities. This interdisciplinary dialogue should aim to establish powerful points of connection at the level of substantive and procedural knowledge within the curriculum. Cross-curricular thinking has the potential to equip students with the ‘genuine creativity’ identified by employers as essential for 21st-century ‘artificial-intelligence-resistant’ careers (Mahdawi, 2017), by fostering the capacity to make perceptive connections, to forge insightful new syntheses and to bring multiple disciplinary lenses to bear on complex problems. Ultimately, a thoughtful and sensitive interdisciplinary approach is needed more than ever to ensure that challenges such as decolonising the curriculum or confronting the existential threat of climate change are met on a deep, insightful and genuinely transformative level.

Ashbee R (2021) Curriculum: Theory Culture and Subject Specialisms. London and New York: Routledge.
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Ebbinghaus H (1913) Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. New York: Teachers College Press.
Hochman JC and Wexler N (2017) The Writing Revolution. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hyman P (2021) Let’s not return to flawed exams. We have better ways to assess our children. The Guardian, 15 August, 21. Available at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/15/lets-not-return-to-flawed-exams-we-have-better-ways-to-assess-our-children (accessed 15 September 2021).
Kirschner PA and Hendrick C (2020) How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice. Oxon: Routledge.
Mahdawi A (2017) What jobs will still be around in 20 years? Read this to prepare your future. The Guardian, 26 June, 17. Available at: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/26/jobs-future-automation-robots-skills-creative-health (accessed 17 November 2021).
Myatt M (2018) The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence. Woodbridge: John Catt.
Quigley A (2017) Reading and literacy. In: Hendrick C and Macpherson R (eds) What Does This Look Like in the Classroom? Woodbridge: John Catt, pp. 63–83.
Willingham D (2016) Knowledge and practice: The real keys to critical thinking. Knowledge Matters: Restoring Wonder and Excitement to the Classroom. Available at: https://knowledgematterscampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Willingham-brief.pdf (accessed 15 September 2021).

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The currency of assessment for learners with SEND

Rethinking assessment: How learner profiles can shift the debate towards equitable and meaningful holistic assessment

Assessing progress in special schools: Reviews and recommendations

Original Research

Classroom assessment in flux: Unpicking empirical evidence of assessment practices

The role of frequent assessment in science education at an international school in Singapore

Teacher Reflection

Teaching creativity: An international perspective on studying art in the UK

Improving academic resilience and self-efficacy through feedback: Moving from ‘what’ to ‘how’

Mind the gap: What are national assessments really telling us about vocabulary and disadvantaged students?

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Evaluation of Advantages and Disadvantages of Approaches to Curriculum Design Essay

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Introduction:

Development of thematic approaches to learning.

One of initial references to this philosophy of child-centered curriculum is Plato’s statement that children’s’ education should take the form of play. He was the first to formulate a comprehensive education system covering every aspect from its administration to a detailed curriculum.

Plato considered health and beauty of the body and mind as necessary goals of education.. Games contribute a lot to children’s’ education. Any individual who wants to be good in anything, he or she must practice that thing from early childhood (Coulby, 1989, p.126). Aristotle went a step further to encourage development of curriculums that allow children to grow into educated states. This was represented in his work on “Growth Metaphysics” (Clark, 1988, p. 112).

Child-centeredness approach was developed further by Rousseau when he provided a philosophy referred to as “Naturalism” (Kerry, 1994, p. 187). His ideas were in agreement with Aristotelian notion of “Growth Metaphysic” when he stated that children had capacity, internal power to move towards perfection (Helby, 1997, p. 56).

He roundly understood the nature of child development. He fully understood the effects of civilization processes on pupils. The processes of civilization made people dependent on each other and could divert pupil’s desires to material rather than physical necessities (Baker 1998: 158). This revelation was very necessary in the incorporation of foreign languages in primary curriculums.

Rousseau understanding of importance of first-hand experiences in learning helped in establishing new methods of learning. He came up with the principle that a child was naturally good. Again, children’s processes of thought were less developed than adults thought processes, and not comparable to them. According to Rousseau, childhood has its own ways of thinking, seeing and feeling.

