The word “curriculum” is used in several ways. There is the taught curriculum, the hidden curriculum and many others. This article is about the formal, taught and written curriculum used in the school system and also examined at the end of the relevant education level.
The word “curriculum” was initially used to cover all activities connected with school learning: teacher education; teaching and learning materials development; design of the document consisting of the objectives of instruction called “syllabus”; design of school buildings; design of science laboratories; lesson time-table plan; school inspection activities and all other critical activities connected with education in a country.
Presently, the word “curriculum” has tended to be used for only the document that lays out the instructional objectives for guiding the teaching and leaning process in the school system. This therefore separates teacher education, teaching and learning materials development and other educational activities from the document called “curriculum.” The separation in some cases tends to be a divorce of all other educational activities from the curriculum; but that should not be the case. All activities connected with teaching and learning are connected and should be together, not necessarily under one headship.
Although the separate activities may be organised and carried out in different departments, there must be maximum co-ordination between all the departments that are involved in the critical activities of education in the formal school system of a country. This co-ordination must also be established between education in the formal school system and the non-formal education (NFE) system of the country.
Types of formal curriculum
There are basically three types of formal curricula for different educational purposes.
Competency-based curriculum
This curriculum is used in competency-based training (CBT). The CBT is sometimes also called CBE, which is competency-based education. CBT is geared toward skills training of electricity linesmen; fitters and other mechanics and in many other skills-based trades and professions.
Outcomes-based curriculum
This type of curriculum is used mostly in the medical field for the training of categories of nurses. The outcomes are results of step by step procedures that a nurse or a paramedical staff should adopt to ensure the health and safety of a patient until the patient is seen by a doctor, or within the period that the patient is under the care of a nurse.
Objectives-based curriculum:
The objectives-based curriculum (OBC) is the type of curriculum used in the formal school system in many parts of the world presently. The curriculum consists of objectives that may be grouped into units, that is divisions of a topic, for guiding teaching and learning in the school system. The set of objectives in the curriculum may also be referred to as learning objectives or instructional objectives.
The curriculum development process outlined in the next pages assumes a centralized national curriculum, rather than a curriculum for federal countries. The same processes are however, recommended for centralized education systems and also for education in federations or education systems in the regions of a country.
This presentation considers the curriculum approaches for kindergarten, primary school and second cycle schools. The kindergarten curriculum is a specialized document and trained educators in this area should be co-opted into the curriculum writing team for specialized attention to this level of the school system.
National Education Policies
The panel responsible for Curriculum Development for the country should first of all be knowledgeable about the educational policies of their country. They should be able to trace the education growth of their country by the historical progression of the national education policies.
National policies for rural Areas: The panel should also be particularly attentive to the needs of the rural areas of the country as may be contained in the national education policies.
In reading the national education policies and also paying attention to the needs of the rural areas, as becomes clear in the national policies, one should adopt a progressive outlook by being future oriented. One cannot change a national policy nor a policy on the rural areas. But when a policy is clearly backward or outdated and will therefore not help the nation, the head of the Curriculum Department should be notified to send a signal to the Minister of Education through the appropriate channels to have a second look.
Universal knowledge
Apart from school subjects that have their bases grounded in African traditions, most modern knowledge has come from Europe and America, and also from the Arabs. Except the subjects in the Arts and Culture, most other subjects in the African school curriculum have their bases from European, American or Arabian sources. Some of such knowledge has become universal. The curriculum development panel or curriculum division should be aware of the modern trends in each of the subjects on the school curriculum of their country.
Without knowledge of modern trends, the curriculum in African schools will soon become moribund. This is because much of the research in education and in many other fields of study is carried out in Europe and America where there is a steady flow of research funds.
Perennial knowledge
Apart from universal knowledge, which invariably consists of current knowledge and practices in many parts of the world, there is also a body of knowledge and practices that are perennial; that is a body of knowledge, sometimes a theory or a practice, that is still valid and has been carried on from ancient times. Educators and curriculum developers particularly should be mindful of such perennial practices that have guided the conduct of education over the years. For example, in the field of English literature, it will be appropriate if reference could be made of some of the works of Shakespeare.
Scope and Sequence
Scope and sequence refers to two separate activities that follow each other.
Scope
For each level of the school system, the curriculum panel has to determine the scope of work, that is, the boundaries of the subject at hand for each level of the school system: Primary school (Lower primary 1-3; and Upper Primary 4-6); and for Secondary School. In cases where secondary school education is offered in Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary schools, the scope of the subject must be defined for each of Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary school.
The scope or boundaries of the subject for the school level must be written in a few sentences indicating the beginning knowledge and skills required up to the upper boundaries of the subject. The scope of the subject for Lower Primary for example, will indicate the knowledge and skills required from the beginning of Primary 1 and up to the end of Primary 3. The scope of work for Lower Primary should make it clear where the scope of work for Upper Primary should start. A clear definition of the scope of work at each school level will help to prevent duplication of time and effort in teaching and learning at successive levels of the school system.
A word of advice: Evidence from the results of the international survey on education achievement referred to as “Trends in mathematics and science (TIMMS)” carried out by the International Education Achievement (IEA) on selected samples of 13 year old students across the world, clearly shows that African countries that have participated in the TIMMS achievement tests have performed very poorly in the two examinations: mathematics
and science. African countries that participated in the earlier examinations have dropped out of the examinations.
But dropping out is not a solution. It is suggested for this reason that for the STEM subjects (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects), African countries that need help in upgrading these subjects should seek help to upgrade the scope in these subjects and seek help also in the required teaching and learning materials by partnership and consultations with some of the high-performing countries in the TIMMS’s subjects: Singapore, Republic of Korea, Taiwan and Sweden. Seeking help in knowledge should not cause any embarrassment.
Sequence:
Given the amount of knowledge and skills defined in the scope of work for each subject and for each level of the school system, the curriculum development team will then separate the material in the scope into grade levels. The material specified in the scope is now segmented into Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3 subject material.
When working on primary school subjects for example, the process generally is to define the
knowledge required at Upper Primary 6 first and then determine the knowledge required at Lower Primary 3 by an up-down process. The team will then come to Lower Primary 1 to write the base knowledge this class requires in learning in the subject. Do this for Grade 2 or Class 2 as the appropriate term is, and then move to Grade 3 class.
With the required knowledge already written for Primary 6 and for Primary 3, the team will then write the knowledge required at Grade 4 and Grade 5. Examine what has been written from the up-down perspective and then examine it again from down-up process to ensure that there is a logical flow of the required knowledge from Primary 1 to Primary 6.
After careful consideration of the sequence of work for each school class, the next stage is to develop objectives for the scope of work for each class or grade in the school system beginning from Primary 1 or the relevant school level at hand. Before going to the stage of writing learning objectives, it will be important to go through the processes for objectives writing following the recommendations in the “The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.”
The taxonomy of educational objectives (Cognitive Domain)
The book on “The taxonomy of educational objectives,” written by Benjamin Bloom and associates, in the University of Chicago, came out in 1956. The taxonomy indicates the types of learning pupils/students should go through in the process of learning. These are:
Knowledge
Understanding of knowledge
Application of knowledge
Analysis of knowledge
Evaluation of knowledge
Creative thinking (Also referred to as Synthesis of knowledge or Inventive thinking)
Short explanation of the above six categories of knowledge, each of which may be referred to as “dimension of learning and thinking” is as follows:
Knowledge acquisition is the simple factual learning of names, places, events, concepts and processes; knowledge of rules and styles for doing things; knowledge of principles; knowledge of features and characteristics of categories of items; knowledge of the principles for making judgments on the worth of some material; knowledge of the principles for conducting an enquiry; knowledge of theories and generalizations.
