TECHNOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS IN CURRICULUM

TECHNOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS IN CURRICULUM

Introduction

Technological foundation of curriculum development refers to what extent or in which way systematic thinking approach supports to the rational approach to curriculum planning, development implementation and evaluation. The most competent approach is said to be system approach.

When system approach started to emerge as a recognized discipline during the 1940s and 1950s, educational technology was based on what is now described as the „technology in education‟ model.

The principle role of educational technology is to help improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the teaching / learning process by implementing it through curriculum. Such an improvement can manifests itself in many ways, e.g.:

1.  by increasing the quality of learning, or the degree of mastery;

2.  by decreasing the time taken for learners to attain desired goals;

3.    by increasing the efficiency of teachers in terms of numbers of learners taught, without reducing the quality of learning;

4.  by reducing costs, without affecting quality;

5.  by increasing the independence of learners, and the flexibility of educational provision.

6.  by ensuring sequencing of contents and tasks, etc.

education.

The Systems Approach to Educational Technology

The systems approach to the design and analysis of curriculum and teaching / learning situations is the basis of the great majority of modern educational technology related developments.

The Various Stages in the Systems Approach

Let us now take a more detailed look at the various elements of the basic system so that you may be able to understand system approach clearly. We are going to attend six aspects.

(a) Consider target population characteristics and topic area

The range of backgrounds, interests, knowledge, attitude and skills of students coming on to the course will have a strong influence on course design. Pre-knowledge and any common misconceptions will have to be catered for in the design of the course.

The broad thrust of the course content will also have to be considered. Consideration will be given to the sort of people which the course is trying to develop. The subject area may have traditional aims and directions, but one may wish to consider the justification of these and / or preparation for future change.

(b) Estimate relevant existing skills and knowledge of learners

There may be minimum standards of entry to the course, but this will not always be so. For example, the increasing numbers of non-standard and mature student entrants to higher education will not necessarily have conventional paper qualifications, but may possess skills and qualities which will have an influence on course design. This may have implications for teaching methods, bridging courses, support systems etc. This is one form of diagnosis.

(c) Formulate Objectives / Learning Outcomes

The roles of objectives and learning outcomes in a systemic approach to instruction are to be known as prerequisite to instruction are to be known as prerequisite. The objectives and learning outcomes of the course or curriculum element will attempt to embrace the new skills, knowledge or attitudes which it is intended that the students will acquire.

They may be formulated which it is intended that the students will acquire. They may be formulated by the learners themselves, by employers, by teaching staff, by a validating, examining or professional body, or by some combination of these and other sources. This will indicate the curriculum goals.

(d) Select Appropriate Instructional Methods

Having specified the objectives and learning, we should be in a better position to select appropriate teaching / learning methods through which these have a reasonable chance of being achieved. There are far more teaching methods available to choose from than most people realize.

The process of attempting to match appropriate methods to given objectives and learning an outcome is normally done on the basis of a combination of research and experience. This will focus on curriculum transaction.

(e) Operate Course or Curriculum

The next element in the system is the actual implementation of the course. This involves all the logistical arrangement associated with running the course, including overall structuring, pacing, implementing the chosen teaching strategies, using appropriate supportive media and materials, and ensuring that all aspects of the course run as smoothly as possible.

(f) Assess and Evaluate

The combined result of the preceding stages is that students are involved in a learning experience that is planned to develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes, taking into account the individual needs and experience of the learners Poorly-achieved objectives or learning outcomes should lead the course designers to examine the entire system in order to identify places where improvements might be made.

These deliberations, together with feedback on the course from staff, students, employers, etc. can be used in an evaluation of the entire concept of the course, which should, in turn, form the basis of an on-going cyclical course development process.

Using the Systems Approach in Practice

^Ø        The approach is useful in mapping out the broad flow of factors to be considered and developed, diagrams.

^Ø        In implementing the systems approach, it is important to appreciate that, while the decisions taken at each stage are always affected by earlier decisions, they may themselves necessitate some of these earlier decisions being changed.

^Ø        It is also important to realize that the stages shown are not the only ones possible, and that, once taken, a decision and iterative, always allowing for second thoughts and the refinement of ideas.

We have learnt that curriculum foundations are the components that influence and control the content and organization of the curriculum (Zais 1976, p. 101). They are based upon values one has developed pertaining to knowledge, society, learning, and the individual. Foundations tend to influence the philosophies of those who are developing the curriculum, and these philosophies are, in turn, reflected in the curriculum. Such components as

(1)   definition of the programme area,

(2)   rationale

for the study of the program area,

(3)   content source,

(4)   content structure,

(5)   programme aim, and

(6)   programme goals are included in the curriculum foundations.