Therefore, teachers must adapt to the capacity or level of children for learning to take place. He put more emphasis on the process of learning which covered most essentials of child-centered approach to curriculum. Given a suitable environment, a child would develop naturally (Boss, 2007, p. 126).

Learning in children is best self directed and the role of the teacher is to enable children learn. The teacher is not supposed to transmit knowledge. Rousseau also emphasized learning process to be organized for individuals and not class sized groups. He preferred isolation of a child from all others so that all areas of learning are developed by the skilled teacher.

Through a keen engineered exploitation of experiences of everyday life, the teacher should device a highly structured, orderly and disciplined curriculum. These methods made us realize importance of first-hand experiences in learning which were later referred to as topic work and discovery learning (Kerry, 1994, p. 134).

This philosophy on children’s education had important consequences. It inspired educationists into pedagogical discourse especially in Germany where it contributed to the foundation of the first common schools (Baker, 1998, p. 62). It also formed the basis for further developments of primary curriculums.

Dewey contributed further to child-centered approach to curriculum development as advocated by Rousseau, by introducing “topic-work” (Kerry, p, 1994). John Dewey stated in his philosophy that a child’s social activities are the true centre of correlation on school subjects, and not science, literature, history or geography.

He was of the opinion that education should be taken as a continuing reconstruction of experience and that the process and goal of education was one and the same thing (Carl, p. 42). He re-interpreted Rousseau’s philosophy of natural and spontaneous activities believing that they could be directed to educational ends and is best done through problems of the children’s own devising (Kerry, 1994). His approach emphasized on scientific approach of pupils pursuing their own studies and solving problems through speculation, observation, information gathering and testing out guesses and hypotheses (Kerry, 1994: 189).

Importance of evaluation of Curriculum to Design

The development of primary curriculums follows a tradition of integrated approaches of cross curricular, thematic and discreet, and subject-based approaches to learning. Thematic approach is the most common and variety of terms has been used to describe thematic approaches, such terms include: project work, centre of interest and topic work (Maclure, 1988, p. 69)). The terms share common underlying assumptions about curriculum development, children’s learning and teaching (Webb, 1999, p. 115).

Thematic approaches to learning relates to a view of children’s knowledge, and learning as learner-centered. Disciplines such as sciences or mathematics, are seen as abstract adult construction, the logic of which does not necessarily make sense within child psychology (Boss, 2007, p. 126).

For instance, understanding the world of Mathematical concepts for young children need to be confirmed with actual objects in reality (Gage, 1992, p. 56). Whether the child is handling the abstract concepts of, prior logic of mathematics is not evident to the child and is indistinguishable from empirical moths or the empirical concepts of science are irrelevant (Gewitz, 1997, p. 34).

Consequently, thematic approaches are used by teachers in the curriculum to provide children learning experiences which are coherent and relevant (Adelman, 2000, p. 45). The curriculum content should not be imposed entirely from without.

The curriculum theme is intended to provide an area of interest to children within whom learning can take place. This cannot be realized by teaching fragmented subjects in the timetable. The curriculum theme should be one which children can identify with and own. Coulby (1989, p. 116) debates the significance of curriculum ownership by teachers and children; also warns against prescription of a curriculum which accords teachers no control over its content.

Accordingly, teachers must feel a sense of originality and individuality about the curriculum which they share with their children. A thematic curriculum is the necessary instrument for such an approach, where teachers can design a curriculum which is relevant to their expertise and enthusiasm and share it with children.

A thematic curriculum provides children opportunities to be involved in the selection of learning content. Development of curriculum can be negotiated so that children as well as their teachers feel a sense of ownership and distinctiveness about what they are learning.

Their participation or involvement in the development of curriculum will encourage their learning and commitment to the content (Pollard, 1994, p. 43). Learning is an activity which demands engagement. It is not an activity which can be performed for students.

