What Is Curriculum? Book Review Example

When teachers and professors think of the word “curriculum” most think of structured framework that is used as a guidelines to create lesson plans and teach students. Although a lot of emphasis goes into the design of the curriculum, whether it is the responsibility of the individual teacher or their overseeing regulatory agency, it is rare that two individuals provide the same definition of what they believe curriculum really is. While the concept of curriculum at first appears simplistic, it is complex in actuality. This essay will discuss several different academic understandings of curriculum in addition to determining which concept of curriculum appears to be the most appropriate and effective. Ultimately, it appears that the most accurate definition of curriculum is a defined plan and set of goals that an institution will use as a standard to ensure that learning has occurred among their students.

According to James A. Dunn in “The PLAN Approach to Curriculum Definition”, curriculum is defined as individualized instruction in which the unique needs of each student is considered and met (Dunn, 1970). To do so, the curriculum must be structured, yet flexible to allow for these needs to be addressed. Specific factors that Dunn believes must be concentrated upon include “differences not only in amount, rate, and sequence of content presentation, but also in what content is to be chosen for presentation”. In addition, this article focuses on the importance of both developing the curriculum and its implementation. Both are important factors in insuring that the student is able to succeed.

While I agree with Dunn’s definition of Dunn’s curriculum to some extent and I believe that personalization of the curriculum is valuable, I believe that it is more of the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that this personalization is achieved in his or her lesson plans. Rather, the curriculum should serve as a content guideline that provides a structure for teachers to follow in their lesson planning. Curriculum designers do not typically interact with the specific students in each classroom that teachers will be applying this structure to, so it is difficult for these individuals to apply personalization without meeting each child. This is not to say that the curriculum cannot be developed in advance for different levels of understanding, but it cannot be done precisely without exact understanding of each group of students. Furthermore, if both the composition and implementation of the curriculum are important, it is the teachers who should be assigned the responsibility of the implementation rather than the curriculum designers. Personalization can only truly happen at the lesson plan design level, not at the curriculum level.

In “Largescale, long-term learner models supporting flexible curriculum definition”, Judy Kay and Richard Gluga argue that it is difficult to apply a specific definition to curriculum because the meaning of this term varies across disciplines, levels of mastery, and the students who are being taught (Kay &Gluga, 2009). Furthermore, they believe that it is important to consider that technology is constantly changing and that these technological advances should be consistently applied to the development and implementation of curriculum. Therefore, curriculum is not a concrete concept, it is constantly changing and evolving over time. On the other hand, the purpose of curriculum is to allow an institution or group of institutions to achieve predetermined goals. In this sense, a curriculum can be defined as a set of these goals that they expect students to achieve by the time they graduate.

Kay and Gluga bring up several reasonable points concerning the definition of curriculum. It is an excellent measurement tool that can be used to ensure students within an organization are meeting learning expectations. Furthermore, it provides teachers with useful information regarding alterations that should be made in lesson plans to ensure that these defined goals are met. This is not to say that the curriculum of any given institution is expected to be permanent. Rather, effective curriculums are expected to change significantly over time in response to changing technology. Thus, it is ideal to define curriculum broadly, as it has a wide range of applications depending upon the situation particular to its use.

In conclusion, curriculum should be broadly defined as a guideline and plan to follow that delineates goals of a particular subject that students are expected to learn, in addition to providing measurements that instructors can use to determine whether learning has occurred. Curriculums are not expected to be static requirements, and one can expect that effective curriculums will change significantly over time to meet technology requirements in addition to the specific student population that are being taught. Since curriculums are somewhat general guidelines, it is the responsibility of the instructor to ensure that the lesson plan is designed to meet curricular requirements in addition to the individual needs of the students. It is impossible to foresee all of these unique needs in the initial curriculum design, so these requirements should be somewhat open to interpretation to ensure that they can be taught successfully.

References

Dunn JA. (1970). The PLAN Approach to Curriculum Definition. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED043126

Kay J, Gluga R. (2009). Largescale, long-term learner models supporting flexible curriculum definition. Retrieved from http://reforma.fen.uchile.cl/Papers/Largescale,%20long- term%20learner%20models%20-%20Kay,%20Gluga.pdf

Ornstein, A. C. &Hunkins, F.P. (2012). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues (6th ed). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.