Organizing Principles
Organizing Principles
What they are
- Principles that weave the organizing threads together.
- They set how the major curriculum elements broaden and deepen across the program.
Logical and psychological organization
- Logical: the relationships as experts see them.
- Psychological: the relationships as they appear to learners.
- Organizing principles must follow the learner’s psychology.
Other principles
- Increasing breadth, description then analysis, illustration then principle, building a unified world picture.
Choosing organizing threads is one step; deciding how each thread should develop is another. Organizing principles are what weave the threads together. They serve as the basis for planning the respects in which the major curriculum elements will broaden and deepen across the program. Without them, a thread has no defined way to grow.
How a principle deepens a thread
Take the concept of the interdependence of people. At the primary level, the thread is the child’s recognition of their own dependence, while the dependence of other people on the child is limited. To deepen this thread, a developer needs principles that say how to extend it. Two such principles are:
- Extend the concept by increasing the range of people the child recognises as interdependent with them.
- Extend the concept by increasing the kind of people the child recognises as interdependent with them.
Each principle gives a concrete direction for broadening the thread, from a few familiar people to a wider range and a greater variety. That is what an organizing principle does: it turns “deepen the concept” into a specific plan.
Principles that set how the organizing threads broaden and deepen across the program
They turn a vague aim like “deepen the concept” into a concrete plan, such as “extend the range and kind of people a child sees as interdependent.” They weave the threads together.
Logical and psychological organization
A crucial caution: continuity, sequence, and integration apply to the experiences of the learner, not to the way the matters are viewed by experts. This sets up two kinds of organization.
- Logical organization is the relationships as seen by experts in a field.
- Psychological organization is the relationships as they appear to learners.
In many cases the two are the same: a relationship meaningful to an expert is also an appropriate scheme of development for learners. But in other cases there is a sharp difference between the connections experts see and the developments that are meaningful to learners. When they differ, organizing principles must follow the learner. For learners, continuity means recurring emphasis on selected elements, sequence means increasing depth and breadth, and integration means increased unity of behaviour. In short, organizing principles must be considered in relation to the psychological needs of learners.
A common but weak scheme is chronological organization, used in subjects like history, geography, science, literature, and art, where content is laid out in the order things happened or developed. On its own it neither broadens nor deepens a learner’s command of the elements involved, so it is a poor organizing principle by itself.
Logical is how experts see the relationships; psychological is how learners see them
They often match, but when they differ, organizing principles must follow the learner. Continuity, sequence, and integration apply to the learner’s experience, not the expert’s view.
Other organizing principles, and testing them
Beyond extending range and kind, there are many other principles for organizing a curriculum:
- Increasing the breadth of application and the range of activities included.
- Using description first, followed by analysis.
- Developing specific illustrations first, then the broader principles that explain them.
- Building an increasingly unified world picture from specific parts, first built into larger and larger wholes.
There could be many such principles. What matters is the method: in working on any particular curriculum, examine the possible principles of organization, make tentative decisions, then try them out and test them in an actual situation to see how far they prove satisfactory in developing continuity, sequence, and integration.
Description before analysis, and specific illustrations before broad principles
Others include increasing breadth of application and building a unified world picture from parts. A developer should test chosen principles in practice to see how well they deliver continuity, sequence, and integration.
How was this article?