Curriculum design and development pdf

It should be noted that the term can be used to describe development at different levels: large-scale curricular reform eg. However, the same principles apply in a range of contexts and to both large and small-scale activities. Some forms of educational development include curriculum development although usually educational development refers to any kind of development activity in an educational context.

This implies that one of the functions of a curriculum is to provide a template or design which enables learning to take place. Curricula usually define the learning that is expected to take place during a course or programme of study in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, they should specify the main teaching, learning and assessment methods and provide an indication of the learning resources required to support the effective delivery of the course.

A curriculum is more than a syllabus. A syllabus describes the content of a programme and can be seen as one part of a curriculum.

Most curricula are not developed from scratch and all operate within organisational and societal constraints. The curriculum that is written and published, for example as course documentation, is the official or formal curriculum. The aim of educational development is to ensure that the official curriculum is delivered as the functional curriculum and there is not a mismatch as development turns into implementation.

The official curriculum can also be distinguished from the hidden, unofficial or counter curriculum. The hidden curriculum describes those aspects of the educational environment and student learning such as values and expectations that students acquire as a result of going through an educational process which are not formally or explicitly stated but which relate to the culture and ethos of an organisation.

This highlights that the process of learning is as important as its product and as teachers we need to be aware of both the formal and informal factors which impact on learning. Further reading If you are interested in the anthropological or sociological aspects which underpin learning in medical education then you may find reading two very different accounts of medical school training fascinating.

Learning activity and reflection Thinking about your undergraduate education, can you list some examples of the formal curriculum? And some examples of the hidden or unofficial curriculum? Are there any instances where these may conflict and impact on learning?

My thoughts Some examples of the formal curriculum might include the prospectus, course guides, lecturers handouts etc. After this, outcomes are reviewed and evaluated against the original needs assessment. Needs change with societal expectations. These steps are described in more detail in the subsequent sections.

Course design and planning — the broad context The educational and professional context must be discussed and clearly defined. This can reflect a number of factors: current or prevailing educational or social ideology, culture, politics, economy, students, teachers and parents, commerce and industry, professional bodies, exam boards, funding bodies and history or influence of the past. In any discipline, there may be current trends in general education which need to be addressed and specific trends or issues in medical or healthcare education which relate to the healthcare system or context.

Theories of adult learning, student centred learning, active learning and self-directed learning may all influence the overall programme philosophy as may other opportunities or student needs such as the need for flexible learning programmes eg.

Programmes may be modular in structure or credit based, depending on the organisation within which the curriculum is being designed. The diagram below shows how medical education has moved from a more teacher centred, didactic approach to a more student centred approach.

In medical and healthcare education, there have been additional changes reflecting change in the NHS and in the roles, responsibilities and public perceptions of the professions.

Scandals such as Alder Hey, Bristol and Shipman have not only undermined public confidence in the way that healthcare professions and organisations are monitored and managed, but have led also to an increased emphasis in accountability, quality control and self-regulation.

All these factors have to be taken into account in developing medical and healthcare curricula. Learning activity and reflection Can you think of some of the key trends in medical and healthcare education which should be taken into account when developing curricula?

The organisation which will deliver the course may also have requirements concerning forms of assessment and these may be explicit or implicit. The linked paper Evaluating Teaching and Learning sets the UK educational quality context and describes national initiatives in more detail. As well as understanding the context in which the students or trainees are learning, it is important that the teacher is aware of the educational needs of the learners.

This means thinking about the needs of the learners both as a group and as individuals. Learning activity and reflection What do you think we mean by learner centred?

What activities would be more appropriate to this sort of learning? My thoughts By learner centred we mean taking the needs of the learners into account rather than the needs of the teachers or administrators.

This means thinking about issues such as gender, background and previous experience or education of the learners, learning styles, barriers to learning such as dyslexia or other disability, etc. Activities should be varied, designed to enable people to contribute, allow active participation in learning sessions, ensuring equal access to facilities, etc. This shift reflects work done by people such as Brookfield and Ramsden who identify specific differences between the way in which adults and children learn.

