Curriculum Design and Its Functions
Curriculum Design and Its Functions
Design vs development
- Often treated as the same, but design is more specific.
- Design arranges four components into a working plan.
The four components
- Objectives: the aims or goals.
- Content: the subject matter to be taught.
- Organization: the depth and breadth of that content.
- Evaluation: how achievement is checked.
Two functions
- Analysis: checking consistency and congruence among the components.
- Creation: moving from assumptions to objectives, content, organization, and evaluation.
Curriculum design and curriculum development are so often used as synonyms that many books treat them as one thing. They overlap, but they are not identical. Design is the more specific of the two. Where development is the whole process of deciding what to teach, design is the focused work of arranging the curriculum’s components into a coherent plan.
The four components of design
Curriculum design has four major components. They are the building blocks every design arranges, and they guide a wide range of work, from writing curriculum guides to preparing teaching software and educational games.
| Component | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Objectives | The aims or goals the curriculum pursues |
| Content | The subject matter to be taught |
| Organization | The depth and breadth of that content |
| Evaluation | How achievement of the objectives is checked |
These four act as guiding elements for planning curriculum guides, analysing instructional materials, developing instructional units, preparing computer software, and creating educational games and programmed learning materials. Wherever a curriculum has to be made concrete, these four components shape the work.
Design is the more specific work of arranging four components
Development is the whole process of deciding what to teach. Design focuses on arranging objectives, content, organization, and evaluation into a coherent, usable plan.
The two functions: analysis and creation
Producing a design takes two functions. One checks the design; the other makes it.
Analysis is conducted to ensure consistency and congruence within and among the elements of a design. Consistency means the parts hold together by a common framework. Congruence means they match: an objective set for a given grade level is actually evaluated at that same grade level, not a different one. Analysis is done at a large scale for a whole program, a grade level, or a subject area, and at a small scale for a single unit of study, a textbook, or a teacher’s guide and lesson plan.
Curriculum creation traditionally proceeds in a chain. It begins from assumptions, moves to purposes and objectives, then to the selection of content that helps reach those objectives. Content selection is followed by careful organization of the materials and the environment in which activities happen, and finally by evaluation for the purpose of revision.
That chain is not a one-way street. Design and redesign can begin with an intervention at any one of these stages and then proceed to the next. A team might start by rethinking evaluation, or by reworking content, and let the change ripple through the rest.
Analysis and curriculum creation
Analysis checks consistency and congruence among the components. Creation builds the design, moving from assumptions to objectives, content, organization, and evaluation, and can begin at any stage.
How was this article?