ASSIGNMENT ON APPROACHES TO CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION ( Second Semester)

ASSIGNMENT

ON

   APPROACHES TO CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION

CONTENTS

·      Introduction

·      Types of Approaches

1. Topical approach
2. Concentric approach
3. Spiral approach
4. Historic approach
5. Type study
6. Nature study
7. Nature rambling
8. General Science and Disciplinary approach

·      Conclusion         

Introduction     

The term curriculum is derived from the Latin word currere which mean path.  In this sense curriculum is the path through which the student has to go forward in order to reach the goal envisaged by education usually the term curriculum is understood as a group of subjects prescribed for study in a particular course.  But curriculum is not confined to this narrow concept.  Curriculum should in no way to considered as synonymous with courses of study.  The course course of study does list much of the content to be learnt and indicate some of the major activities but these form only part of the curriculum.  Curriculum should be considered as a broad-based term encompassing every aspect concerning a course of study.  Curriculum for a course of study may be conceived us the totality of experiences a pupil is exposed to within the boundaries of the school and outside while undergoing that course, with a view to achieve the anticipated educational goals.

 Curriculum has been defined by different persons in different ways: “Curriculum is a tool in the hands of artists (teacher) to mould his material (pupils) according to his ideals (objectives) in his studio (school)” by Arthur Cunningham.”Curriculum is that which the pupil is taught.  It involves more than the act of learning and quiet study.  It involves occupations, productions, achievement, exercise and activity” by   H.H. Horne.

 Curriculum approach is a way of dealing with a curriculum, a way of doing /creating/ designing/ thinking about a curriculum.  Curriculum practitioners and implementers may use one or more approaches in planning, implementing and evaluating the curriculum.  Even the text book writers or instructional material producers have different curriculum approaches.

Types of Approaches

There are different types of curricular approaches. The approaches are

1. Topical approach
2. Concentric approach
3. Spiral approach
4. Historic approach
5. Type study
6. Nature study
7. Nature rambling
8. General Science and Disciplinary approach

1) Topical approach

In this method a particular topic is started in a particular grade and finished over there only. Thus topic marked for particular grade must not be touch in other grade. The selected topic becomes the centre of correlation.  It is opposite of concentric method. Concentric method involves the breaking up of a topic into suitable portions, whereas topical method aims at keeping it intact. In topical method a topic is taken as unbreakable unit. It is based on the principal that any topic when begun should not be left half done. It should be finished in its entirety, before the next topic is taken. ‘Topical method’ is more a system of arrangement of subject matter than a method of teaching. Its adoption depends on a suitable organization of the syllabus. The topic is to be taught at as stretch, without a break or a gap. The other approach to this method is that a topic is selected and is made the basis many other topics. The selected topic becomes the centre of correlation.

Merits of Topical method:

1.      Continuous teaching of topic not only save the student from divided attention, but may ensure their full and whole – hearted concentration on the topic. A natural link and sequence will exist in the day today work in class room. The student’s complete attention, ability and capacity will be directed exclusively to the topic under study for a sufficiently long time.

2.      When a topic is treated as centre for other topic, it facilitates the learning process. It illustrates the advantage of correlation.

Drawbacks of Topical methods

1.      Keeping psychological reason in view, it will be foolish to take a topic like area in grade 4 and try to finish in at one stretch. The student may be able to understand the elementary portion, but will certainly not be able to attempt its most difficult question.

2.      The interest of the student may go away within a month, if we focus on only on a particular topic.

3.      This method does not provide any opportunity for year to year revision.

2) Concentric approach

This method implies breaking up of topic into different subtopic and the portion is allotted to different grades. This is a system of organising a course rather than a method of teaching. It is, therefore, better to call it concentric system or ap­proach. It implies widening of knowledge just as concentric circles go on extending and widening. It is a system of arrangement of subject matter. In this method the study of the topic is spread over a number of years. It is based on the principle that subject cannot be given an exhaustive treatment at the first stage. To begin with, a simple pre­sentation of the subject is given and further knowledge is imparted in following years. Thus beginning from a nucleus the circles of knowledge go on widening year after year and hence the name concentric method.

A topic is divided into a number of portions which are then allotted to different classes. The criterion for allotment of a particular portion of the course to a particular class is the difficulty of portion and power of comprehension of students in the age group. Thus it is mainly concerned with year to year teaching but its influence can also be exercised in day-to-day teaching Knowledge being given today should follow from knowledge given yesterday and should lead to teaching on following day.

Merits of Concentric Method

(i) This method of organisation of subject matter is decidedly superior to that in which one topic is taken up in particu­lar class and an effort is made to deal with all aspects of the topic in that particular class.