As an example we may look at Madeline Hunter‟s (1994) behavioral model for in-service teacher education, known as “design of effective lessons”.

1.  Anticipatory set. The teacher gets students‟ attention and may also gather diagnostic data.

2.  Objective and Purpose. The teacher states what students will learn and how it will be useful.

3.   Input. The teacher provides opportunities for students to acquire new information necessary for students to achieve the objective. This requires prior analysis of the learning objectives and also experiences.

4.   Modeling. The teacher provides opportunities for students to see what they are supposed to learn.

5.   Checking for understanding. The teacher ascertains that students understand what they are supposed to do and the prerequisite skills for doing it.

6.   Guided practice. Students practice their new knowledge under the direct supervision of the teacher. Mistakes are corrected.

7.   Independence practice. After the teacher reasonably confident that the students will not make serious errors, the teacher assigns independent practice exercises.

CONCLUSION

Foundation of curriculum is always a very important for shaping curriculum design and its construction. we have discussed four dimensions of foundations namely philosophical, psychological, sociological and technological foundations. Philosophical foundation gives a rationale of selecting objectives in curriculum.

Psychological foundations mostly relates to specially transactional phase. To make the curriculum socially productive and useful cultural involvement, it is very much important to consider curriculum as a process. Finally technological foundation seems to be important as without technology we are not professionally competent to formulate models or draw design of curriculum, the main wheel of the whole educational enterprise.

Also read

                     PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

                     SOCIOCULTURAL  FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

                     PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

CURRICULUM AND THEORIES OF LEARNING

Introduction

Grounded by some fundamental assumptions about human behavior, Educational Psychology, an applied branch of Psychology, is a strong pillar upon which curriculum is erected systematically. The main area of psychological movement in education is understanding learning and teaching and deepening our understanding of human potential to learn and also individual variations – both inter and intra.

A curriculum without in-built in psychological principle, is a void and meaningless. There are several areas in which the psychological principles and theories come and help as the psychological foundations of education as well as of curriculum.The concepts of readiness and pacing, developmental tasks, intelligence stage of cognitive development, limitation in intellectual potential, other native potential , motivation, problems of heterogeneity in learners, dilemma of receptive and creative thinking, problem of underdevelopment, besides all aspects of learning are also some the multitude determining factors and issues for the curriculum developers and they, take account of these as the basic materials for building curriculum superstructure.

 

Learning Theories and Curriculum

Knowledge about the learner and learning is relevant to making a host of curriculum decisions. Some of the very important decisions, according to Taba, are : selection and arrangements of content, the choice of the learning experiences by which this content is to be manipulated and by which the objectives not achievable through content alone can be attained, and plans for optimum conditions for learning.

Learning is complex and there are many different kinds : mastering motor skills, memorizing information, learning feelings, concepts, and intellectual skills, such as generalizing, scientific inquiry and problem solving. Theorization about all kinds of learning in a super theory of learning is not achieved so far. Various theories of learning are also contesting each others.

All theories of learning rest on a concept of man and his capacities and their intricate natures as well as the interplaying operating variables assumed by a particular theoretician. Historically, the first concept of man produced a theory of learning often called the theory of mental discipline or faculty psychology.

For the sake of convenience we may classify the whole family of learning theories into three categories.

1.  Behaviorist theories which deal with various aspects of stimulus – response and reinforcement scheme.

2.  Cognitivist theories which view the learner in relationship with the total environment, and

3.     Phenomenology which emphasizes the affective domain of learning and also personal meaning making about the environmental inputs or happening.

4.  Increasing interest in constructivism and curriculum.

1. Behaviorism and Curriculum

The behaviorist school is rooted in a corresponding philosophical speculation about the nature of learning. It has dominated particularly the first-half of the 20th

century psychology. Essentially, here learning is considered as habit formation and teaching is regarded as arranging learning experiences in such as way as to promote desirable behavior. It also takes notes of retention and transfer of learning for economizing pupil learning encounter. Broadly, behaviorists advocate that –

^Ø        behaviour is likely to be influenced by the condition under which learning takes place.

^Ø        attitudes to and abilities of learning can change or improve over time through proper stimuli,

^Ø        learning experiences can be designed and controlled to create desires for learning.

^Ø        selective reinforcement is essential.

^Ø        rote learning and memorization of knowledge are unnecessary.

A  curriculum,  according  to  behaviourists  should  be  based  on  the  following

concerns :

1.  remediation, skills acquisition, considerations of basic or advanced learning.

2.  well defined, short-term and long-term objectives.