The more sense of ownership children have for the curriculum, the greater the likelihood of their being involved in learning through it. Thus, teachers could involve children in planning and employing their own creativity in the process. The outcome can be a feeling of ownership and commitment (White, 2004, p. 35).

National curriculums should not deter the development of integrated topic work derived from children initiatives. Primary school teachers have shown how this can be achieved by fully engaging children’s interests and enthusiasms. Thematic approach to curriculum development, however, has some drawbacks; the approach cannot cover the whole curriculum comprehensively, particularly in mathematics (Coulby, 1989, p. 154)

The interests and concentration of children are best engaged in their learning about real things. Teachers must ensure that learners are exposed as much as possible on real objects to be involved in real activities. Learning is all about performing real things (Cohen, 1994, p. 24).

Education is regarded as the fulfillment of the present, not just a preparation for the future. Single subject timetabled curriculum makes it difficult for this to be achieved. Coulby (1989, 74) cites Plowden Report (1967) that stressed the significance of children’s learning through direct hands on activity, rather than through abstract propositions by teachers. It is debatable that thematic approach allows more readily for this in according children opportunities in engaging in real life tasks. In this context, activities are likely to have more intrinsic worth to children.

Disadvantages of Thematic Approach to Curriculum Design

Thematic approach in primary schools cannot be seen fully to be advantageous. It has resulted to some teachers making spurious links between subjects and content not relevant for children. Sometimes it has resulted to omission of curriculum areas. Again, integrated curriculum is far from universal in primary schools (Coulby, 1989, p. 74).

Children learn with best interest and concentration they are substantially engaged in learning about real things. The role of teachers is to ensure exposure of learners as much as possible on real objects to be involved in real activities.

Learning is all about doing practical things (Cohen, 1994, p. 24). Education should be seen as achievement of the present, not just a preparation for the future. For this reason, focus on single subject timetabled curriculum makes it difficult for this to be attained.

Plowden Report of 1967

Coulby (1989, 74) cites Plowden Report (1967) that stressed the significance of children’s learning through direct hands on activity, rather than through abstract propositions by teachers. It is debatable that thematic approach allows more readily for this in according children opportunities in engaging in real life tasks.

In this context, activities are likely to have more intrinsic worth to children. The Plowden report insisted among other issues that knowledge should be limited to separate compartments. Its leaned towards a curriculum marked by weak classification of knowledge. Plowden report provided considerable support and credibility to idea of early childhood education whose curriculum was weakly classified (Christie, 2005m p. 21)..

Thematic and Discreet Approaches to Learning

It is important to understand how different parts of specialized subject curriculums such as mathematics can be best presented to pupils. There is much arguments about teaching mathematics using thematic or topic or by presenting it as a discreet subject. In terms of technical subjects such as mathematics, both thematic and discreet approaches have advantages and disadvantages.

It would therefore seem prudent to plan by drawing upon the advantages of each option rather than limiting the potential of either possibility. Both thematic and discreet approaches need to be drawn upon if technical subjects such as mathematics need to be taught effectively (Boss, 2007.P, 12)…

Commencing learning from a thematic approach seems to be appropriate to mathematics learning in primary school. The approach helps in placing mathematics in context. Given the topic on Transport, for instance, thematic approach would lend itself to arrange of opportunities to emphasize on early number work, such as; making collections of a certain number of vehicles on the road between specific periods or time. the approach would also lend itself to measuring how far different vehicles travelled.

Stories could also be drawn upon with a transport theme as a commencing point of a mathematics activity. In most occasions it will be the presentation which links to the theme rather than the concept itself. Frankly, it is unlikely that it will be admissible to attribute all mathematics taught within a given term to one particular topic without tenuous links. It would be necessary to plan parts of mathematics curriculum which most realistically relate to the term’s theme. However, planning mathematics as a discreet subject as well ensures complete coverage of mathematics curriculum (Coulby, 1989, p. 52).

The change of focus to an initial focus on mathematics as a discreet subject can be helpful. For instance, it helps with a focus on mathematical skills and concepts which need to be taught and planning can concentrate on ensuring that links between different aspects of mathematics can be considered.