When planning or delivering a session or course to teach a group, the teacher might ask: What level of understanding and experience have they got? What should I be expecting from the group in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes? What are they going on to do and what specifically should I be preparing them for? Does my teaching in terms of level, pace and content appear to be meeting their needs? Have I built in opportunities for flexibility to address unforeseen learning needs?

Research has demonstrated that, although individuals learn in different ways and bring different experiences and backgrounds to learning, there are certain types of activities which can enable learning to occur. What do you think these are? Teaching and learning in the clinical context describes some of the theoretical background and activities affecting learning.

Relevance applies at a variety of levels: to the overall structure of the course or subject eg. Learning is not always easy and learners must feel comfortable and able to make mistakes.

Feedback should be constructive and timely. Strategies of curriculum development Any curriculum needs to be developed in the light of the organisation or context in which it is going to be delivered. If a teacher is developing a small part of a course or programme, then this must fit in terms of approach, level and content with the overall course. If a new course is being designed and developed then there are a number of approaches that can be taken and issues that need to be addressed to meet the needs of all stakeholders involved.

A strategic issue which needs to be considered is whether the course design, delivery and management is centralised or decentralised. Centralisation can be seen at both national and organisational levels. Centralised curricula tend to be more structured and orderly and it is easier to ensure uniformity and a standard approach to teaching and learning.

A centralised curriculum may allow better access to a wide pool of expertise but be less sensitive to local needs. Decentralisation can allow for a variety of approaches to design and delivery and enable comparisons of the strengths and weaknesses of each.

It can be useful to view curriculum development and design in the light of two main schools of thought, the objectives model and the process model. Although the two models are not mutually exclusive, they do represent two different philosophical approaches.

Objectives model The objectives model takes as its major premise the idea that all learning should be defined in terms of what students should be able to do after studying the programme, in terms of learning outcomes or learning objectives. See the section below on the elements of the curriculum for further details of learning outcomes and objectives in practice.

Using an objectives model enables the construction of assessments which can be designed against the learning objectives. The objectives model is in step with current developments in the UK at national level which includes the use of subject benchmarking and programme specifications.

The objectives model is a systematic approach to course planning. From this it was suggested that behavioural objectives were inappropriate for PBL, professional development or clinical problem solving. This is normally seen as objective based through inference rather than objective defined. PBL courses can eventually become systematic. The process model depends a lot on the quality of the teacher and it can be more difficult to set standardised, valid and reliable assessments because performance is not being measured against stated objectives but against ideas and course content.

By the end of the s a reasonable compromise was reached. In the s, outcomes based education OBE has been devised and Harden and others at Dundee have developed this approach in medical education.

The best approach to curriculum design is to combine the best of both approaches according to student need, teacher experience and organisational structure and resources. For example, it is useful to design the overall shape of the course, the main aims and learning objectives, broad content areas and time allocation centrally but then devolve out the detailed planning and design to those teachers who will be delivering the course so that they have ownership of their programme.

The way in which the GMC or the Nursing Boards define broad curricular themes and outcomes for medical or nursing schools are examples of a devolved approach. It is important to retain some central control of the course however so that the results of evaluation and feedback can be addressed and that changes in one part of the course can be made sensibly in the light of the impact of change on other course elements.

At organisational level, there should be inbuilt quality monitoring mechanisms which aim to ensure that teaching and learning, wherever it occurs, is of a high quality. It is not the statements of objectives or outcomes that in themselves that are important but the questions that must be posed and answered in arriving at their definition. Learning activities and reflection Think about a course in which you are involved as a teacher. How has this course been developed — according to the objectives or the process model?

What do you think are then main advantages and disadvantages of each? Models of curriculum development In medical and healthcare education and training, the learners are required to acquire a complex mix of knowledge, skills and attitudes; they are expected to be able to synthesise and apply their learning to new and often demanding situations, they are also expected to be lifelong learners, acquiring and utilising skills and attitudes such as study skills and self-motivation throughout their working lives.

In addition, learners are working in a constantly changing environment and because they work with people including patients, colleagues and carers they are constantly having to adapt their knowledge to meet expectations from a range of people. When we think about designing a course, as well as thinking about the needs of the learners and theories of learning, we also need to think about how the overall design of the programme timetabling and sequencing, teaching and learning methods will enable students or trainees to acquire the defined knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Whichever design we choose, there always has to be a sequence of learning, students need to acquire certain information or skills before they can move onto understand or apply others. This is often defined as a spiral curriculum, one in which learning is seen as a developing process with active reinforcement and assessment at key stages coupled with the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.

As curriculum planners, we need to facilitate this process for our students and ensure that students are ready to move onto the next stage of learning. Assessment of some sort is usually used to determine readiness to move from one stage to another. The majority of medical education programmes in use today whichever model they adopt would stress that they embody and utilise a student centred approach.

A programme embodying student centred approaches would typically be designed to enable students to define some of their own learning objectives, select learning resources and decide the sequence and pace of learning, the programme would also help them to develop lifelong learning skills. This approach is more resource intensive as it relies on smaller groups and much more advance planning is needed by teachers.

Students may also need preparation in the shift from more didactic teaching. In undergraduate medical education, there are a few prevailing curricular models which embody different approaches to teaching and learning. This model was the prevailing model of medical education worldwide until the last twenty years and is still common across the world, particularly in former Soviet countries, Southern Europe and South America. Many schools are divided into clinical and non- clinical departments and on a practical level, integration can often be a difficult to achieve.

Barriers such as physical separation, funding mechanisms and inter- departmental rivalries are often difficult to overcome. In some countries such as Australia, North America and Canada many medical courses are designed as graduate entry programmes, usually of about four years duration and which focus on clinical medicine. In a way, these programmes separate pre-clinical from clinical medicine, although graduate entry programmes are in themselves integrated programmes.

Students entering such courses would be expected to have obtained a good first degree in a relevant subject and passed an entry test. A number of graduate entry programmes are now in place in the UK and research that considers how the graduates from these courses compare with those who have come through a five-year programme is ongoing.

In many countries, the traditional approach has largely been modified towards a more integrated approach to curriculum planning and design. In medical education the term vertical integration describes the blurring of boundaries between pre-clinical and clinical courses whereas horizontal integration describes how knowledge and skills from many disciplines are clustered around themes such as body systems eg. They can encourage the development of higher-level objectives eg.

PBL aims to stimulate students to observe, think, define, study, analyse, synthesise and evaluate a problem. This can be seen more like case- based learning utilising clinical scenarios or a means of enabling students to develop problem solving skills.

Learning using this method is very common in many higher education programmes such as engineering or management which encourage students to develop project management, team working and problem solving skills. In postgraduate training, the skills and procedures expected at each level are clearly defined.

For example, there would be widespread agreement that all medical graduates should be able to take blood or interpret an X-ray but there might be different expectations as to exactly what might be expected both from students at different stages of the course and as to the contexts and definitions of such competences. Assessments such as OSCEs Objective structured clinical examinations are widely used to measure competence in clinical skills.

See the Assessment paper for a detailed explanation of competency testing. This becomes the instructional content the trainee will learn. Step 3 deriving the objectives from the competencies required, set criterion for performance, objectives must be realistic, measurable, achievable and specific. Step 4 defining teaching and learning strategies Step 5 determining assessment strategies In practice we often find that a mix of approaches and methods are most appropriate and hardly any modern healthcare curricula are purely subject based, integrated, PBL or competency based but are synthesised.

Choices must be made about the approach in the light of the specific needs and context and then once the course is designed, it should be adhered to as much as possible.

Learning activity and reflection Compare your own undergraduate training with a current programme. How would these be defined according to the different models described above? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Can you think of how ideas from these models could be used to improve a course in which you are involved? The elements of the curriculum The formal curriculum course or programme can be seen as comprising a number of elements which fall within the curricular cycle.