3.   appropriate instructional materials and media to suit the learner‟s abilities shaping behavior through prescribed tasks, phase by phase activities, close supervision of activities and positive reinforcement.

4.    diagnosing, assessing and reassessing the learner‟s needs, objectives, tasks and instruction with a view to improving the curriculum.

5.    curriculum planning, sequencing contents, writing materials, illustrating materials, etc. are some aspects which are shaped and directed by this school of thinking. We can see manifestation of these guidelines in theories, principles or trends related to –

^Ø        individualized education, both in face-to-face and distance learning contexts.

^Ø        instructional design and systematic design models.

^Ø        teacher-training techniques such as simulation, microteaching competency performance based teacher education.

^Ø        educational technology including programmed instruction.

 

2. Cognitivism and Curriculum

Cognitivism focuses on learning as change in cognitive structure, a hypothetical construct reasoned out by a community of psychologists, popularly known as cognitivists. Cognitive theory of learning refers to any theory of learning that postulates intervening variables of a cognitive nature in order to explain learning. Learning is considered as a growth-cognitive growth, essentially through the process of education. Educator‟s task is to facilitate pupil‟s cognitive growth.

Consequently, curriculum aims at so. to cognitive than to behaviorism today. The curriculum specialists take not of encouraging pupils to ask questions and solve problems. Students should be encouraged to take up cognitive risk and seek for alternatives strategies to come to a solution This, cognitivism regards classroom a site for experimentation and naturally a place of greater freedom for exploration.

3. Phenomenology and Curriculum

Phenomenologists point out that the way we look at ourselves is crucial for understanding our behaviors and that we respond to an organization or pattern of stimuli and not to an isolated one. That is like to understand the total, not a part of anything … It emphasizes learning must be explained in terms of the “wholeness” of the problem. It differs from cognitivism in this way that phenomenology stresses the affective and the cognitivism gives emphasis on cognitive aspect. Because each individual has specific needs and interests related to his / her self-fulfillment and selfrealization.

4. Increasing Interest in Constructivist Curriculum

Constructivism is a theory abut the nature of knowledge. While there are different interpretations of constructivism, their common denominator seems to be a belief that knowledge is created by people and influenced by their values and culture. Here the teacher‟s role as facilitator is to pose problems that challenge children‟s conception of reality. On the other hand, social constructivism posits that knowledge is co-constructed through social and cultural contexts, rendering reality non-objective

Thus, constructivism is a theory of learning based on the principles that learners construct meaning from what they experience; thus, learning is an active, meaning-making process. Curriculum development from the constructivist point of view generally follows four tenets.

1.    Human mind has the ability to represent through symbols; language is one of the major symbol systems having a primary relationship to thinking and learning; meaning is also created and expressed through other symbol systems;

2.  Individual is the active constructor of meaning rather than passive recipient of knowledge;

3.   Learning is complex process involving the interaction of past experiences, personal intentions and new experiences;

Although constructivism seems to have made its strongest impact on science and mathematics curricula, leaders in other fields are attempting to embody in curriculum units the following principles :

Units should be problem-focused, requiring the student to solve open-ended contexualized problems.

Units should enable the students to have access to research and other knowledge in

^Ø        solving problems (generative knowledge).

^Ø        Learning strategies (such as the use of matrices and web diagrams) should be

^Ø        taught in the context of solving problems.

^Ø        The teacher should provide the necessary scaffolding of structure throughout units.

^Ø        Because learning is a social process, teachers should ensure that students spend at

^Ø        least part of their time in group formalism such as cooperative learning..

^Ø        Units should conclude by requiring the student to demonstrate learning in some

^Ø        authentic manner.

OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL BEARINGS ON CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Human Development and Curriculum

Another issues are : How do children grow and develop ? What are the characteristics manifested during the developmental process ? Under what conditions do children develop in a particular way ?

These are very important questions for planning the content and process of learning involved in curriculum.

Curriculum-decisions are to be made not on discrete measurements and standards but on the relevant factors determining an individual‟s readiness to learn. The concept of development suggests that the child and the adolescent are in the process of becoming and so curriculum should aid this

process of becoming instead of enforcing static norms of achievement and progress.

Cognitive Development

Development has several dimension to it – physical, social, emotional, intellectual and so on. Of these, intellectual or mental development is of critical concern to the school, as development of knowledge and understanding constitutes the most important objective of school-curriculum.

Piaget distinguishes three stages in the intellectual development of the child. Piaget has highlighted the fact that at each stage of its development, the child has a characteristic way of viewing the world and explaining it to himself.The task of teaching a subject according to him is one of representing the structure of that subject in terms of the child‟s way of viewing things. It is a task of translation of the idea in the thought forms of children. The implication of these findings are bests seen in some of the moderncurriculum projects which have attempted to present the basic ideas of the different disciplines in the thought-forms of children and gradually deepen their understanding of them by enabling them to use them in progressively more complex forms.