(ii) It provides a framework from course which is of real value to students.

(iii) The system is most successful when the teaching is in hand of one teacher because then he can preserve continuity in the teaching and keeps his expanding circle concentric.

(iv) It provides opportunity for revision of work already cov­ered in a previous class and carrying out new work.

(v) It enables the teacher to cover a portion according to recep­tivity of learner.

(vi) Since the same topic is learnt over many years so its im­pressions are more lasting.

(vii) It does not allow teaching to become dull because every year a new interest can be given to the topic. Every year there are new problems to solve and new difficulties to overcome.

Drawbacks

For the success of this approach we require really capable teacher. If a teacher becomes over ambitious and exhausts all the possible interesting illustrations in there introductory year then the subject loses its power of freshness and appeal and nothing is left to create interest in the topic in subsequent years.In case the topic is too short or too long then also the method is not found to be useful. A too long portion makes the topic dull and a too short portion fails to leave any permanent and lasting impression on the mind of the pupil.

3) Spiral approach

The spiral approach is a technique often used in teaching or textbooks where first the basic facts of a subject are learned, without worrying about details. Then as learning progresses, more and more details are introduced, while at the same time they are related to the basics which are reemphasized many times to help enter them into long-term memory. This principle is somewhat similar to the inverted pyramid method used in writing news stories, and the game 20 questions.

Jerome Bruner proposed the spiral curriculum as a teaching approach in which each subject or skill area is revisited at intervals, at a more sophisticated level each time. First there is basic knowledge of a subject, then more sophistication is added, reinforcing principles that were first discussed. This system is used in China and India. Bruner's spiral curriculum, however, draws heavily from evolution to explain how to learn better and thus it drew criticism from conservatives. The spiral curriculum is defined as a curriculum that returns to the same topics over time. It is juxtaposed to methods that involve learning something then moving on, perhaps never to engage with it again. When students re-engage with a topic repeatedly, they both consolidate prior knowledge in their memory and build on it over time.

Advantages

• Developmentally Appropriate Learning: Often times, we will challenge a student to the furthest extent of their current abilities. Once we’ve gone as far as we can go, we might have to wait a few months or even a year until their mind has developed some more and they are more capable of grappling with the topic. When you return to the topic, the student may be at a developmentally appropriate level to understand the topic even more. This advantage relies on the cognitive constructivist premise that brains develop as we age, often in distinct stages (vis-a-vis Piaget’s stage theory).
• Prior Knowledge is Central to Learning: This approach necessarily employs the notion of ‘prior knowledge’. This concept acknowledges that students enter a classroom with a history of learning and knowing that can be employed in classroom practice. By assessing prior knowledge and using it in the classroom, we can move toward a student-centered teaching style.
• Spaced Repetition Occurs: Spaced repetition is a concept from the behaviorist theory of learning. It explains how committing knowledge to memory occurs best when you space out practice of a task over time. Each time you re-engage with the concept, you have to recall it from your memory. Like exercising a muscle, the more you exercise that little packet of memory, the stronger it gets and the less likely you will be to forget it.
• Teachers Focus on Structuring work to follow Logical Progression: When developing this type of curriculum, educators and curriculum designers need to pause and reflect on what ‘prior knowledge’ is required in order to learn something. This explicit reflection on progression of understanding puts continual growth at the center of the student’s learning experience.
• Integration and Collaboration: Educators collaborate to ensure a holistic and coherent learning sequence is provided over time.

Disadvantages

• Time Consuming for Designers: Curriculum designers need to collaborate and coordinate for this model to work. Designers and educators need to come together over several meetings to agree on what will be taught, when, and by whom, so that the whole curriculum is cohesive and does not miss anything or contain redundancies.
• Curriculum Crowding: If educators have a lot to teach, and then re-teach, the curriculum can get too crowded. Educators might lightly touch on a concept then move on from it with the belief that “we will return to it”. A better alternative may be mastery teaching, where a student does not move on until they have mastered the topic.
• Irrelevant for Short Courses: Short courses can return to the content in single lessons, but long-term reinforcement is impossible if a course is only taught over a short period of time.
• Risk of becoming Teacher Centered: When the curriculum is designed in a longitudinal fashion with a long horizon, the teachers make guesses about a student’s competency level at certain times into the future. A flexible curriculum needs to be differentiated to a student’s learning levels and speeds, which may be unachievable if the curriculum is designed too far in advance.
• Gap Filling: Often, a teacher will find that instead of building on prior knowledge, they are re-teaching information that was forgotten, taught poorly previously, the facts have changed, or entails many misconceptions.

