Paste your text in here…
A curriculum can be seen as a progressive, planned, purposeful and systematic process in order to create positive improvements in the educational environments. It is a vast definition as a major aspect of education process influencing everyone that is involved in learning and teaching. The focus of this study is the development of curriculum within the education system, everything that happens within the school and all the courses of study. Without a curriculum, teaching cannot take place.
The curriculum can be widely defined as everything that happens in the school such as guidance, extra class activities and interpersonal relationship. This is considered as a number of experiences the learners undergo in the school, the curriculum is a vital part of education. Curriculum development is a continuous work of modifying and constructing, it includes contents, instructional strategies, skills, aims and objectives of course of study etc.
A much wider concept of curriculum entails different educational strategies, learning outcomes, assessment, and the learning styles of the students.
Different kinds of curriculum base on learning theories are; Behavioural, social, personalise and information processing.
The orientation of curriculum include the process and result, the process entails all the school activities while the result entails the effect of these activities on the students, it can be child-centered, society-centered, knowledge-centered, or eclectic. The curriculum is oriented towards the resulting achievements of the learners from his/her educational achievements; this can be in form of work achievements or future life achievements.
Education based philosophy on curriculum;
‘ Define knowledge and understanding
‘ What must be known
‘ ‘to learn’ means?
‘ Ways that shows learning has to occur
‘ What are teachers role
‘ What are the roles of the students
‘ What is the major purpose of education
‘ Your major education values
Some approaches to Curriculum are;
Idealism: the concept teaches the student about the wisdom of the past heroes, it focuses on brushing the intellect and mind of the students. It includes subjective, platonic and absolute. Subjective idealism is known ideas, platonic idealism reveals that there is a realm that contains great ideas which our world lacks, absolute idealism also known as objective idealism believes reality is created from just one mind.
Existentialism: with the individual as the determinant of the meaning of reality and truth, the existence of schools is to help the children to have knowledge of themselves and find a place for themselves in the society.
Experimentalism: the concept teaches the student problem solving and social experiences as it is believed that there is constant change in the thing and that the existence of schools is to realize and increase our society. What you experience is the reality.
Realism: the concept teaches the students information with facts, it is believed that the existence of schools is to show the world and universe order. It takes the world as it is being viewed or observed which is known to be a reality. According to realism, what we sense and observed is the truth. Realism can be classical realism, medieval realism, modern realism and na”ve realism.
Essentialism: originates from idealism and realism, this is an American philosophy of education which was concerned about the students not get the adequate knowledge in schools and it is child centred. Individuals themselves define reality with their personal interpretation.
Constructivism: the concept justifies learning as a means of adjusting our mental capacity to accommodate new ideas. It defines learning as understanding in part as well as whole so as to be able to construct your own meaning and not just digest someone else's meaning. For teaching to be effective, the teachers must have an understanding of the mental models the students use in judging the world.
Reconstructivism: the target is to equip the students with different tools to become agents of social change, the students are given task to analyze world events, controversial issues etc. this include progressivism where students are helping to reason rationally, it is a student-centered approach, postmodernism targets helping the students to realize universal truth does not exist, and behaviorism where the behavior of the students are sharpened for effective and good behavior.
A curriculum that is usually used in schools includes the curriculum document, supportive teaching materials, texts, films and all the content that are to support the school agenda. The curriculum is planned based on what should be taught and may require the elimination of some unnecessary concepts
Different types of curriculum are;
Electronic curriculum: this can be either for research or recreational use like for chat rooms, blogs etc. the quality is judged based on how one view it, it is gathered through surfing the internet.
Received curriculum: these are instructional concepts and content the student effective learned and can easily remember.
Curriculum-in-use: this is a formal curriculum that is made up of textbooks, this is the major curriculum that the teachers present to the students.
Rhetorical curriculum: is made up of ideas of the school officials and administrators who are involved in forming concepts and content.
Consideration in Curriculum development for schools include:
‘ It must encourage the learners to have an adequate understanding of their behaviour and its effect on others.
‘ It must encourage good relationship between the learners and teachers which will generate discussion and check mate learners behaviour and attitudes towards learning
The curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the students and this purpose must be well served. Teachers have employed the use of various methods of team teaching, instruction on individual basis etc. As it known that curriculum on the resulting future of the learner, therefore, any method employed must be able to prepare the students for a bright future.
The phases of curriculum development are;
‘ Instructional development
‘ Development of material and media
‘ Teaching methods and testing
Implementing the curriculum entails;
‘ The completion of the scheme of work of each subject
‘ Planning the lessons agenda with respect to timetable design
‘ The use of transactional strategies
‘ The use of relevant media
‘ The provision of learning resources
‘ Promotion of learning experiences in the classroom
‘ Continuous testing
Stages of curriculum development as analysed by Nigeria Scholar Onyiuke (1981)
Situation Analysis: in which the current state of the school is analysed with regards to the strength of the teachers, methods of teachings and the instructional materials available.
Selection of objectives: behavioural objectives are used in curriculum development. For every course of study, there are certain objectives the teacher wants the student to grab and the teacher plans the process that will help to achieve these objectives.
In behavioural objectives, there are set goals the students should attain before the end of the study.
Selection of relevant learning experiences, the contents that will best target the aims, objectives and the goals of study
The learning experiences should be organized and the achievement of the objectives should be measured
The focus of curriculum development is on content and related areas, in a summary curriculum can be considered as the school mission and goals. The development of curriculum consider the principles of learning, the study focus must be related to the learning resources and appropriate strategies are chosen for curriculum with suitable media. Various learning experiences are explored to select the best suitable experience to achieve focused objectives.
‘Technology doesn’t change or transform education. People change education.’ (Marsha L, 2015) Recent times, information and communication technology have become a part of school setup, the major reason for this incorporation of technology is to enhance the learning of the students. Some reviews done show great influence of technology on the students giving a positive impact on their achievements and learning, the teachers are also not left out of effect. The useful technology tools include personal computers, radio, mobile phones, internet connection etc. although sometimes, learning may not be effective with technology due to misplaced priority by most students as they drift away from the major use of technology. However, in all technology is very effective for learning if used appropriately, it can create an environment for students to interact with other learners in a way to broaden their knowledge and solve challenges.
All that the students experience in the process of education is curriculum, it can be an organized set of instructions. The education system is forever associated with the idea of curriculum, ‘all the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school.’ (Kelly, 1999). Curriculum model is made up elements connected together in different activities, developing a curriculum is a strategic planning process and must be kept on track with the school standards and goal and the information that the students must learn. The major focus on curriculum development is the students because it is the students that select the course, extra activities and experiences that are of their best interest or for their future plans, one can simply say every student has his/her own curriculum. Apart from the context of the course of study, the curriculum is also made up of extra activities like sports, clubs, competitions, religious activities etc. these extra activities make the curriculum effective and contributes to the development of the student.