Curriculum components and structural elements

Curriculum: A Puzzle of Learning

With an increased focus in literacy and assessment in education, the old curriculum, that is, planning the activities, then searching for resources, and finally deciding how to evaluate a student's achievement has been replaced with a new model. The new model begins with the evaluation, and then focuses on the resources that are available, and finally the tasks to teach the students are created. This model can be adapted to fit the school system philosophy and the individual school and students, but as a general practice, the new model of creating and presenting curriculum falls somewhere within this model. But how do all the parts of the curriculum fit together? Each piece, from the set outcomes to the different types of evaluation must work together to form a unified, understandable curriculum that is accessible to students and teachers alike.

The first factor that must be considered is the school system's philosophy. Cultural and socio-economic factors often play a role in a school system's philosophy on education. Most school systems run with the belief that the curriculum must be culturally relevant, and they understand that students learn better when they are presented with a curriculum that demonstrates a respect for their culture. From the system's philosophy comes the mission of the school or the system or even the teacher. The mission will determine the outcomes.

Exit outcomes are another important factor. What a student should know upon leaving the system must be considered when creating and presenting a curriculum. As was stated earlier, the curriculum is often designed from the top down, from the outcomes and evaluation down to the lessons. The exit outcomes determine what assessments and evaluation strategies will be used. They also help to determine when a summative or a formulative form of evaluation will be used and how it will be implemented.

Once the evaluation and the outcomes have been determined, a teacher, or curriculum developer, can begin to investigate what resources are available. Often entire units can be based on a particular resource, but only if it is valuable, and useful. This must be determined by the developer. One must ask questions about the resource, such as: Is it relevant? Will it fit within the system philosophy? Will this be useful considering my evaluation? Unfortunately, many times the curriculum is based on a resource that is abundant. The question asked of it is often, how many of these do I have?