Basic Guidelines for Curriculum Construction

BASIC GUIDELINES FOR CURRICULUM CONSTRUCTION

Educationally, within the bounds of our freedom one can grow citizens for a democracy only if provide experiences that create the types of personality a democracy needs. Physical education teachers should translate the nature and meaning of citizenship into teaching procedures, so that better citizens will result. Starting with the nursery school and ending with the high school, illustrate the principles of continuity and sequence in a physical education curriculum with respect to these particular and important skills of sports and games.

With these skills in view, outline specific activities with the progression in mind for each grade level from the nursery school to the twelfth grade. Obviously must agree with another adage “Experience is the best teacher”. As an individual faces a situation and endeavours to make some satisfactory adjustment to it certain modifications take place in individual’s total behaviour pattern. These changes are called behaviour patterns learning. An experience is the overall process by which one attempts to make all adjustment to a situation.

In general, a good experience results in good adjustment. If however, the players had been taunted and subjected to ridicule, call this as a poor and unfortunate educational experiences because it might have discouraged further attempts at learning. A good adjustment would not have been made because tension in similar playing situations might have persisted.

The competent teacher knows how to organize learning experiences so that desirable changes in behaviour – including ways of thinking and feeling results. The good curriculum takes a great many hazards out of learning and reduces the waste of time and energy. A child learns from many experiences without the aid of either school or teacher. The business of the school, however, is consciously to arrange learning experiences, give direction and avoid educational mismanagement.

The curriculum is the means by which the school provides the learner with desirable experiences and the nature of these experiences and their organization are the most important problems in curriculum development.

General Plans of Curriculum Construction:

                The development of understandings, attitudes and skills requires some consideration of sequence and continuity of experiences, time for their “digestion”, and the possibilities of integrating and relating them with other major experiences. For the maximum cumulative effect of various curricula experiences many of them must be focussed on identical outcomes. Citizenship and the behaviour characteristics of a good citizen cannot result in desirable behaviour if this outcome is stressed only in social studies. It must function in the gymnasium, on the athletic field, in the cafeteria – everywhere in the school. Hence, organizati9on is one of the most important aspects of curriculum development in achieving the objectives of the physical education curriculum.

                The curriculum, in terms of concept cannot be made up entirely in advance or it would be merely a course of study. It is made up as life and learning develop; rather than simply improving or rejecting planning it requires a more difficult type of planning. It involves the formulation of a general framework and development of specific suggestions therein. It also requires a great deal of cooperation between physical education teachers and the other teachers in the school.

FOCALIZATION

Health, character, citizenship and morale are generalized educational objectives. Every teacher in the school should be concerned with the student’s physical and emotional well-being, his concepts and desirable standards of conduct (character) and his hopeful and energetic participation in programmes to improve the effectiveness of the school as a social group (citizenship) and as an institution in accomplishing these things (morale). The collective attitude of the students and leaders towards the objectives, determine the degree to the objectives in the course of the study.

The interest, needs and purposes of girls and boys provide the appropriate organizing focus. Facts about health, growth, exercise and nutrition become organized around the problems and concerns of students so that these are met, while at the same time other related ideas and facts are included as well.

If the purposes of students are to be used as an organizing focus for learning experiences in physical education it is most important that what is taught be considered with respect to this particular central organizing idea. The present tendency is to attempt to make education functional, to help people meet needs and solve problems. This places in the forefront problems and issues which are of concern to students rather than subjects as central organizing ideas. With this tendency, the organization of the curriculum into subject – matter areas, departments and subjects is being re-examined and challenged by the current tendency to organize it into categories more directly related to the problems of life. Obviously, the organizational pattern of the curriculum will be strongly influences by the choice made.

Physical education conceived of merely as exercise presents no problems related to some organizing focus around which learning experiences are centred. If learning experiences in academic situations are organized around some broad problem or concept such as “Understanding ourselves and others” or “What does it mean to be a good citizen” and ideas and knowledge from the physical education classes are eagerly sought, then exercise only as an organizing centre is quite.

While the problem of organization of learning experiences is the most aspect of curriculum construction, it is also the most difficult of solution. It is much easier to plan a curriculum for the development of skill and exercise than it is to plan for responsible citizenship in the several physical education situations, or for ways of meeting the basic personality needs such as recognition, belonging, achievement, security and the like of all pupils.

The most desirable cumulative effect is produced in achieving not only the specific objectives of each subject area but also the general, ultimate purposes of the school, sound philosophy of life and similar worthy common goals. To this end physical education must avoid isolation and coordinate its efforts towards common ends. More recent techniques to be emp;oyed have been the development of core, unified studies, common learning, or general education courses, as they have been variously named.

The four ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice are:

1.       Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted.

2.       Curriculum as an attempt to achieve certain ends in students – product.

3.       Curriculum is process.

4.       Curriculum is praxis

SOCIALIZATION

                Socialization is the process through which people are taught to be proficient members of a society. It describes the ways that people come to understand societal norms and expectations, to accept society’s beliefs, and to be aware of societal values. Socialization is not the same as socializing (interesting with others, like family, friends and coworkers) to be precise, it is a sociological process that occurs through socializing.

                Social changes imply changes in the social structure and in the functions of its various units. It consists of new functions and emergence of new values and systems. Breaking of joint family system, urbanisation, mechanisation and such changes in socio economic patterns causes corresponding changes in social functions. Social changes indicate the growth and development of a social system, and represent the growing needs and aspirations of a people. It is the most operative component of socialisation.

                Curriculum design follows a dynamic trend that is multi factorial in nature such as environmental, the political, and the social factor to consider in formulating an adaptable curriculum that is reflective of our current trends in the field of education. Education is an social process may help eliminate social aberrations, and perpetuate desirable institutions, group activities, and attain for society the ideals and standards that it aims to achieve.

                If learning experiences are going to have the maximum relationship to life and living and become meaningful to people we must seek for ways of developing inter relationship among simultaneous learning. It is true that physical education has a specialized function to perform but it also has a generalised educational function. If citizenship, sportsmanship and character are generalized educational objectives and they are the several subjects in the curriculum must be coordinated with respect to these particular objectives of education. The principle object is to have the student understand and recognize the inter relationships and extract principles which one may utilize in dealing with problems of living.

                Here some effort is made to bring unity into life and learning by coordinating subjects with respect to particular objectives of education.

Correlation

                Correlation as a process, particularly as it involves physical education has developed few specific and widely used techniques and there is great need for intensive experimentation. Effective correlation of learning experiences is dependent, chiefly on the serious cooperation of teachers concerned.

                Correlation related to the physical education curriculum refers to the cross reference of learnings in other fields. The main purpose is to increase meaning and to improve learning. For Ex: A unit in world history on ‘Games and Sports in Ancient Greece’ would provide many opportunities for correlation – relating of certain aspects of physical education to related aspects of ancient Greek history.

Integration

                Integration refers to the process of relating the parts as a whole. Learning experiences are organized around a central theme or objectives. This is done by focussing attention upon broad problems, which represent the persistent problems of living in a democratic society, which cut across subject matter lines and therefore involve out of class activities of the curriculum such as athletics, recreation and personal social relations in school club life. Development of a continuous, carefully planned series of experiences which are based on significant personal and social problems which involve learning of common concern to all youth. Problem solving techniques are employed, pupil teacher planning and working groups or in committee are frequent.

Integration also refers to the horizontal relationship among curriculum components at any given time and it is also known as Horizontal organization. Integration fosters reinforcement of key learning and is needed to promote application of learning across course boundaries.

INDIVIDUALIZATION:

                The changing climate of classrooms in the developed countries increasingly includes populations who are linguistically and culturally diverse. To better understand what linguistically and culturally diverse students are defined as “minority populations”. Research has indicated that students from radical and ethnic minority backgrounds do not perform as well academically as their mainstream peers. Students are learning far too little, becoming disengaged, and dropping out at high rates.

                Many public schools adopt curricula aligned to state standards under the auspice of making planning easier for teachers or preparing students for standardized assessments. Often times, classroom teachers may not be included or have limited input in the process of adopting curriculum. When teachers are not included in the curriculum adoption process or curriculum decision making, they are forced to plan and deliver curriculum that may neither be appropriate for meeting the needs of their diverse student nor permit opportunities for individualized instruction.

                For many teachers, curriculum has become a prescribed set of academic standards, instructional pacing has become a race against a clock to cover the standards, and the sole goal of teaching has been reduced to raising student test scores on a single test.