It is important to note that mathematics requires a child to make these links between different aspects of the subject and that this can be supported with carefully focused planning of curriculum. Planning mathematics through a topic creates a tendency to skim the surface of the subject rather than emphasizing upon a particular concept or skill in sufficient detail.

Although some mathematics will be taught through links with topic, more emphasis should be in providing adequate coverage of mathematical concepts. The merging of thematic and discreet approaches is supported in the guidance on long-term planning (White, 2004, p. 61).

UK national curriculum is organized into programs of study sections which can result to subdivision of the subject. This method of planning aids the integration of these sections. The national curriculum provides rational for choosing mathematics topic. The curriculum also takes cognizance of the importance of planning across the curriculum.

The emphasis in schools is to provide thorough coverage and to plan the most appropriate means to ensure that this happens. There is always a link between mathematics and a topic teaching mathematics, as well as discreet subject teaching where appropriate in UK schools. Early childhood schools commence its planning from a topic and the junior school emphasizes upon the discreet subject as the commencing point (Couby,1989, p.130)

Cross Curriculum Approach

Cross-curricular approach advocate for teaching of a number of subjects using a theme or topic as a central core. Teachers are able to use this approach to enable children apply the skills and concepts achieved from subject teaching. Furthermore, this approach enables children to understand how to use, develop and extend the many skills they are getting.

They are also able to recognize the purpose and value in having those skills. The topic of study produces an end result whereas subject teaching tends to be continuing (Christie, 2005, p. 18).

Cross curricular approaches makes children understand the type of skills to apply when tackling topic work, such as; scientific or mathematical. This is reinforced by understanding that skills and knowledge gained through subject teaching are the techniques people use to solve problems, make discoveries, and communicate with other.

Thematic work is carefully planned to ensure it is complementary to the levels of subject teaching. Infact, children as young as four can learn fast to transfer and use skills, provided the framework is there for them to do so (Boss, 2007, p. 125).

Current Debates and Relevant Professional and Political Issues on Best Approaches to Curriculum Development

The national curriculum has recreated major differences between educational professionals and politicians. Coulby (1995, p. 98) argues that recent curriculum reform has destroyed the professional roles of teachers where thematic approaches to learning was the main focus.

The major contribution of primary school teachers is through construction of thematic curriculum. Teachers feel that this curriculum has been unique for them as individual teachers and their classes. Thematic approach to learning provides inspiration and excitement which the top-down prescription of content can never achieve.

Curriculum development should never be about limiting teachers into narrow corridors of a highly specific separate curriculum which is common to all. Instead, curriculum development should be about helping teachers to develop a superior integrated curriculum which handles progression without omission of essential content (Acker, 1997, p. 155).

National curriculums have been hijacked by politicians as a weapon against primary progressive force (Boss, 2007p, 127). The national curriculum lacks flexibility as it provides statutory standardized national assessment and separate subject framework.

When reforms on National Curriculum were undertaken in 1988 in the UK, the government had initially assured teachers that it would not legislate for teaching methods (Baker, 1993, p. 155). This meant that the government intended to place the ways the curriculum was to be handled in the hands of professionals.

However, this promise was contravened in the 1990s when the government intervened in school teaching methods. Issues of primary school curriculum became government’s campaign tool (Back to basics), portraying primary teachers as driven by left wing, doctrinaire theory (Christie, 2005, p. 12).

The policies on teaching practices in primary schools were criticized by government, especially group work and individualized teaching. In order to reduce stranglehold of teachers in curriculum development, the government set up a short sharp inquiry to look at primary teaching methods.

Government advocated for return of didactic class teaching (Carl, 2009, p. 47). The recommendations from the resulting report were meant to provide researched evidence to support government’s point of view. Indeed the report drew on classroom research data of late1970s and early 1980s to show the overuse of individualized instruction and the benefits of class teaching (Graves, 1983, p. 34).

Didactive teaching approach as preferred by government was not however recommended by the 1988 report. It rather recommended type of teaching where teachers pose high level of intellectual demands on children in well formed open questions. Group and individual instructions were intended to balance this recommendation.

