Curriculum Development

1. Curriculum Development Andrea Sterzuk, PhD September 25, 2013

2. Discussion: • Question: Turn to a classmate and define the word curriculum. What does this term represent for you?

3. What is curriculum? • “The curriculum is the heart of schooling. The decisions made, consciously or unconsciously, in developing the curriculum greatly influence what is taught, what students learn, what teaching procedures are used, what learning activities students carry on, and how instruction is organized to facilitate continuous and integrated learning” (Tyler, 1990, p. xi)

4. What is curriculum? • “Traditionally, in Anglo-Saxon education systems, curriculum typically refers to what students will be taught with a particular focus on objectives, content, methods and description of other pedagogical arrangements” (Sahlberg, 2006, p.3). • “The learning experiences of students, in so far as they are expressed or anticipated in education goals and objectives, plans and designs for learning and the implementation of these plans and designs in school environments” (Skilbeck, 1985, p. 21).

5. What is curriculum? • “Those subjects that are most useful for living in contemporary society” (Marsh, 2009, p.6)

6. What is curriculum? • Question: What are the purposes or goals of vocational and technical education? Do these goals differ from other, more traditional general education subjects?

7. Vocational and technical curriculum • Finch and Crunkilton (1993) tell us that “vocational and technical curriculum has certain characteristics that distinguish it from the rest of the educational milieu” (p. 12). • These characteristics represent the potential parameters of any curriculum that “has as its controlling purpose the preparation of persons for useful, gainful employment” (p. 12). • These 10 basic characteristics are: orientation, justification, focus, in-school success standards, out-of-school success standards, school-community relationships, government involvement, responsiveness, logistics, and expense.

8. Characteristics: Finch & Crunkilton (1993) • Orientation: The ultimate success of a career and technical curriculum is not measured only through student educational achievement but also through the performance in the work world.  Thus, the career and technical and technical curriculum is oriented toward process (experiences and activities within the school setting) and product (effects of these experiences and activities on former students).   • Justification: The career and technical and technical curriculum is based on identified occupational needs of a particular locale.  These needs are not merely general feelings; they are clarified to the point that no question exists about the demand for workers in the selected occupation or occupational field.  Thus, curriculum justification extends beyond the school setting and into the community.  Just as the curriculum is oriented toward the student, support for that curriculum is derived from employment opportunities that exist for the graduate.  

9. Characteristics: Finch & Crunkilton (1993) • Focus: The career and technical and technical curriculum deals directly with helping the student to develop a broad range of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, each of which ultimately contributes in some manner to the graduate's employability.  The learning environment makes provision for student development of knowledge, manipulative skills, attitudes, and values, a well as the integration of these areas and their application to simulated and realistic work settings.  The focus also includes the integration of academic studies such as mathematics, communication skills, and science with applied studies so that students are better able to link these academic content areas to applied career and technical education content.  

10. Characteristics: Finch & Crunkilton (1993) • In-School Success Standards The true assessment of student success in school must be with 'hands-on" or applied performance.  For example, knowledge of the metric system is important to the extent that it contributes to student success in applied situation such as machining metric threads, administering medication, or repairing a car.  In-school success standards must be closely aligned with performance expected in the occupation, with criteria used by instructor often being standards of the occupation.  The student may be required to perform a certain task or function in a given amount of time using pre scribed procedures. • Out-of-School Success Standards The determination of success is not limited to what transpires in a school setting.  A career and technical and technical curriculum must also be judged in terms of its former students' success.  Thus, there is a major concern for the product, or graduate of the curriculum, particularly with respect to employment-related success.  Although success standards vary from school to school and from state to state, they quite often take the form of affective job skills, technical skills, occupational survival skills, job search skills, and entrepreneurial skills. 

11. Characteristics: Finch & Crunkilton (1993) • School-Workplace--Community Relationships Career and technical education is charged with the responsibility of maintaining strong ties with a variety of agriculture, business, and industry-related areas.    Since there are a number of potential "customers" in the community who are interested in products (graduates), the curriculum must be responsive to community needs.  Employers in the community are, likewise, obligated to indicate what their needs are and to assist the school in meeting these needs.  This assistance might consist of employers serving on curriculum advisory committees, donating equipment and materials to the schools, or providing internships and shadowing experiences for students.  Whatever relationship exists between the career and technical curriculum and the community, it should be recognized that strong school-workplace-community partnerships may often be equated with curriculum quality and success. • Government Involvement The extent to which government involvement affects the curriculum may constitute an asset or a liability. Requirements such as certain clock hours of instruction and certain types of equipment to be used in the shop or laboratory might foster a higher level of quality. On the other hand, there may be certain requirements that place undue restrictions on curriculum flexibility, and thus hinder attempts at innovation or at meeting the needs of certain student groups.

12. Characteristics: Finch & Crunkilton (1993) • Responsiveness The contemporary career and technical curriculum must be responsive to a constantly changing world of work.  New developments in various fields should be incorporated into the curriculum so that graduates can compete for jobs. • Logistics Bringing together the proper facilities, equipment, supplies, and instructional resources is a major concern to all persons involved in the implementation career and technical curricula. The specialized equipment needed to operate quality programs usually requires regular maintenance and must be replaced as it becomes obsolete. Materials used in the curriculum must be purchased, stored, inventoried replaced, and sometimes sold. • Expense Although the cost of maintaining a career and technical curriculum is not inordinately high, the dollars associated with operating certain career and technical curricula are sometimes considerably more than for their academic counterparts.  This expense may depend on the particular area of instructional emphasis, but there are some items in the career and technical curriculum that show up quite regularly.  These include basic operating costs such as heating, electricity, and water; purchase, maintenance, and replacement of equipment; purchase of consumable materials; and travel to work-based learning locations that are away from the school.    Equipment must be updated periodically if the instructor expects to provide students with realistic instruction, and this updating process can be very expensive.  Consumables are purchased as they are used by students throughout the school year.  These items might include such diverse items as oil, flour, shampoo, steel, wood, or fertilizer.

13. Discussion Activity

14. What is Curriculum Development? • Discussions of curriculum development usually insist on the search for answers to four key questions: • What goals should the school attain? • Through what content could these goals be achieved? • In what way should the content be shaped? and • How can it be established whether the learning goals had been achieved?

15. What is Curriculum Development? • We might think of curriculum development as the processes, stages, and stakeholders involved in determining “those subjects that are most useful for living” in society.

16. Curriculum development • Read the article on a recent UK reform to the computing curriculum • Question: As you read, pay attention to the stakeholders in this curriculum change. With a partner, discuss the following: Who is involved and in what ways? • Follow-up Question: With a partner, identify some of the steps and people who might be involved in making curriculum decisions for the institution where you work.

17. Writing Activity • Working individually, respond to the following prompt: • Why do we need to study the purpose and concepts associated with curriculum? • When have written your response (a paragraph or two), turn to a partner and share your writing together (either by reading aloud to one another or by exchanging your texts.

18. For Thursday, September 26 • Alderuccio, M. C. (2010). An investigation of global/local dynamics of curriculum transformation in sub‐Saharan Africa with special reference to the Republic of Mozambique. Compare, 40(6), 727-739. • Remember to answer (in writing) the two reading response questions.