Introduction to Education Studies:

Chapter 5:
CURRICULUM

Bartlett, S. & Burton, D. (2007).

SAGE Publications
 Chapter 5:
CURRICULUM

• This session focuses on curriculum

frameworks.
 Curriculum Frameworks
• When analyzing a curriculum, it is useful to
consider it under headings such as:
aims and purposes,
content,
teaching and learning principles (pedagogy),
and
assessment of learning.
 Aims and Purposes
• There are many forms curricula can take and
these reflect the different aims they were
designed to achieve.
 Aims and Purposes
• The current National Curriculum in English
schools, for example, aims to provide a broad
and balanced education for all students in
state schools between the ages of 5 and 16.
 Aims and Purposes
• This involves promoting their spiritual, moral,
cultural, mental and physical developments
and preparing them for adult life (see page
88).
 Aims and Purposes
• The effectiveness of the curriculum can be
judged in terms of how well it does these
things.
 Aims and Purposes
• Other curricula may be much more specific in
their aims.
 Aims and Purposes
• Much vocational training, for instance, has a
clearly defined set of practical skills and
knowledge in which trainees are expected to
demonstrate competence to successfully
complete the program.
 Aims and Purposes
• It is very important to consider aims and
purposes as these greatly influence the
content, methods of teaching and learning,
and forms of assessment that make up a
curriculum.
 Content
• Many considerations govern the content of a
curriculum and these stem from its overall aim
or purposes.
 Content
What kinds of knowledge should be taught?
What values do they represent?
How useful are they?
How relevant is this knowledge?
 Content
• Practical relevance is not the only criterion for
establishing the value of knowledge.
 Content
• There may be powerful cultural reasons for
learning certain things.
 Content
• The content of the school curriculum is defined
in terms of subject knowledge but also in
terms of the kinds of thinking and related
skills - literacy and numeracy, for example -
that might be appropriate for learning.
 Content
• Subject organization implies different and
discrete areas of knowledge.
 Content
• The National Curriculum for England and
Wales had ten specified subjects when it was
first introduced.
 Content
• It included three core subjects (English,
mathematics and science) and seven
foundation subjects (history, geography,
technology, music, art, physical education and,
at secondary level, a modern foreign
language).
 Content
• This selection of subjects indicates a particular
view of knowledge and learning.
 Content
• One of the issues with basing a curriculum
around subjects is that a significant decision
has to be made by someone about which
subjects to include and which to leave out.
 Content
• At first sight, deciding what to teach in
mathematics and science may appear
unproblematic.
 Content
• In reality, however, what is included in these
subjects and how the material is taught and
learned are hotly debated issues.
 Content
• The same is true for all subjects.
 Content
• For example, what aspects of history should be
taught?
• History looks very different when presented
from different perspectives.
• The Scots, English and French do not interpret
British and European history in the same way.
 Content
• Such decisions about content and its
presentation relate to all subjects to a greater
or lesser degree.
 Content
• There are various ways of organising
curriculum content.
 Content
• These may not be subject based, but instead
organised around key experiences.
 Content
• Stenhouse for instance, working for the
Schools Curriculum Council in the 1960s,
advocated a more integrated approach to
curriculum design that centred on themes or
issues rather than separate subjects.
 Content
• He developed the Integrated Humanities
Project that aimed to make the content more
relevant to the learners.
 Content
• He felt that subjects created artificial
boundaries that made understanding more
difficult.
 Content
• In an integrated curriculum when learning
about their local environment, for example, a
student would look at aspects of history,
geography, and social and moral education.
 Content
• Students would collect information, measure,
count, present results and produce written
accounts.
 Content
• They would be 'doing' different subjects
simultaneously and learning the appropriate
skills in an applied way.
 Content
• In vocational learning the organisation of
knowledge is often more clearly combined
with the development of practical skills.
 Pedagogy
• Pedagogy, or the science of teaching, is
concerned with the methods of teaching and
learning.
 Pedagogy
• Pedagogy involves structural features such as
the learning environment,
the classroom and
a mode of practice (for example, a teacher