Transfer of Learning

Formal education is based on the premise that whatever is taught and learnt in

the school gets transferred over to life-situations and proves to be of functional value to the

student. All theories of learning make assumptions about transfer but different views

are held as to how transfer takes place.

^Ø        One view holds that the study of certain subjects assures a general and automatic transfer.

^Ø        It was believed. According to the second view, transfer is not automatic but is possible only if there are identical elements in the content involved or in the process of training.

^Ø        A third view of transfer holds that transfer occurs not by means of specific identical elements but through generalization of the content or of the methods employed in the learning of that content.

^Ø        The last mentioned view of transfer is backed by the cognitive field theories of learning and constitutes a major influence on modern curriculum-practices

   

(1) Maturation × Nurture = Development

Although the equation is an oversimplification we may think of it as being a general one and applicable to all the types of development that occur in the human being. Maturation is used in the equation to represent innate sequences and patterns in which the design for change is assured by internal factors.

Development is the end product of a complex interaction between maturation and nurture to be considered for psychological foundations in curriculum.

(2) Maturation × Experience = Achievement

Actually in this case we would wish to consider only that part of the experience which becomes incorporated in the learner so as to produce achievement. For this purpose we might wish to substitute „responses‟ for experiences. This would be a more definite term since we learn our responses, not necessarily the gross experiences to which we are exposed. .

As an example, let us consider achievement in ability to read. If under deprived conditions, the experience is not supplied, we would write zero in the equation for large numbers of children. It then becomes :

(3) Maturation × Zero Reading Experience = Zero Achievement in Reading

The goal in curriculum planning is somehow to take into account the needs of

the individual and of society so as to  provide  the experiences appropriate to the  maturing

individual so as to secure achievement.

The curriculum is commonly concerned with those experiences which all children should have in common plus a consideration of those experiences which are designed to produce differences. The process of teaching involves the understanding and management of the factors in the equations.

(4) Deprivation and the curriculum

Deprivation is now commonly recognized as the greatest hazard to the developmental process of curriculum whether it is to be experience, or of transaction. The easiest things to discover and to appraise in the study of the curriculum are the areas of experience where presence or absence can be guaranteed.

Thus one can easily establish the broad contrasts between the people who have or have not taking the positive output about curriculum and one can discern at least the immediate effects of a unit of study or of a particular course with and without involving curriculum.

(5) The objectives of curriculum experiences

The objectives of curriculum experiences are commonly found by a study of the learner and society in actual practice these must commonly be translated by the specialists who are acquainted with the various fields of organized knowledge

In very specific terms, however, one might have such an objective as : „To recognize and name the common animals and plants‟. Frequently the statement in general terms is so broad and inclusive as to seem almost axiomatic and hardly to require a statement, while the attempt to enumerate specific objectives results in such a bewildering number and variety as to confront the teacher with burdensome details.

(6) The organization of curriculum experiences

Even after objectives have been agreed upon and the pertinent content decided upon there remains an interesting problem of how experiences are to be organized. Many innovations have been tried in an attempt to add meaning and transfer to school learnings.

Organization of subjects determined by content is one of the simpler answers. Some type of fusion as in the combination of reading, spelling, and writing in a broad field such as language arts or communication arts has been another. Fusion and integration have been widely accepted at different levels both on a basis of broad fields and with unification about a particular unit or activity, e.g. transportation.

(7) Growth and the curriculum

Growth and education are closely related. The chief measure of growth for purposes of the organization of schools is chronological age. Thus schools, from the nursery to the college, use the individual‟s age as a basic concept for classificationwhen schools are built, classes organized, teachers employed, and curricula planned.

Frequently such educational programmes are not outlined in detail, age by age, but are organized rather in terms of broad periods of development. Such planning recognizes the limitations of a strict age division, the approximate character of such classifications, and the need for consideration of characteristics of children over a broader band of time.

(8) Basic Human Needs and Curriculum

A curriculum is supposed to be need-centric or life – centric. In this context two aspects need special attention of the curriculum specialists. These are – selfactualization and development tasks. Self-actualization refers to individual student‟s need for self-fulfillment in life by actualizing / achieving his / her own potential.

A curriculum, therefore, should provide learning activities that allow students to identify themselves with those things they can do well. Learners are thus helped to find personal meaning in the learning experiences.

Also read

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

SOCIOCULTURAL  FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

TECHNOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM