What a Paradigm Is, Tyler and Schwab

When a developer sits down to build a curriculum, they bring a frame of mind with them, a set of beliefs about what knowledge is, how learning works, and what a good curriculum looks like. That frame is a paradigm. It shapes every decision that follows, usually quietly, which is why it pays to name it.

What a paradigm is

A paradigm, or framework, is a loosely connected set of ideas, values, and rules. It governs three things: how inquiry is conducted, how data are interpreted, and how the world may be viewed. Two developers working in different paradigms can look at the same classroom and see different problems worth solving.

A paradigm carries a bundle of assumptions: about learning and teaching, the nature of reality, knowledge, and intelligence, about inquiry and discourse, about how problems are named and approached, and about social and political values. These assumptions usually run in the background. Bringing them into the open is the first step to choosing a paradigm rather than just inheriting one.

Tyler’s technical paradigm

The most influential paradigm comes from Ralph Tyler in 1949. It dominated curriculum theory for decades and still strongly influences curriculum planning in schools today. It is often called the technical paradigm because it treats curriculum-making as a rational, step-by-step process.

Tyler framed the whole task as four questions:

1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
2. How can learning experiences be selected that are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives?
3. How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?
4. How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?

Purposes, selection, organization, evaluation. These four questions are the backbone of much of this guide. The later modules on defining purposes, selecting and organizing learning experiences, and evaluation are, in effect, long answers to Tyler’s four questions in order.

Flashcard

What are the four questions of Tyler's technical paradigm?

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Answer

Purposes, selecting experiences, organizing them, and evaluating them

What purposes should the school attain, how to select useful learning experiences, how to organize them for effective instruction, and how to evaluate their effectiveness. They structure the rest of this guide.

Schwab’s practical paradigm

Joseph Schwab offered a different frame, often called the practical paradigm. Where Tyler sees an orderly sequence of steps, Schwab sees curriculum planning as an interaction among elements he called commonplaces. There are four: teachers, learners, subject, and milieu (the setting).

Two ideas define this paradigm. First, the four commonplaces continually influence one another; you cannot change one without affecting the others. Second, classroom realities are of great significance, so teachers must turn to inquiry and deliberation about the continuously changing dynamics among the commonplaces. The work is not to apply a fixed plan but to keep reading and responding to a live, shifting situation.

Flashcard

How does Schwab's practical paradigm differ from Tyler's technical one?

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Answer

Schwab sees interacting commonplaces; Tyler sees an ordered sequence

Schwab’s four commonplaces, teachers, learners, subject, and milieu, continually influence one another, so teachers rely on inquiry and deliberation rather than working through fixed steps.