Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 34

Designing the Classroom Curriculum
styles”( 10 ) approaches to teaching and learning. It is common to see that attempts are made to involve
students in the planning of curriculum.
The psycho-analysts Piaget and Freud (circa 1940 to 1950) have had an enormous impact on education
globally and on this approach in particular. Early year’s education adopted Piaget’s ideas about human
developmental stages and generations of teachers have pursued the idea that the ‘curriculum’ comprises
experiences that assist children to move through such stages. As teacher education was formalised with
degree status in higher education, a good deal of the required early technical knowledge was driven by
theorists such as Piaget. A major criticism of such humanistic approaches is that the curriculum elements
are not clearly defined and that evidence for their accomplishment is not easily collected or validated (Smith,
M.K., 2000).
The second kind of curriculum design premise is characterized by planning and the use of rational modes
of operation to structure student’s experiences that are thought to facilitate learning (Zenger, et al., 1982).
This approach sets out steps in the curriculum process with definite ends to be achieved by students and
that can be evaluated. The main critique of the model is that it is too deterministic, inflexible and relies
heavily on the quality of the starting objectives or outcomes and their successful implementation for its
validity. There is also criticism of the evaluation stages on the grounds that “learning” is far wider than what
appears in testing programs and other summary devices that many incorrectly associate exclusively with such
curricula (Smith, M.K., 2000).
Numerous curriculum development and design models have been developed that attempt to turn theory
into practice by simplifying the complexities of the real world that they purport to describe and analyse.
These models are used as devices to help us think about curriculum and the associated ideas so that processes
of education are improved and new theoretical concepts can be developed.
Our understanding and the application of curriculum development models today draws on the wisdom of
over forty years of research and publication. As McBeath (1990) suggests,
“During this time many hundreds of scholars have probed and practiced, evaluated and cogitated,
debated and expounded at great length about the theory and practice of curriculum design and
development” (McBeath, 1990).
Given the usefulness of models for helping understanding, let us investigate three dominant curriculum
models that are in common use. The first is the ‘Objectives Model’.
(1) The Objectives Model
The ‘objectives model’ is known formally as Tyler’s (1949) model and it elaborates the asking of four
sequential 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 experiences be effectively organised?
( 10 ) This concept is contested. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1558822/Professor-pans-learning-style-teaching-
method.html; http://www2.glos.ac.uk/gdn/discuss/kolb2.htm;
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/PSPI_9_3.pdf
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