As curriculum planners, we need to ensure that these elements are addressed within our overall strategy and specific professional or organisational context. Once these elements are in place and the programme is being implemented either through piloting or fully then systematic evaluation of the programme can take place.

A Curriculum development proforma is available to download from the Teachers toolbox. This proforma provides a means for course developers to gather and collate information needed for course planning into one document which can form the basis of course handbooks or validation documentation.

There are a number of issues which need to be taken into account in the development and delivery of courses which are covered in other papers. Aims describe what the teacher is trying to achieve eg. These terms are often used interchangeably.

Learning outcomes also guide students on what they are expected to be able to do in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes after completing the programme or parts of it. There are a variety of curriculum design models to guide the process.

They are as follows:. Because of its emphasis on the importance of objectives, it is considered an objective-based model. This process starts with analyzing information from various data sources. Data sources for curriculum according to Tyler include:. From these sources, the designer develops general objectives. These are subjected to a screening process, using the philosophy of education and psychology of learning as the major screens.

Social values are also used as a screen, but sometimes these are subsumed in the philosophy of education. This yields a feasible number of objectives that are focused on in education. Specific objectives are then derived from the general objectives. For each of the specific objectives, learning experiences are identified. The next step is the organization of learning experiences. This is done to ensure effective learning takes place.

The various principles of the organization include scope, sequence, integration, and continuity, among others. The final step involves evaluation, to determine the extent to which the objectives have been met.

Feedback from the evaluation is then used to modify the learning experiences and the entire curriculum as found necessary. Learning experiences refer to the interaction between the learner and the external conditions in the environment which they encounter. Learning takes place through the active participation of the students; it is what the students are involved in that they learn, not what the teacher does. The problem of selecting learning experiences is the problem of determining the kind of experiences likely to produce given educational objectives and also the problem of how to set up opportunity situations that evoke or provide within the student the kinds of learning experiences desired.

For instance, Ryman specifically defines content as:. Knowledge such as facts, explanations, principles, definitions, skills, and processes such as reading, writing, calculating, dancing, and values such as the beliefs about matters concerned with good and bad, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. The selection of content and learning experiences is one crucial part of curriculum making. This is mainly because of the explosion of knowledge that made the simplicity of school subjects impossible.

As specialized knowledge increases, it is necessary either to add more subjects or to assign new priorities in the current offerings to make room for new knowledge and new concepts. New requirements for what constitute literacy have also emerged.

In secondary schools, the usual method of accommodating new demands is to introduce new subjects or to put new units into existing subjects. Improved educational technology such as the use of television, radio, computers, and multi-media resources support an expansion of what can be learned in a given period. New technological aids for self- teaching, for communicating information, and for learning a variety of skills are shifting the balance of time and effort needed for acquiring a substantial portion of the curriculum.

What then are the criteria for the selection of content? Several criteria need to be considered in selecting content. These include the validity, significance, needs, and interests of learners.

The term validity implies a close connection between content and the goals which it is intended to serve. In this sense, content is valid if it promotes the outcomes that it is intended to promote. In other words, does the curriculum include concepts and learnings that it states it does? The significance of curriculum content refers to the sustainability of the material chosen to meet certain needs and ability levels of the learners.

This also ensures that the students will be more motivated to engage with the curriculum. One factor in learnability is the adjustment of the curriculum content and the focus of learning experiences on the abilities of the learners.

For effective learning, the abilities of students must be taken into account at every point of the selection and organization. If the curriculum is to be a useful prescription for learning, its content, and the outcomes it pursues need to be in tune with the social and cultural realities of the culture and the times.

It is particularly unique in its use of social values. Whereas Tyler considers them as a screen, Goodlad proposes they are used as data sources. Hence, Goodlad proposes four data sources:. John Goodlad was a Canadian-born educator and author who believed that the most important focus of education should not be based on standardized testing, but rather to prepare young people to be well-informed citizens in democracy.

His inclusion of values in the curriculum-development chart reflects his belief that educational systems must be driven by goals or values.