From the recommendations, it is open that tutors require skills and judgments to enable them chooses and use whichever organizational strategy whether; class, group or individual (Carl, 2009, p. 54). Educational professionals were not bothered by this provision.

Rather, they were not happy with the statement at the end of the paragraph on the report: that “the judgment it must be stressed, should be educational and organizational, rather than, as it is often, doctrinal “(Alexander, 1992, p. 32).

That statement inferred that teachers in primary schools are driven in their judgments by commitment to doctrinaire. Educational professional in primary schools felt agitated by this statement. This statement fully took into consideration government views that depicted primary school teachers as professional who lack capacity in curriculum development (Carl, 2009, p. 87).

Politicians view teachers as professionals leaning left wing ideological doctrines and lacking rational commitment to their profession (Boss, 2007, p. 121). The report aimed at perfectly meeting the Government’s back-to-basics policy by prescribing simplicity.

On curriculum, the report agrees with the role of thematic work. The report believes that when topic focuses on defined and restricted number of achievement targets it can contribute effectively to development of pupil learning (Alexander, 1992, p. 35).

It is clear on recommendations towards a curriculum of discrete subjects. This provides a strong suggestion that there should be specialist teaching primary key stages: it emphasized on specialization on teaching (Carl, 2009, p. 44). This view jeopardized the possibility of providing integrated curriculum. It also hampered the role of generalist class teacher who understands each child’s learning needs (Christie, 2005, p. 15).

In sum, primary school curricula should be taught in thematic way. Thematic approach puts emphasis on major topics or themes that enables pupils to explore variety of perspectives. In the process pupils are able to draw skills, knowledge and understanding from a number of subjects.

It focuses on practical investigations and has ability to contribute to social as well as academic development of students. The main advantage of thematic approach is that it encourages a holistic view of the curriculum rather than compartmentalizing subject areas.

Thus, it enables children to get a more relevant curriculum. However, relevant topics in this approach are often chosen to be based upon emphasis on a geography, history or science rather than mathematics. For this reason, it is unlikely that sufficient mathematics would be covered by teaching it through the topic alone. In addition, it can cause a tenuous link between mathematics and the topic (Coulby, 1989, p. 129).

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Baker, B. 1998. Child-centered Teaching, Redemption, and Educational Identities: A History of the Present, Educational Theory, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 155-174.

Boss, A., 2007. Curriculum . New York: Routledge.

Carl, A., 2009. Teacher Empowerment Through Curriculum Development . New York: Routledge.

Christie, F., 2005. Classroom Discourse Analysis . London: Routledge.

Clark, C. 1988. Child-Centered education and the ‘Growth’ Metaphysic’, Journal of Philosophy of Education , Vol.22, No. 1, pp. 75-88.

Cohen, Manion, L., 1994. The Interview. . London: Routledge

Coulby D., 1989. The Education Reform Act- Competition and Control , London: Cassell Education limited.

Gage, N.L. & Berliner David C. 1992. Educational psychology . Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gewirtz, S. 1997. Post-Welfarism and the Reconstruction of Teachers’ work in the UK Journal of Education Policy , Vol. 12, No. 4, pp.217- 231

Graves, D., 1983. Teachers and Children at Work : London: Heineman Helsby, G. & McCulloch, G. 1997. Introduction: Teachers and the National Curriculum. London: Cassell.

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Maclure, S. 1988. Education Reformed: A Guide to the Education Reform Act . London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Pollard A. & Bourne J.1994. Teaching and Learning in the Primary School. London: Routledge.

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Critical Reflection of Curriculum Design

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Nowadays, there is no doubt that the world is changing at such a speed that no human can fully comprehend. Educators have to adapt quickly in order to craft academic curricula that fit the requirements of the contemporary environment. The sixth chapter of Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues by Ornstein and Honkins focuses on the skillset needed to design a curriculum, which optimized the learning experience and follows a clear vision. This reflection examines the content of the chapter in detail to dissect the complexities behind the process of creating a curriculum.