Understanding occurs at a slightly higher level of learning than pure knowledge. Understanding or comprehension of verbal, pictorial and symbolic data; being able to read and prepare tables and diagrammes; being able to understand metaphors, idioms and irony; being able to draw conclusions and generally being able to give examples if one has really understood what has been learnt
Application is being able to apply knowledge acquired in similar situations as the example given in the original learning
Analysis is the ability to break up a piece of knowledge or information into parts for careful study and for application
Evaluation of knowledge is the ability to make a judgment of the quality of some information; judgment such as whether the information is good, bad, excellent, beautiful, nasty etc…
Creative thinking is the ability to create something new; that is develop something new from what has been learnt by adding knowledge and information from different sources; or develop a new gadget by putting together ideas from different knowledge and subjects to create something new.
Low ability thinking
Low ability thinking refers to the following dimensions of learning and thinking:
Knowledge
Understanding of knowledge
Receptive Skills: Low ability thinking consisting of the above two dimensions are also referred to as Receptive Skills. The two dimensions are receptive because a learner acquires knowledge and endeavours to understand the knowledge acquired from books; from teachers; and from observation and reactions with their environment. The learner receives the knowledge, uses the knowledge but does not change the knowledge.
High-ability thinking (Critical thinking skills)
High ability thinking also referred to as “critical thinking skills” include the following:
Application of knowledge
Analysis of knowledge
Evaluation of knowledge
Creative thinking
Productive Skills:High-ability thinking, consisting of the above four dimensions of learning and thinking are also referred to as
Productive skills
Critical thinking skills
The four dimensions are productive because a person is required to apply knowledge acquired to solve or produce an answer to a similar problem that may arise now or in the future; to analyse an issue to make it clearer for solution; to evaluate some information for purposes of selection or judgment; or create something that may be different from the original information or knowledge acquired.
It is because high-ability thinking has the power to help the learner to produce or create new ideas and new things such as a new artifact or invention of new machines to improve the quality of life that high-ability thinking skills are referred to as “critical thinking skills”. They are critical because being able to use one’s knowledge to create and produce new things is the aspect of learning that keeps improving the quality of life in the world.
Note that some countries do not use some of the terminology used by Bloom in the taxonomy. Whatever the terms used, the implications are mostly the same as the underlying concepts of Bloom’s six dimensions of learning.
It is 66 years now since Bloom’s taxonomy came into the education discipline. Within this relatively long period, understanding the meaning and implications of each of the six dimensions of learning has still proved to be difficult in some countries.
The original Bloom’s taxonomy is now available as “Digital Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.” Curriculum developers and assessment specialists are encouraged to get copies of this book to guide their work.
Sections and Units of the Curriculum
After separation of learning material into grades, the curriculum development team will then
write learning objectives for each grade or class level. The learning objectives are written following a curriculum plan and presented in the document the class teacher will use each day for carrying out the teaching and learning process. Historically, the writing of learning objectives in teaching and learning in the school system came from the book of Robert Major “Preparing Instructional Objectives’” published in 1963. This was the first book written on leaning objectives. Major stressed that learning objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound leading to the acronym SMART developed by later users of Major’s work.
Use of action verbs in stating curriculum objectives
Following the recommendations of Major, an objective item must start with an action verb. Objectives must be written as follows:
The pupil/student should be able to:
construct
repair
explain
solve
The curriculum and associated examinations must emphasize what the pupil/student will be able to do after going through a period of instruction.
The structure of the class teacher’s curriculum document will generally have five columns for the following:
Each topic in a subject is broken down into sections for easier presentation and learning. In Natural Science for primary schools for instance, one of the topics could be “Respiration.” This topic could be indicated as follows before the 5-column structure:
Section 1: Respiration
Units: Unit 1, 2 etc; indicate the homogenous set of topics in each unit.
Specific objectives: These are the order of specific objectives that should guide the instructional system. The specific objectives should follow the dimensions of learning, given the age and class level. Use films, audio and video cassettes in a number of the subjects.
Content: The content column presents the lower content and the upper content in short sentences with one or two other important topics to guide the teacher in selecting the appropriate content material for the lesson.
Teaching/Learning activities: Should be pupil/student centred, with activity based instructional system;
Evaluation: This column should provide exercises for class to work out; make comments; and drawings etc to demonstrate understanding, application and the other dimensions of learning.