Funded knowledge is knowledge which is gained from research. Generally, research is heavily funded by various organizations. Information from research is used to inform educational practice in all aspects, particularly in curriculum design. Data from the various sources are then used to develop general aims of education from which general educational objectives are derived. These objectives are stated in behavioral terms.

A behavioral objective has two components: a behavioral element and a substantive element. From the general objectives, the curriculum designer identifies learning opportunities that facilitate the achievement of the general objectives.

This could, for example, be specific courses of study. The next step involves deriving specific educational objectives stated behaviorally. These are akin to instructional objectives. Regarding evaluation, Goodlad proposed continuous evaluation at all stages of the design process.

In the model, evaluation is represented by the double-edged arrows that appear throughout the model. There are many other curriculum design models developed by different scholars. Most of these models are objectives-based, i. Those include the Wheeler, Kerr, and Taba models. The latter was seen as being too simplistic and vertical. By being vertical, it did not recognize the relationship between various curriculum elements.

His cyclic proposal was therefore aimed at highlighting the interrelatedness of the various curriculum elements. It also emphasizes the need to use feedback from evaluation in redefining the goals and objectives of the curriculum. Their work is summarized in the simplified models presented in the graphic presentations that follow. Both of them emphasize the interrelatedness of the various curriculum elements. John Kerr, a British Curriculum specialist in the s, was particularly concerned with the following issues: objectives, knowledge, school learning experiences, and evaluation.

This is reflected in the sketch below. The difference is the emphasis on the interrelatedness of the various components in terms of the flow of the data between each component.

Hilda Taba was born in Europe and emigrated to the United States during a tumultuous time in history that had a great effect on her view of education. She was initially influenced by progressivists: John Dewey and Ralph Tyler, and one of her goals was to nurture the development of students and encourage them to actively participate in a democratic society.

She was able to make connections between culture, politics, and social change as well as cognition, experience, and evaluation in curriculum development, particularly in the areas of teacher preparation and civic education. Hilda Taba, on her part, was also influenced by Ralph Tyler.

Her conceptual model follows. The interrelatedness of the curriculum elements from both models suggests the process is continuous. What is best for one classroom or one district may not work somewhere else. When setting up the process, using a combination of designs might work best.

If you were leading a curriculum committee, which model would you use for the curriculum development process? Choose the content area s and grade level s , a specific model or a combination of models, and include rationale for your choices.

Curriculum design is central to the development of curriculum, and it can be done in several ways. Each design has advantages and disadvantages for both learners and teachers. Ralph Tyler included four questions that guided his curriculum design model. Wheeler, John Kerr, Hilda Taba, and others. In the next chapter, we look at how curriculum is developed and its scope. Button, Ed. Essential Questions What is curriculum design?

What questions did Tyler pose for guiding the curriculum design process? What are the major curriculum design models? What unique element did Goodlad add to his model? In addition to the needs of the learner, what did Hilda Taba add to her model? The curriculum design process results in a curriculum document that contains the following: a statement of purpose s , an instructional guide that displays behavioral objectives and content organization in harmony with school organization, a set of guidelines or rules governing the use of the curriculum, and an evaluation plan.

Subject-Centered Curriculum Design This curriculum design refers to the organization of curriculum in terms of separate subjects, e. Advantages of Subject-Centered Curriculum Design It is possible and desirable to determine in advance what all children will learn in various subjects and grade levels.

It is usually required to set minimum standards of performance and achievement for the knowledge specified in the subject area. Almost all textbooks and support materials on the educational market are organized by subject, although the alignment of the text contents and the standards are often open for debate. Tradition seems to give this design greater support. People have become familiar and more comfortable with the subject-centered curriculum and view it as part of the system of the school and education as a whole.

The subject-centered curriculum is better understood by teachers because their training was based on this method, i. Advocates of the subject-centered design have argued that the intellectual powers of individual learners can develop through this approach.

Curriculum planning is easier and simpler in the subject-centered curriculum design. Disadvantages of Subject-Centered Curriculum Design Critics of subject-centered curriculum design have strongly advocated a shift from it.