Firstly, it is important to recognize that the way teachers contemplate learning, education, and curriculum has a profound impact on the priorities they might have in curriculum design. The perception one has of such complex concepts is entirely subjective due to the influence of various realms of believing and feeling. Ornstein and Honkins (2018) argue that the educational fabric the society shares today is created through the connection of three primary conceptions. They include the idea of socialization, Plato’s academic idea, and Rousseau’s development idea. While each idea has “significant flaws that must be recognized,” a great educational environment functions off the combination of all the three (Ornstein & Honkins, 2018, p. 178). Avoiding hyper-socialization, which leads to indoctrination, can be offset only be recognizing individual uniqueness. Similarly, without adopting the base concept of academics, the notion of uniqueness can quickly turn into intellectual elitism.

The next key point the authors make is in regards to the interrelation between the main components of a curriculum. The chapter recognizes that the very nature of curriculum design is defined by “four basic parts (objectives, content, learning experiences, and evaluation)” (Ornstein & Honkins, 2018, p. 179). However, simply combining them is not possible as curriculum creation depends upon the complexities of the influence an individual’s disposition, political stance, or class might have (Strauss, 2021). Thus, it is crucial to consider essential political, cultural, economic, and social implications when designing a curriculum.

Curriculum design fails to generate results if it neglects the various views of society and the individual learner. Ornstein and Honkins (2018) note that any educational action is impossible if one’s beliefs and values are not recognized. For curriculum designers, it is crucial to clarify curriculum’s sources, which might include but are not limited to “science, society, eternal truths, and divine will,” as well as moral doctrine, knowledge, and the learner (Ornstein & Honkins, 2018, p. 180). Each source is interconnected with contemporary approaches to knowledge attainment and information processing.

When discussing the coordination between a curriculum’s basic components, it is crucial to consider curriculum design’s two primary dimensions: horizontal and vertical. While the horizontal structure blends curriculum components, vertical organization refers to the process of sequencing the elements. According to Ornstein and Honkins (2018), “the socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors” have to be considered before making decisions regarding vertical and horizontal organization (p. 184). No aspect of curriculum design should be separate from societal influences, so that educators ensure diversity remains a priority.

Lastly, the authors note the importance of design dimension considerations. They include “scope, sequence, continuity, integration, articulation,” (Ornstein & Honkins, 2018, p. 184). Furthermore, according to the text of the chapter, balance is another important aspect, which helps students “acquire and use knowledge in ways that advance their personal, social, and intellectual goals” (Ornstein & Honkins, 2018, p. 187). Each of these considerations is crucial to apply to whatever design an educator chooses.

In conclusion, the planet became a balloon, which continues to grow bigger in size as human knowledge expands, new technologies emerge, and the population grows. For educators, it is exceptionally important to recognize that the current times are dynamic. Thus, in the 21st century, a teacher had to adapt quickly in order to ensure students receive the most up-to-date information using the most efficient pathways of learning. Therefore, crafting a perfect curriculum is a challenge, both conceptually and in practice.

Ornstein, A. C., & Honkins, F. P. (2018). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues (7th ed.). Pearson.

Strauss, V. (2021). The rapid creation of possibly the coolest new high school in America. The Washington Post, Web.

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Nudging Techniques: Design, Theoretical Grounds, and Ethical View

Published: 30 August 2024

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Rabab Ali Abumalloh ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2805-3764 1 ,
Osama Halabi 1 ,
Raian Ali 2 &
Dena Al-Thani 2

Nudges are approaches that direct individuals to perform particular courses of action to meet a pre-determined goal, without coercion. Previous literature has explored the design of nudge and its impact on users’ behavior in several domains and contexts. Still, scarce and fragmented knowledge about the design approaches, ethical considerations, and theoretical grounds have been presented by previous literature. Hence, this study aims to investigate the literature through bibliometric analysis and a narrative review of the nudging techniques and their impact on social behavior with an emphasis on the application domains, nudge designs, ethical considerations, and theoretical grounds. Focusing on nudge design and impact, we scan the landscape of the research in the area through bibliometric analysis and narrative review approaches. We searched for papers that included keywords related to nudges from the Scopus database and analyzed them using a bibliometric-based approach. Several diagrams that visualize the terms of the studies, sources, citations, and thematic trends were presented. The research provides several insights for researchers in terms of the design of the nudge, the theoretical grounds, ethical considerations, and the application domains of nudging.