                Teachers voice and involvement are essential for developing and adapting curricula and adjusting learning experiences and formative assessments to create educational success. Appropriate curricula allow teachers to create lessons that empower students to be successful learners. When teachers are not given the autonomy to create appropriate curricula, the planned curricula, especially when scripted is informally modified through instructional delivery.

                Lived constructed related to teaching and learning saying students are individuals very different from each other, Individualizing instruction is not a means to “water down” curriculum. Good teachers know that learning begins where the students are at. Effective individualized instruction necessitates identifying and recognizing student abilities as strengths and not weakness.

Instruction should build on students knowledge and experiences as well as present opportunities for students to make connections between school and community based knowledge sources. Setting up learning environments where instruction does not consist of drills, but projects, dramatic presentations, story telling and encouraging teachers to seize teachable moments when students have real purpose for learning.

                Another way to individualize instruction is through an understand doing of students. Knowledge of students, personal life, home and situational factors, in establishing individualized instructional techniques helping to teach, motivate and evaluate students. An active voice in curriculum development increases teachers ability to adapt curriculum and adjust learning experiences, including formative assessments so each learner experiences success.

SEQUENCE AND OPERATION

            In educational areas such as reading, English, mathematics, or social studies, our school curricula reflect some fairly uniform attention to progression-sequence and continuity. Learning experiences are planned so that each one grows out of the preceding and prepares children for the experiences to follow.

Due to the fact that in the educational areas mentioned, fairly similar principles of sequence and continuity have been employed. As a result all children in the same grade have achieved fairly similar standards.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of physical education; and one finds a great range of ability in children transferring from various towns and cities in various sections of the United States. The reasons are numerous. Although most states have laws requiring physical education in the curriculum; it never gets into the children. Contributing factors are: inadequate facilities, untrained teachers, inadequate time allotment, poor or no equipment and supplies and educational mismanagement on the part of many physical education teachers who fails to provide for sequence and continuity. Very often the same activities are taught at the several grade levels year after year.

Sequence and continuity are based on the fact that children grow in complexity and maturity-that they start with simple manipulations such as block building and sand modelling, proceed to game of low organization and finally to team game. Developmental socio-psychological factors including needs, problems, concerns, social values and a host of other motivational factors related to the learning process involved.

Physical education has certain excellent organizational principles with scientific bases upon which sequence and continuity can be made educationally defensible. The development principles which makes us think genetically in terms of free play, low organized games and team games, proceed from activities involving simple reactions to those more complex, are examples.

SEASONAL ACTIVITIES

         The seasonal rhythms of summer, autumn, winter and spring and the climatic conditions in any given locality are factors of concern to anyone considering curriculum construction in physical education. Likewise, they affect sequence and continuity. In a part of the country where autumn weather lasts until late November, one might well plan in terms of large blocks of time labelled early autumn, late autumn, winter and spring. These larger blocks are then divided into smaller time units of from six to eight weeks, depending on the type of instructional unit and the level of maturity of the students involved.

STEPS IN CURRICULUM CONSTRUCTION

           The word curriculum generally refers to a series of courses that help learners achieve specific academic or occupational goals. A curriculum often consists of general learning objectives and a list of courses and resources. Some curricula are more like lesson plans, containing detailed information about how to teach a course, complete with discussion questions and specific activities for learners. Here are some strategies for developing a curriculum.

           The process of curriculum development is concerned with five major steps. They are

1) Formulating aim and objectives

2) Selecting curriculum content

3) The organization and integration of content

4) Preparing instructional materials

5) Evaluation of curriculum

1.       FORMULATING AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The effective development of curriculum depends on the feasibility of general aims. In the process of defining specific aims we have to consider the ultimate goals, mediate goals and finally the proximate goals.

The Ultimate goals are the expected outcomes of categories of behaviour. The ultimate aims may be said as the expected end products of an education carried over a period of time. They are the kinds of behaviour that the educators expect the students to exhibit as a result of education they have received.

Mediate goals are the expected behaviour over the educational period during different stages. The pattern of behaviour change from one age to the other. So, the mediate goals are the statements of intended behaviours in different situations at different stages.

The proximate goals are concerned with the classroom. They may be said as the meet specific behaviour outcomes possible in classroom situations. Even though they are specific, they are not discrete but linked with the other phases of the curriculum process.

