Elements/Components of the Curriculum

The nature of the elements and the manner in which they are organized may comprise which we call a curriculum design.

Component 1: Curriculum Aims, Goals and Objectives
Aims: Elementary, Secondary, and Tertiary
Goals: School Vision and Mission
Objectives: educational objectives
Domains:
1. Cognitive – knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation
2. Affective – receiving, responding, valuing, organization, characterization
3. psychomotor – perception, set, guided response, mechanism, complex overt response, adaptation, origination

Component 2: Curriculum Content or Subject Matter
Information to be learned in school, another term for knowledge ( a compendium of facts, concepts, generalization, principles, theories.

1. Subject-centered view of curriculum: The Fund of human knowledge represents the repository of accumulated discoveries and inventions of man down the centuries, due to man’s exploration of his world
2. Learner-centered view of curriculum: Relates knowledge to the individual’s personal and social world and how he or she defines reality.
Gerome Bruner: “Knowledge is a model we construct to give meaning and structure to regularities in experience”

Criteria used in selection of subject matter for the curriculum:
1. self-sufficiency – “less teaching effort and educational resources, less learner’s effort but more results and effective learning outcomes – most economical manner (Scheffler, 1970)

2. significance – contribute to basic ideas to achieve overall aim of curriculum, develop learning skills

3. validity – meaningful to the learner based on maturity, prior experience, educational and social value

4. utility – usefulness of the content either for the present or the future
5. learnability – within the range of the experience of the learners

6. feasibility – can be learned within the tile allowed, resources available, expertise of the teacher, nature of learner

Principles to follow in organizing the learning contents (Palma, 1992)

1. BALANCE . Content curriculum should be fairly distributed in depth and breath of the particular learning are or discipline. This will ensure that the level or area will not be overcrowded or less crowded.

2. ARTICULATION. Each level of subject matter should be smoothly connected to the next, glaring gaps or wasteful overlaps in the subject matter will be avoided.

3. SEQUENCE. This is the logical arrangement of the subject matter. It refers to the deepening and broadening of content as it is taken up in the higher levels.

The horizontal connections are needed in subject areas that are similar so that learning will be elated to one another. This is INTEGRATION.

Learning requires a continuing application of the new knowledge, skills, attitudes or values so that these will be used in daily living. The constant repetition, review and reinforcement of learning is what is referred to as CONTINUITY.

Component 3 – Curriculum Experience
Instructional strategies and methods will link to curriculum experiences, the core and heart of the curriculum. The instructional strategies and methods will put into action the goals and use of the content in order to produce an outcome.
Teaching strategies convert the written curriculum to instruction. Among these are time-tested methods, inquiry approaches, constructivist and other emerging strategies that complement new theories in teaching and learning. Educational activities like field trips, conducting experiments, interacting with computer programs and other experiential learning will also form par of the repertoire of teaching.

Whatever methods the teacher utilizes to implement the curriculum, there will be some guide for the selection and use, Here are some of them:

1. teaching methods are means to achieve the end
2. there is no single best teaching method
3. teaching methods should stimulate the learner’s desire to develop the cognitive, affective, psychomotor, social and spiritual domain of the individual
4. in the choice of teaching methods, learning styles of the students should be considered
5. every method should lead to the development of the learning outcome in three domains
6. flexibility should be a consideration in the use of teaching methods

Component 4 – Curriculum Evaluation
To be effective, all curricula must have an element of evaluation. Curriculum evaluation refer to the formal determination of the quality, effectiveness or value of the program, process, and product of the curriculum. Several methods of evaluation came up. The most widely used is Stufflebeam's CIPP Model. The process in CIPP model is continuous and very important to curriculum managers.

CIPP Model – Context (environment of curriculum), Input (ingredients of curriculum), Process (ways and means of implementing), Product accomplishment of goals)- process is continuous.

Regardless of the methods and materials evaluation will utilize, a suggested plan of action for the process of curriculum evaluation is introduced. These are the steps:

1. Focus on one particular component of the curriculum. Will it be subject area, the grade level, the course, or the degree program? Specify objectives of evaluation.

2. Collect or gather the information. Information is made up of data needed regarding the object of evaluation.

3. Organize the information. This step will require coding, organizing, storing and retrieving data for interpretation.

4. Analyze information. An appropriate way of analyzing will be utilized.

5. Report the information. The report of evaluation should be reported to specific audiences. It can be done formally in conferences with stakeholders, or informally through round table discussion and conversations.

6. Recycle the information for continuous feedback, modifications and adjustments to be made.

(Activity: "Is Philippine education really deteriorating?" This is a big question raised by many sectors of our society. Reflect and research (gather enough data/proof in your particular school/district/division) on this issue. Choose a particular level and a specific subject area as a point o reference).

Source: Curriculum Development by Purita Bilbao, et. al. LoreMar Pub., 2008)