Reflection 4: Curriculum Planning and Models of Curriculum

In conceptualizing and arranging the elements of a curriculum, several questions need to be answered: (1)What is to be done?(2) What topics are to be included? (3) What are the instructional strategies, resources, and activities to be included? and (4) What instruments will be used to appraise the outcome of the curriculum?

Foremost, I feel that I have to consider the sources of ideas that will surely affect the curriculum design. I have to take a look at the current needs of society inasmuch as the school is an agent of society.I need to collaborate with different groups and determine their interests. Furthermore,the importance of people’s values should also be given weight.Another consideration would be the scientific procedure that dictates “how to learn things” or how should students be made to process the knowledge.

There are also varied dimensions to be considered in the design of the curriculum. One is scope.If I have to put myself in the position of a curriculist. I think I have to know which domain of learning should be given emphasis and to what extent should each be covered. Moreover, I have to decide on the sequencing of the content and the experiences to make the learners connect to the ideas being presented.This further leads me to  tackle the dimension of continuity. What specific skills should be made to reappear in the curriculum to foster mastery among the learner? And this is followed by the idea of integration.What other types of knowledge and experiences will be added   to ensure that the knowledge presented will not be disjointed and meaningless.Still another important dimension is articulation. Questions like “Are students assured of prerequisite learnings which would prepare them to the next level of learning”;and “Are there interrelationships between one subject course and another, like Social studies  and English courses?”And lastly, balance is considered. With this comes the non stop fine- tuning  of the curriculum to create a balance between one’s view of philosophy  and psychology of learning, and between the needs and interests of learners  and the standard knowledge that  students of a particular level should know.

Reading the different curriculum models shows that there is no one-curriculum development model that is better than the other.What should be taken into consideration is the specific situation where a model can be most effective. Thus a curriculum that takes on a continuous process of adjustment to suit the situation of the learners will perhaps guarantee learning which is the goal of every curriculum. A curriculum design  should be  dependent  on emerging information and practice , fashioned by the beliefs, experiences, theories and philosophies held by those planning the learning environment.A teacher, for example, can modify the  specified curriculum elements  but still taking into consideration the objectives stated. The teacher can choose the activities to follow depending on the ability or level of the students.

I strongly feel that curriculists should focus on teaching and learning and developing curriculum through practice. This then calls for the teachers to be vigilant. Through their keen observation, which can be translated into action research and reflective practice changes or improvisations can be made along the way. With this method, education will be a meaningful experience for both teachers and students.