The curriculum is the means to achieve educational objectives are two folds. The first one is individual objectives and the other one is social objectives. While formulating the curriculum objectives the curriculum planner should follow the following principles:

a.       Objectives should be stated in terms of behaviours.

b.      They should be encompassing as many behaviours of possible.

c.       They should be appropriate to the level of education in general and to the age group in particular. They should be related to norms of growth, development and maturity of the learner.

d.      They should be relevant to curriculum content, institutional facilities, institutional organization and administrative policies.

e.      Objectives should be based upon the psychological characteristics of the learner and experience of the learner.

2.       SELECTING CURRICULUM CONTENT:

The selection of subject matter or content is the major work concerned with curriculum development. The content chosen for the curriculum process must be feasible to develop the appropriate learning experiences in the part of the pupils. The curriculum content incudes a variety of knowledge like that of theoretical, practical and vocational. It includes activities like curricular activities, co – curricular activities and extra curricular activities. It also includes learning experiences like communication, observation and experimentation. The content should be relevant to:

a.       Objectives of education b. Interests c. Needs and problems of society and so on. Similarly content should be useful to the learner in his personal, social and occupational life.

The following criteria are useful in the selection of the content:

a.       Criterion of Significance:

While selecting the content it is necessary to decide which concepts and ideas connected with the learning experiences are significant. In order to achieve even the difficult task successfully there must be a high degree of coordination between the persons who prepare the content and the persons who teach it.

b.      Relevance of content to the present needs

The criterion of relevancy becomes more important as efforts are made to improve the schools and to educate larger number of persons. Many students will not show any interest in the lessons if the content of the lesson is not related to their current experiences. The curriculum should have a cosmopolitan orientation on order to reflect the diversities of the culture. Moreover, the teaching of subjects like social studies should be relevant to the present day events.

c.       Creation of Interest

The subject matter must create interest among the pupils. It should satisfy the needs of the learner. This criterion will be fulfilled only when the subject matter in different subjects is useful in solving pupil’s problems of fulfilling pupil’s goals.

d.      Orientation of Democratic valves

This criterion implies that education will help in providing intelligent direction social change through the selection of curriculum content. It means that the programme should focus upon the development of moral values, effective thoughts and skill of democratic social process.

3.       ORGANIZATION AND INTEGRATION OF CONTENT

                The next important task is the organization of contents. This involves combination of all information about experience. There is no common organizing principle. Each type of content will be focussed by different views.

                The organized curriculum is specific and clear in its content, explanatory, illustrative in its organization, self-explanatory in its requirements and lucid (clear) in its presentation. Hence, the planner should organize the content in a systematic manner for which he should follow the principles of differentiation, integration, articulation and coherence.

4.       PREPARING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

Instructional materials are an indispensable element of a curriculum. Hence its preparation is an integral part of curriculum development. The instructional materials render many helps to the teacher with relevant details, illustrations, etc. They guide the teacher in translating the curriculum plan into practice as well as help the parents and the public to know the real purpose of curriculum. The instructional material enable the teacher and the students to know whether the plan is successfully implemented and its objectives are really achieved or not.

Instructional materials are of varied kinds. They are text books, work books, audio visual materials etc. Among all text books has considered as important one because it gives details of the entire content of curriculum in an efficient and economic manner.

The evaluation of textbook is a part of the work of curriculum phase. The evaluation of text book is a scientific process. The textbook should satisfy the curriculum objective, help the learner to  meet his needs, interest and to solve the problems, the content should suggest suitable activities for the learner and deal with the variety of knowledge including modern developments and motivate the learner for creative thinking, it should include variety of evaluation items for the learner to evaluate and to connect himself.

5.       EVALUATION OF CURRICULUM

Evaluation has considerable significance in curriculum development. The final stage in the curriculum process is the concluding part about the success or failure of the educational enterprise. This is done by means of measurement or assessment of the behaviour changes.

For a proper evaluation of curriculum the planner requires a variety of data such as mentioned below:

a.       Interest of students as identified by interest inventories, mental abilities as evaluated by intelligence tests and achievement by achievement test.

b.      Needs of society as understood through field survey.

c.       Information regarding activities and experiences as obtained by questionnaire, interview and observation.

In the process of evaluation the planner analyse the curriculum, the planner analyse the curriculum in a systematic manner with the help of relevant data as stated above. Curriculum evaluation finally gives clues and valuable suggestions for curriculum improvement.