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Abumalloh, R.A., Halabi, O., Ali, R. et al. Nudging Techniques: Design, Theoretical Grounds, and Ethical View. J Knowl Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-02219-x

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The process of curriculum development involves the design and development of integrated plans for learning, how to implement and evaluate the plans, and checking the outcome. Designing the curriculum involves critical analysis of the teaching and learning framework. The purpose of the design stage is to elucidate certain action plans for ...
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The best way to design a curriculum would be developing an initial perception of how the curriculum is viewed. For instance, a curriculum can be viewed as a product or a means that produces something out of the people who go through it. It can also be viewed as a process; meaning that there is no clearly defined content that learners are ...
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5 Curriculum Design, Development and Models: Planning for Student Learning . there is always a need for newly formulated curriculum models that address contemporary circumstance and valued educational aspirations." -Edmond Short. Introduction. Curriculum design refers to the structure or organization of the curriculum, and curriculum development includes the planning, implementation, and ...
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These principles drive the overall approach, and the detail of the planning, design, delivery, assessment, and evaluation processes at each stage. 1.1. A learner-oriented approach to teaching Principle 1: teaching and learning is designed in accordance with learners' needs in relation to learning outcomes.
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Curriculum Development and the 3 Models [+ Free Course Plan Template] Learner-centric curriculum development can improve engagement, participation and outcomes in any online or in-person learning environment. can be defined as the step-by-step process used to create positive improvements in courses offered by a school, college or university.
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the non-technical approach emphases on the learners. According to the technical-scientific approach, curriculum development acts as a blueprint for structuring the learning environment likewise the product model. That is, technical approach is logical, effective, and efficient in delivering education. Tyler's (1949) four basic principles
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Background. The concept of productive struggle is central to our understanding of teacher-led curriculum design. Widely used to describe and understand student learning in mathematics classrooms (Hiebert & Grouws, Citation 2007), its meaning has a long history rooted in learning theories centered on engaging a learner in confusion or doubt (Dewey, Citation 1910) or leveraging the power of ...
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The competency-based approach is more prescriptive; it always starts with the identification of a competency after which all other steps must follow. Although these methods differ, several of the steps overlap. The two approaches can be used alone or in combination to achieve a curriculum development goal.
Redrawing the cross-curricular map: An interdisciplinary approach to
A more sophisticated interdisciplinary approach would be to prioritise the explicit teaching of a sophisticated essay 'meta-language' across the humanities, so that students become familiar with concepts such as 'thesis statements' and 'counter-arguments' and begin to craft their essays into discursive arguments.
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Disadvantages of Thematic Approach to Curriculum Design. Thematic approach in primary schools cannot be seen fully to be advantageous. It has resulted to some teachers making spurious links between subjects and content not relevant for children. Sometimes it has resulted to omission of curriculum areas.
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Check out this FREE essay on Approaches to Curriculum Design ️ and use it to write your own unique paper. New York Essays - database with more than 65.000 college essays for A+ grades ... The common approaches to curriculum design include child or learner-centered, subject-centered and problem-centered approaches. Child or Learner-Centered ...
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Thus, it is crucial to consider essential political, cultural, economic, and social implications when designing a curriculum. Curriculum design fails to generate results if it neglects the various views of society and the individual learner. Ornstein and Honkins (2018) note that any educational action is impossible if one's beliefs and values ...
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Nudges are approaches that direct individuals to perform particular courses of action to meet a pre-determined goal, without coercion. Previous literature has explored the design of nudge and its impact on users' behavior in several domains and contexts. Still, scarce and fragmented knowledge about the design approaches, ethical considerations, and theoretical grounds have been presented by ...

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