Foundations of Curriculum Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Unit 1: An Overview

What exactly is a “curriculum”? The word curriculum was derived from the Latin word “currere” which means to run a racecourse. A curriculum usually describes the courses in schools and universities, but it can also refer to a structured series of intended learning outcomes, the total of a learner’s experiences, the actual document which contains the plan describing the education process, the entire programme of work (everything that learners and teachers do), decisions about educational experiences and its related learning and teaching activities, and the scope and arrangement of a planned educational programme. Although a variety of definitions exists for “curriculum”, the common concepts concern the subject matter, the learners’ experiences, and the anticipated outcomes. One can thus deduce that curriculum involves intention (predetermined outcomes describing what learners should learn), experience (a set of planned learning experiences for learners), content (the actual subject matter), and transmission (the knowledge, skills, and behaviours of a subject field to enhance a society). Explore different definitions of curriculum in Activity 1 on ClickUP, and develop your own definition of curriculum.

Experts refer to different types of curriculum that are not considered in everyday learning experiences. Have you ever considered the “null” curriculum, or the “rhetorical” curriculum? Read more about the different types of curricula when you follow the link in Activity 2, related to ‘Types of Curriculum’.

There are four major educational philosophies in which most curricula are embedded. These educational philosophies focus on the ‘what’ of learning and teaching, that is, the curriculum concept. The four curriculum philosophies that you will learn about in this module include Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism and Reconstructionism. Explore the four different educational philosophies underpinning curricula in Activity 3.

When planning and developing curricula, curriculum developers consider the function and intention of curricula. These intentions and function are embedded in curriculum orientations. Curriculum orientations essentially deal with the purpose of learning and teaching. In this way curriculum orientations influence the development and implementation of curricula. Read Activity 4 and discover seven different curriculum orientations that direct the way in which curricula are planned and developed.

Unit 2: An overview

The international and national world has different perspectives on curriculum development. Curriculum revisions and major curriculum changes therefore frequently reflect key global and national imperatives, as advocated in the following quote: “The Department of Basic Education has historically aimed to improve the quality of education by changing the curriculum” (Molapo & Pillay 2018). In Unit 1 we looked at curriculum theory. It is necessary to now expand on that initial understanding by considering theoretical perspectives on curriculum development. The particular approach chosen by curriculum developers responds to the problem the curriculum is intending to address. This problem formulation influences the curriculum development. Various curriculum perspectives will represent various assumptions regarding aspects of education. Engage in Activity 1 and Activity 2 to develop your understanding on the nature of curriculum development, as well as models guiding curriculum development processes. Curriculum development does not just occur at the level of a school or institution where learning takes place.

There are often many levels to curriculum development, determined by hierarchical models. More specifically, Thijs and van den Akker (2008) distinguish five different levels on which curriculum development occurs, from levels determined by international bodies, to levels determined by the individual learner. This implies that teachers in South Africa often have limited input into the development of curricula at National or provincial levels. They do, however, need the ability to skilfully interpret national and institutional documents for implementation at school level. Read and do Activity 3 to investigate the different levels of curriculum development. You can now complete the CBT for Unit 2. Situation analyses inform curriculum development. A situation analysis is an analysis of all factors in the context of a planned curriculum so that curriculum developers can assess the potential influence of these factors on the curriculum project.

Factors could be societal (e.g. 2 community groups), project (e.g. responsibilities and time), institutional (e.g. leadership and administrative support), teacher (e.g. expertise and morale), and learners (e.g. past experiences). A needs assessment in conjunction with a situation analysis provide processes of diagnosing and determining learner needs and how these could be met, while the situation analysis provides a systematic analysis of the situation before the curriculum is developed. When you design your own curriculum later in the module, it is crucial that the situation analysis you conduct include reference to the learning environment; the conditions in which learning takes place. For example, you will need to consider both the physical components (e.g. light, air quality, temperature, acoustics, reconfigurability, technology, decorations, safety) and the human components (e.g. atmosphere, ethos, agency, individualisation, relationships, expectations) when contemplating the influence of learning spaces on curriculum.

Complete Activity 4 and plan and conduct your own situational analysis in which you identify and investigate an educational need to be addressed. Before curriculum developers start to engage in actual curriculum design work, they typically specify their design intentions. They do this by writing a problem statement, rationale and purpose statement. These documents serve to guide the curriculum design process as it highlights the curriculum problem that needs to be solved, the educational need that will be addressed, and the reasons why the educational need should be addressed. Read and do Activity 5, after which you can complete Assignment 2.

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