E-Educ 3

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

TOPIC SIX:

1. Designing and Organizing the Curriculum

2. Achieving Balance in Curriculum Design

3. Designing the Curriculum: Guidelines and

Processes

4. Developing Plantilla or Course Guide

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Content Highlights
………………………………………………………………………. 2-5

A. Designing and Organizing the Curriculum

B. Achieving Balance in Curriculum Design
C. Designing the Curriculum: Guidelines and Processes
D. Developing Plantilla or Course Guide

II. Reflections ……………………………………………………………………….

………. 6-8

A. (insert Title of Reflection)

by Dan Marino Payuran Santos

B. Ladder to an Effective Curriculum: Balance and Evaluation

by Jessa Mae Colon San Jose

III. References
………………………………………………………………………………... 9
I. CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS

A. Designing and Organizing the Curriculum

● Curriculum Design
○ The organization of the curricular aims, learning experiences, and
evaluation procedures into a coherent and meaningful curriculum
plan.
○ Influenced by the philosophical, psychological, sociological, and
historical orientation of the curriculum developer and ideally by the
characteristic of a sound curriculum
○ It takes into consideration the horizontal and vertical organization.

● Vertical Organization
- Refers to the longitudinal arrangement of content as reflected in the
process of sequence, continuity, and vertical articulation in the
curriculum.

● Horizontal Organization
- Refers to the arrangement of content, skills, and processes from
the viewpoints of scope and horizontal integration.

Different Curriculum Designs

● Traditional or subject-centred designs

- Revolves around a particular subject matter or discipline.
- Tends to focus on the subject rather than the individual
- Easy to develop and to implement because these are highly
structured.
- The design has been the subject of criticism because these do not
make provisions for the differential needs and interest of the
learners.

● Learner- centred designs

- Based on the anticipated needs and interests of the learners based
on their stage of development.
- Contents are not organized into subjects but subdivided into
coursework or activities.
- It is based on the actual needs and interest of the learners
 - The design has been criticized for neglecting the intellectual
development of the students.

● Society-centred design
- The content is heavily loaded with societal concerns, problems, and
issues
- Aimed at making the students adapt to the changes in society and to
solve societal problems within their level of capabilities.
- This is based on the reconstructivist philosophy of education.
- The design aimed at making the school, the teachers, and the
students the agent of societal change.

B. Achieving Balance in Curriculum Design

● Balance - one of the dimensions of a curriculum design and is most of the

time acknowledged by authors as contentious

● To achieve balance in a curriculum design means to properly assess the

appropriate weight to put on the design’s objectives, content, learning
experiences, and all other elements

● According to Ronald C. Doll, “Balance for the individual learner is

extremely difficult to achieve. Yet in a day in which we make great
pretense of individualization in instruction, we owe it to ourselves and the
pupils we serve to work toward better achievement of this goal.

● Balance in a curriculum design must be studied and evaluated especially

in the following areas:
○ Balance among objectives
○ Balance in learning opportunities
○ Balance in sequence
○ Balance in assessing student achievement

● Some tips in achieving a balanced curriculum- W. R. A. P. !

○ Work from your principles
- make sure that your vision is aligned with the school’s vision
○ Research
- evidences such as case studies make a curriculum more
reliable
○ Analyze time tables
 - an innovative timetable makes a curriculum more flexible
○ Plan creatively
- be creative with your medium-term planning and consider
long-term planning

● A balanced curriculum model shows a balance in these two processes:

○ Writing the curriculum
○ Implementing the curriculum

C. Designing the Curriculum: Guidelines and Processes

● Step 1: Principles and purpose - Set out the intent of your curriculum

● Step 2: Entitlement and enrichment - Develop your pupil entitlement

● Step 3: Breadth and balance - Develop the content of your curriculum

● Step 4: Teaching narrative - Plan the delivery of your curriculum

● Step 5: Resources - Source high quality resources to deliver your

curriculum

● Step 6: Review and evaluate - Set out the intent of your curriculum

D. Developing Plantilla or Course Guide

● Development Process
○ Systematically organize what will be taught, who will be taught, and how
will it be taught.

● Phases and Steps in Curriculum Development

1. Planning

a. Identify Issue / Problem / Need

This section explores some of the questions that need to be
addressed to define the issue.

b. Form Curriculum Development Team

 Forming a group of people that will help to develop the
curriculum.

c. Conduct Needs Assessment and Analysis

Process of collecting data and analysing it.

2. Content Method

d. State Intended Outcomes

An intended outcome states what the learner will be able to
do as a result of participating in the curriculum activities.

e. Select Content
Knowing what the learner will need to know and what
knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviour the students will need to
acquire and practice.

f. Design Experiential Methods

Designing activities to help the learner achieve appropriate

intended outcome.

3. Implementation

g. Produce Curriculum Product

Production of the actual curriculum

h. Test and Revise Curriculum

Suggestion to select test sites and conduct a formative
evaluation of curriculum materials.

i. Recruit and Train Facilitators

Recruitment of facilitators that will test the curriculum and
train them on how to use it.

j. Implement Curriculum
Implementing the newly created curriculum.

4. Evaluation and Reporting

 k. Design Evaluation strategies
Creating evaluation strategies to carefully assess the newly
created curriculum.

l. Reporting and Securing Resources

Summarization of the outcome of the new curriculum and the
key areas that need to be improved.

II. REFLECTIONS

(insert Title of Reflection)

by Dan Marino Payuran Santos

(insert)

Ladder to an Effective Curriculum: Balance and Evaluation

by Jessa Mae Colon San Jose

While learning more about designing a curriculum and developing a

course guide, these two points highlighted my reflection: (1) balance is in
the eye of the beholder and (2) in the ladder of improvement, evaluating
must never be missing.

Balancing a curriculum design is like crafting a three-legged stool

chair. This requires a careful and honest assessment, broad knowledge,
 and a diligent organization of instructional units for the whole design not to
fall off. Each of the design’s elements must be weighed appropriately for
the design to be effective. However, based on various researches and
articles, a balanced curriculum is not easy to achieve and this is indeed a
continuing need that requires a fine tuning. Moreover, given that
instructional designs must be aligned with an institution/school’s
principles, policies and practices- a balanced curriculum varies from each
curricularist’s objectives and standards. Having said that, it can be
concluded that the balance of a design is in the mind of the designer. To
say that a curriculum is good or better, it always depends on the
curriculum developer. Designing with too much emphasis on science may
be just enough for a certain curricularist to achieve its goals while this may
also be overwhelming for someone who gives emphasis to modern
languages in his or her design as a whole. Little or great emphasis of
numeracy, literacy or grammar there may be in a particular course, I agree
with the statement that ‘a balanced curriculum prepares students for the
opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life’.

The second point strikes in me that evaluation must never be

missed. This may be the last step of the process in developing a course
guide but this is the most important step in the ladder of improvement. For
a curriculum to be effective, an honest evaluation must be first achieved.
This may lead us to revising the whole or a particular part of a design and
can consume a lot of our time and effort but this will lead us to a higher
opportunity of delivering success to the student learning outcomes. In fact,
revisions from careful and honest evaluations gives not just the learner a
wider learning opportunity but the designer a broader teaching strategy as
well.

To sum up, it’s comforting to know that even if achieving

balance in a curriculum is quite hard to achieve, still, it’s achievable. More
importantly, there is always the so-called ‘second chance’ and ‘room for
improvement’ which can be attained through assessments and followed by
redesigning.

III. REFERENCES
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