Friday, February 20, 2009

Major Foundations of Curriculum

Philosophical Foundations of Curriculum:

Philosophy provides educators, teachers and curriculum makers with framework for planning, implementing and evaluating curriculum in school.I helps in answering what schools are for, what subjects are important, how students should learn and what materials and methods should be used. In decision-making, philosophy provides the starting point and will be used for the succeeding decision-making.

The following four educational philosophies relate to curriculum:

1. Perennialism. The focus in the curriculum is classical subjects, literary analysis and considers curriculum as constant.

2. Essentialism. The essential skills of the 3 R's and essential subjects of English, Science, History, Math and Foreign Language is the focus of the curriculum.

3. Progressivism. The curriculum is focused on students' interest, human problems and affairs. The subjects are interdisciplinary, integrative and interactive.

4. Reconstructionism. The focus of the curriculum is on present and future trends and issues of national and international interests.

Educational philosophy lays the strong foundation of any curriculum. A curriculum planner or specialist, implementer or the teacher, school heads, evaluator anchors his/her decision making process on a sound philosophy.

(Activity: Compare the four Philosophies of Education based on the aim of education, role of education and curriculum trends. How does a strong belief or philosophy influence curriculum?

Historical Foundations of Curriculum.
Curriculum is not an old field. Majority of scholars would place its beginning in 1918 with the publication of Franklin Bobbit's book."The Curriculum"

Philippine education came about from various foreign influences. This can be traced back to the glorious history. Of all foreign educational systems, the American educational system has the greatest influence on our educational system.

The following six curriculum theorists contributed their views on curriculum:

1. Franklin Bobbit (1876-1956)- presented curriculum as a science that emphasizes on students' need.

2. Werret Charters (1875-1952) - considered curriculum also as a science which is based on students' need, and the teachers plan the activities.

3. William Kilpatrick (1871-1965) - viewed curriculum as purposeful activities which are child-centered.

4. Harold Rugg (1886-1960) - emphasized social studies in the curriculum and the teacher plans the lesson in advance.

5. Hollis Caswell (1901-1989) - sees curriculum as organized around social functions of themes, organized knowledge and earner's interests.

6. Ralph Tyler (1902-1994) - believes that curriculum is a science and an extension of school's philosophy. based on students' need and interests.

The historical development shows the different changes in the purposes, principles and content of the curriculum.

(Question: What are the implications of ever-changing curriculum top teachers?)

Psychological Foundations
Psychology provides basis for the teaching and learning process. It unifies elements of the learning process and some of the some of questions which can be addressed by psychological foundations.

The following are the three major groups f learning theories:

1. Behaviorists Psychology - consider that learning should be organized in order that students can experience success in the process of mastering the subject matter, and thus, method of teaching should be introduced in a step by step manner with proper sequencing of task.

(Activity: Discuss the contributions of Edward L. Thorndike, Ivan Pavlov and Robert Gagne to the present views on curriculum)

2. Cognitive Psychology - focus their attention on how individuals process information and how the monitor and manage thinking. For the cognitive theorists, learning constitutes a logical method for organizing and interpreting learning. Learning is rooted in the tradition of subject matter where teachers use a lot of problem and thinking skills in teaching learning. These are exemplified by practices like reflective thinking, creative thinking, intuitive thinking, discovery learning, etc.

(Activity: Discuss the contributions of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Howard Gardner, Felder and Silverman and Daniel Goleman to curriculum development.

3. Humanistic Psychology - concerned with how learners can develop their human potential. Based on Gestalt psychology where learning can be explained in terms of the wholeness of the problem and where the environment is changing and the learner is continuously reorganizing his/her perceptions. Curriculum is concerned with the process not the products, personal needs not subject matter; psychological meaning and environmental situations.

(Activity: Give the contributions of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers to the present field of curriculum development.

4. Social Foundations of Education.
Schools exists within the social context.Societal culture affects and shapes schools and their curricula.

The relationship of curriculum and society is mutual and encompassing. Hence, to be relevant, the curricula should reflect and preserve the culture of society and its aspirations. At the same time, society should also imbibe the changes brought about by the formal institutions called schools.

(Question: A school has been using the same old curriculum it has had for the past ten years. Do you think this is a good practice? Why? Why not?)


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

35 comments:

  1. good summarization of foundation of curriculum

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  2. A definition of curriculum, is all the selected activities done in the society which are used in the learning process.It is a race experience, planed learning and instructional which requires a leaner to memorize things taught in class, producing and understanding language used, solving problems, and making their own decisions also factors such as student motivation, attitudes, perceptions and values should be considered. Adrian P Ngowi. Tumaini Makumira University.

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    1. What is the common of this major bases of curriculum?

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    2. What is the common of this major bases of curriculum?

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  3. helpful! BTW.. Purita Bilbao had been my college dean and my professor in measurements and evaluation way back when i was in the BSED program... :-)

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  4. Nice program and it develops every one by mentally.It gives some knowledge about the basic things and gives the some idea about the motivations factors.International curriculum

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  5. THIS TYPE OF EXPLANATION IS NECESSARY FOR NEW COMERS.

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  6. what are the function of curriculum foundatios

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    1. MY DEAR : What should be the function of curriculum foundation same like the pillars of a building have .......those foundations are the pillars of the curriculum.

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  7. what is the importance of curriculum development and curriculum design? Are they the same in functions?

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    1. MY DEAR : Every successful concept and project in life requires a proper framework and planning. This relates to all processes, including education. Whenever we embark on any new plan or procedure, we need to make sure that we have all the plans drawn up. What is on offer, what are the resources that we have, what are the steps, which we need to take and what are the goals that we need to achieve are some elements that need to be looked upon. A similar set of constraints when applied to education in schools and colleges gives birth to curriculum. A curriculum is a set of courses, including their content, offered at a school or university.

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  8. Explain how three process of planning , implementing and evaluating are used in curriculum development?

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  9. hello, is any one here can give an idea about curriculum development?

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  10. yeah .....useful regarding student of education.

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  11. thank you so much for a very useful insights about curriculum. It helps a lot and enriches the discussion in one of our subjects.

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  12. anyway the article was so helpful

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  13. anyway the article was so helpful

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  14. hello ma'am, are there persons who contributed in each of the 4 major foundation of curriculum (philosophy, history, psychological, and social)??

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  15. WHAT DO YOU REALLY MEAN BY THE HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM?

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  16. thank this is helpful information

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  17. Hi I'm john Msimi Kenyatta University student 2nd year I found this so useful to me since I'm taking bachelor of Arts English literature... After we're this the lecturer gave us an assignment to research on professional foundation to school curriculum development. I haven't browse around the internet pages but what I'm get is philosophical, sociological psychological, behavioral, cognitive under psychology. I fail to understand if there's anything to do with professional foundations anyone with an idea?

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  18. Wow very helpful, am just assisting someone with research and I have the answers I was looking for.

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  19. What are the major foundation of curriculum

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  20. Thanks a lot, please give me the references

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  22. hi i want to ask if we could relay on a particular foundation or we can integrate them in the process of developing our curriculum ??

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