4) Historical approach

Science has a history of its own and every invention or discovery has a historic background. The historical approach emphasizes the organizing of the science course in accordance with the evolution of science i.e the stages through which science has passed. One limitation pointed out in the school curriculum is that it gives importance only to the reality of objectives and devoid of human element. But science is a grand expression of the human effort and this spirit should be felt by every pupil. This is possible only if science is tracked biographically hence it must be the realization of the scientific life rather than mastery of principles and method. The pupil should be led into the spirit of the intellectual life of great men of science.

5) Type study

In this method, the material to be taught is classified into types. A type is that which emplifies the characteristics of a group. It is a thing or event considered as an example of a class or group just as a particular metal represents the alakaline earth metals. This method is advantageous as it helps the pupils to make their own generalizations from types. The method is based on sound psychological principles and gives training in scientific thinking and develops a power of observation. The main drawback of the scheme is that all the content to be taught cannot be classified into types.

6)  Nature study

·         In it’s simplest form, a nature study is defined as:“the practical study of plants, animals, and natural phenomena, especially as a school subject”.It builds connections with the world around them and establishes empathy and awareness of the simple things that many take for granted (especially in today’s culture). Nature study can be described as "conceiving of the movement as a loose coalition of communities composed of individuals, societies, and institutions able to find some common ground in the study and appreciation of the natural world" NATURE-STUDY, as a process, is seeing the things that one looks at, and the drawing of proper conclusions from what one sees. Its purpose is to educate the child in terms of his environment, to the end that his life may be fuller and richer. Nature-study is not the study of a science, as of botany, entomology, geology, and the like. That is, it takes the things at hand and endeavors to understand them, without reference primarily to the systematic order or relationships of objects. It is informal, as are the objects which one sees. It is entirely divorced from mere definitions, or from formal explanations in books. It is therefore supremely natural. It trains the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend the common things of life; and the result is not directly the acquiring of science but the establishing of a living sympathy with everything that is.

Nature study is advantageous since it laysthe foundation for advanced studies because all natural sciences are specialized forms of nature study. It develops power of observation and reasoning and establishes good relationship between child and its environment. The drawback is there are certain topics which require exhaustive theoretical analysis which is beyond the scope of nature study. Hence this is suitable only for the primary classes where pupil needs only a general understanding of the environment.

7) Nature rambling

The main criteria are the experience of the child.  Child is considered as the rambler in his environment. The child is considered as the member of environment. The materials the child is likely to meet with the scientific situations be likely to face with are chosen and arranged in the science course. Accordingly the science course of the first year may contain the elementary study of planets, trees sun, moon, birds, stars, and rain. In the second year the study of rock, different kinds of rock, kinds of water, purification of water, solar system, seasons and like.  In the third year the study of sand, minerals, atmosphere, soil, eclipse and shadows.It lays foundation for advanced studies because all natural science is specialised forms of nature study.  It develops the power of observation reasoning and it establishes good relationships between the child and his environment.

8) General Science and Disciplinary approach

General Science is a course of scientific study based on the common experiences of children. It tries to explain the laws of nature without dividing the work into Biology, Chemistry, Physics and so on. Usually it consists of and elementary study of the fundamental facts and principles of various sciences organized with reference to immediate environment of pupils. General science scheme was introduced into the school curriculum to redeem science instruction from evils of college domination. The general science scheme was intended to popularize science instruction by presenting a more simple, attractive and interesting study of scientific facts and principles in relation to the real things of life.

 Merits

1. Since the method deals with the situation in their natural setting science learned in the class will be of much use than the daily life.

2. Since general science deals with real problems of life, pupils develop to ability to solve practical problems of their environment.

3. Since the pupils get fundamental knowledge of the different branches of science they can wisely choose the branch to be learnt in detail in the higher classes.

4. General science scheme provides unity in school science courses.

Drawbacks

1. Selection of subjects matter organization as a unified whole is very difficult.

2. The scheme requires teachers proficient in all branches of science for handling all the topics effectively.

3. It does not provides students sound knowledge of the subject matter.

4. The textbooks written in this line is not available.

5. It requires well equipped laboratory and libraries.

 Conclusion

Curriculum is the plan for bringing desirable changes in student behavior.  There are many approaches in curriculum organization .Designing of curriculum is associated with social, emotional and psychological factors of a child, which aims the total development of a child in their life.  Curriculum should develop the all round development / personality among the students and also that should be keeping similar in all the states. A well-integrated curriculum should be framed which include the study of science, language and humanities. The correct combination of those can develops an all round personality.