Making learning easier for pupils/students
Most parts of the processes discussed in this section are based on the knowledge passed on by Peter Oliva in his book titled “Developing the Curriculum.”
After completing the draft curriculum document, the curriculum development team should do the following to make the objectives in the document easier for pupils/students to learn.
Continuity
Continuity considers the flow of work from one level of the school system to the next; from lower primary to upper primary and from upper primary to secondary school. Continuity considers whether the scope of work developed for one level of the school system will provide enough knowledge and skills to make it easier for the pupil/student to move into the scope of work at the next level of the school system.
The team should check whether the learning objectives intended for the scope of work as indicated in the units of the subject provide adequate knowledge and skills to help pupils/students to move to the next level of the education system.
Articulation
Articulation is a further check on continuity of knowledge and skills between the levels of the school system. Articulation refers to the harmonious flow of learning objectives in one level of the school system to the next level. Consider for example, the learning objectives in integrated science or any other subject. Consider also the last learning objectives at Primary 3 that lead to Primary 4. Consider whether knowledge acquired in learning the last objectives of Primary 3 will make it easier for pupil/student to easily move to the beginning objectives in the subject at Primary 4.
If any learning difficulties may be encountered by pupils/students in moving from Primary 3 to Primary 4, then there is lack of articulation between the learning objectives at Primary 3 and Primary 4. The curriculum writing team will therefore have to write other learning objectives for the last unit of Primary 3 and possibly also for the beginning learning objectives at Primary 4.
Planned Repetition
Planned repetition is the system of deliberately repeating a learning objective that may be considered difficult to learn at one grade or class at the next class in order to improve understanding of that objective. For example, an objective in Science at Primary 3 may be repeated at Primary 4 and probably also at Primary 5 each time at a slightly higher instructional level with new content and examples to make that objective more understandable.
Correlational Method
The correlational method is a system for ensuring that knowledge and skills needed in more than one subject are carefully linked in the other specified subjects. For example, : mathematical knowledge that will be needed in Junior Secondary School Term 2, could be taught in Primary 6, Term 3, in JSS Term 1, or JSS Term 3 etc. Some countries use the terms Junior High School etc (JHS) instead of Junior Secondary School. The correlational method applies equally in all such cases.
Cross cutting topics or themes
Each country has a number of important topics that are not particularly scientific or language issues. For example, corruption could be a matter of great concern in some countries. It is such issues that education should be able to deal with in the curriculum development process. Such issues cut across subjects on the curriculum and are therefore referred to as Cross-cutting themes or topics; and also as transversal themes and topics.
The curriculum team should list all such important transversal topics and proceed as follows:
Corruption for example is an issue that could be dealt with in mathematics and in science in topics that deal with measuring and reporting of measures obtained. In any such instances of measuring and reporting, pupils/students should be required never to fudge results. Fudging results in school is the first step to corruption in adult age. The issue of corruption is therefore
raised in the curriculum at various important points in all the subjects where the topic of corruption will be important.
Curriculum tryout
After completion of the draft curriculum, it is tried out in a selected sample of schools. The tryout on a sample of about 5percent of the schools in the country should take one academic year. Within the one year period the curriculum writing team prepares a questionnaire for teachers in the trial schools to use in collecting the views of students and also the views and comments of the teachers themselves on the ease or difficulties in parts of the curriculum. The information collected is then used by the curriculum writing team in preparing the final drafts that will be printed and distributed to schools.
The above does not complete the curriculum work which involves continues observations and amendments from year to year as will be discussed later in this series on education by the Africa Supreme magazine.
NOTE
There are many books available on curriculum development one can read. It is important however, for curriculum developers to have copies of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Affective Domain) which is a companion book to the book on Cognitive Domain.
Standards-based curriculum
There has been some confusion between the objectives-based curriculum and the American Common Core State Curriculum Standards Initiative launched in the USA in 2010 under the
sponsorship of the following organizations:
National Governors Association (NGA)
Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)
CCSSI also known as Common Core State Curriculum Standards Initiative (CCSCSI)
“was launched to rectify the uneven patchwork of academic standards that vary from state to state and do not agree on what student should know and be able to do at each grade level.”