giving instructions or asking questions).
 Pedagogy
• Pedagogical ideas are in part developed from
theories about how people learn.
 Pedagogy
• Different and contradictory accounts of how
learning takes place exist and conflict with
one another.
 Pedagogy
• There are many different traditions of
learning.
 Pedagogy
• In Europe, for example, there is much more
emphasis on pedagogy as a distinctive branch
of educational knowledge.
 Pedagogy
• In 1972 Bruner claimed that any aspect of any
subject could be taught to anybody at any
age.
 Pedagogy
• Plowden report (1967) in the UK stimulated
an emphasis on child-centred learning.
 Pedagogy
• Child-centred learning stressed creativity,
spontaneity and individuality .
 Pedagogy
• More recently, there has been a stress on
using social constructivist theory that derives
from Vygotsky (Engestrom, 1993).
 Pedagogy
• These theorists see individual learning as
structured mental development.
 Pedagogy
• Learning is always a development of the self;
it is always social and cultural.
 Pedagogy
• This implies a different way of organising the
experiences of learning from that of child-
centred approaches.
 Pedagogy
• Vygotskyans tend to believe that teaching
must:
take the child forward,
be concerned with new concepts, new
hierarchies of ideas and ever more complex
forms of mental operation.
 Pedagogy
• The pedagogic approaches of social
constructivism have become very influential in
UK schools.
 Pedagogy
• Methods of teaching and learning give rise to
questions about autonomy and authority.
 Pedagogy
• We might consider what are the 'best', most
productive, most relevant and socially
desirable forms of practice.
 Pedagogy
• How much should teaching and learning
within a curriculum be concerned to promote
the development of autonomy,
initiative,
critical awareness and
other qualities that might be thought of as
central aspects of citizenship?
 Pedagogy
• How much should it be about developing
discipline of thought and acquiring important
formal knowledge?
 Pedagogy
• Once again the answer depends upon the
particular curriculum but also on how we
perceive the nature and purposes of
education.
 Pedagogy
• Teaching and learning can take many forms.
 Pedagogy
• The emphasis may be on practical
applications, experimentation, or open
learning.
 Pedagogy
• Even within a particular course the teaching
methods can vary greatly.
 Pedagogy
• For instance, students learning a modern
foreign language may have a very different
experience from peers taking the same subject
in the next room.
 Pedagogy
• One teacher may emphasise an interactive,
oral approach to language development
whereas another may stress writing and rote
learning as ways of extending the students'
vocabularies.
 Pedagogy
• The following learning situations are
commonly experienced by students:
• mass lectures
• whole class work
• small group investigation and discussion
• individual learning.
 Pedagogy
• Learning activities can include:
making notes,
investigation in learning centres and libraries,
searching through electronic sources,
group discussion,
practical activity such as experiments or
problem solving individually or in groups.
 Pedagogy
• There are many possibilities and
combinations.
 Pedagogy
• In summary, decisions on appropriate
pedagogy depend upon
the purposes of the learning,
the type of material to be taught and
the ideological views of the 'best' methods
held by those 'delivering' the curriculum.
 Assessment
• There are many ways in which educational
progress and achievement may be judged
(assessed).
 Assessment
• These vary from the formal to the very
informal and each provides different kinds of
information from statistical results to verbal
feedback.
 Purposes of assessment:
1. To monitor progress
1. To monitor progress:
• Here assessment will indicate how the student
is progressing. This is often referred to as
formative assessment or assessment for
learning.
 Purposes of assessment:
1. To monitor progress
• Formative assessment may be ongoing, for
example regular feedback on coursework, or it
may be periodic as with regular tests.
 Purposes of assessment:
1. To monitor progress
• It can form part of a diagnostic process
providing a basis for decisions on future
learning and for developing a record of
progress.
 Purposes of assessment:
1. To monitor progress
• Assessment is seen here as an integral part of
the learning process rather than as something
that just happens at the end.
 Purposes of assessment:
2. To indicate a final level of achievement
2. To indicate a final level of achievement.
After completing a course a final grade or level is
often awarded as part of the certification.
 Purposes of assessment:
2. To indicate a final level of achievement
• This is referred to as summative assessment
or assessment of learning.
 Purposes of assessment:
3. To evaluate the teaching and learning process

3. To evaluate the teaching and learning

process.
Through assessment teachers can determine
which aspects of the learning students find
most difficult and also the effectiveness of
different pedagogical approaches.
 Purposes of assessment:
3. To evaluate the teaching and learning process

• This can be done while the curriculum is being

taught using the results from formative
assessments.
 Purposes of assessment:
3. To evaluate the teaching and learning process

• An end of course evaluation can also be

conducted.
 Purposes of assessment:
4. To enable comparisons of achievement by
external agencies
4. To enable comparisons of achievement by
external agencies. External agents such as local
authorities, politicians and parents are able to
use the results of national assessments to
compare education institutions.
 Types of assessment
• The type of assessment used depends upon
the reasons for the assessment, the nature of
the learning and also the ideological beliefs
underpinning the curriculum.
 Types of assessment
• Formal mechanisms tend to elicit more
quantitative data on performance, allow easy
comparison between individuals and whole
cohorts of pupils/students and may appear
more objective.
 Types of assessment
• Those forms of assessment that provide 'hard'
(formal) data may be more valued.
 Types of assessment
• However, while appearing more accurate,
their validity may actually be open to
question.
 Types of assessment
• Often the most difficult and complex issues
cannot be answered through simple multiple
choice type questions.
 Types of assessment
• The softer, more informal modes of
assessment, such as discussing work with a
student, may reveal the full extent of an
individual's understanding.
 Types of assessment
• However, making comparisons of large
numbers of students is impossible by such a
method.
 Types of assessment
• Thus different forms of assessment each have
their strengths and weaknesses and are
compatible with different purposes.
 Types of assessment
• Assessment has important public functions
and can dominate curriculum processes and
practices.
 Types of assessment
• The curriculum may be assessment-driven and
risk losing sight of its broader objectives.
 Types of assessment
• Hall and Sheehy suggest that 'assessing
learning is not a neutral or value-free activity -
it is always bound up with attitudes, values,
beliefs and sometimes prejudices on the part
of those carrying out the assessment and on
the part of those being assessed.'
 Types of assessment
• The purposes of the assessment have a
significant effect on how the assessors and the
assessed perceive the process.
 Types of assessment
• For instance, formative assessment can be
done in a relaxed manner that is open and
honest.
 Types of assessment
• Both assessor and assessed may feel it to be a
positive process.
 Types of assessment
• However, a final summative assessment,
when results are to be used as part of an
accountability process, is likely to be a much
more anxious process for those being
assessed.
 Types of assessment
• Because of these potential conflicts the
purposes of assessment need to be clear from
the outset.
 Conclusion
• The impact of different ideologies and beliefs
on the creation, positioning and structure of a
curriculum has been illustrated.
 Conclusion
• We have seen that the nature of knowledge
and views on what it is important to 'know'
play a central part in the design of any
curriculum.
 Conclusion
• Knowledge can be structured and presented in
different ways.
 Conclusion
• In the context of modern schooling, traditional
subject knowledge may be seen as important
or knowledge may be presented thematically.
 Conclusion
• Thus teaching and learning can take many
different forms depending upon the purpose of
the curriculum and the beliefs of the teachers.
 Conclusion
• Assessment is a fundamental element of the
curriculum and can take many forms.
 Conclusion
• These different forms of assessment reflect
what those designing and delivering the
curriculum see as important in terms of
student outcomes.
 Conclusion
• They are tied very much to the purposes of the
curriculum and beliefs concerning the nature
of education.
 Conclusion
• The structural features of the curriculum are
thus influenced by the purposes and beliefs of
the teachers, course designers, examination
boards, government ministers and established
discourses.
 Conclusion
• The final delivered curriculum is often the
result of a complex interaction and power
struggle between the various interested
parties.