CCSSI, the article continues, emphasizes the need for curricula that are,
Aligned with college and career expectations
Based on rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order thinking skills
Informed by other top performing countries In order to prepare all students for success in our global economy and society etc
Writing in another internet article “Quick Guide: Understanding the Common Core State Standards in California”, Theresa Harrington (November 2020) states the following:
“The standards explain what students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade level.”
She further explains that “The new standards emphasize critical thinking and class discussions about concepts instead of passive lectures by teachers and multiple-choice tests.”
The recommended standards in CCSSI require teachers in all the states to teach critical thinking skills that is, high-order or high-ability thinking skills also called critical thinking skills, as already indicated above:
Application of knowledge
Analysis of knowledge
Evaluation of knowledge
Creative thinking (Synthesis of knowledge or inventive thinking)
CCSSI was never intended as a curriculum by itself. High-ability thinking is not a curriculum. The aim was that high-ability thinking should be standard in the curriculum of every school in the United States; that all education boards in America should emphasize higher-ability thinking skills in every school curriculum in their state. And for emphasis, the CCSSI goes on to state that high-ability thinking should be core and common in the curriculum of every school in the United States. The choice and use of common, core and standard was a deliberate selection of words to emphasize the importance of the expected standards, that is high ability thinking and other requirements, as core of the curriculum in all the states of America.
The standards, in summary, were geared toward the following purposes:
To improve academic standards in all the states of America
To ensure emphasis on high-order thinking skills in the curriculum of each state
To produce more effective human resource for the American economy through inclusion of high-ability thinking skills in the education system of the United States.
To arrive at the above standards, each state in the US was required to consult with and also invite educators from some of the “top performing countries” in education in the world to make presentations on their curriculum and examinations processes. The period 1990-2000 was the time when America decided to take a special look at its education system to be able to raise the standard of education in all the 50 states. The initiative was finally launched in the year 2000. About 43 out of the 50 states signed on to the initiative but by 2015 many of the states began to withdraw from the initiative mainly because of additional cost requirements in the pursuit of teaching and learning in high-ability thinking skills.
Theresa Harrington’s statement above that “The standards explain what students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade level,” was the key statement made by educational measurement specialists in the late 1950’s and the 1960’s for a change in teaching methods and assessment of outcomes of instruction. This call, and the content of Robert Major’s book, led to the new type of curriculum design specifying learning objectives on what the student should know, and leading also to the criterion-referenced testing movement beginning from the late 1950’s in America requiring examinations and instructional practices that require assessment on what the student can do or is able to do. Toward this end, target knowledge and skills to be achieved in all subjects at each level of the school system were established as standards for school instruction and assessment.
It is important to note that the specification of standard knowledge and skills to be achieved at each school level is the same process accomplished during the process of developing the scope and sequence of knowledge and skills for the various school levels in the objectives-based curriculum process.
Calling a curriculum “Standards-based curriculum” causes unnecessary confusion in the fields of curriculum design and assessment. What is being called Standards-Based curriculum is the same Objectives-based curriculum. A country in South America came out with a Standards-based curriculum sometime between 2005 2010. It is a good instructional document. What was available to the writer was the curriculum for one subject at the lower primary level. The special point about that curriculum is that a lot of care was taken to develop good examples of work in the “Evaluation” column of the curriculum. That is a very significant point about the work. After consideration, the work is still an objective-based curriculum with some modifications.
Sources
https://www.commoncorestandards.org
https:en.wikipedia.org>wiki>Common_Core
Oliva, Peter F. Developing the Curriculum: Harper Collins, New York, 1992
Quansah, K. B. The Method of Examining in the West Indies (With introductory discussion on curriculum development in the West Indies). Paper presented at the joint meeting of the Florida State Task Force on Education Review and the Florida Senate Select Committee on Education, Tallahassee, Florida, July 30th, 1992.
