Contents. · 3 Historical conception

· 1 Etymology

· 2 Beliefs

· 3 Historical conception

· 4 Primary and secondary education

· 5 Higher education

o 5.1 United States

§ 5.1.1 Core curriculum

§ 5.1.2 Distribution requirements

§ 5.1.3 Open curriculum

· 6 See also

· 7 References

o 7.1 Footnotes

o 7.2 Sources

· 8 External links

Etymology

As an idea, curriculum came from the Latin word which means a race or the course of a race (which in turn derives from the verb "currere" meaning to run/to proceed). As early as the seventeenth century, the University of Glasgow referred to its "course" of study as a curriculum, and by the nineteenth century European universities routinely referred to their curriculum to describe both the complete course of study (as for a degree in Surgery) and particular courses and their content. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the related term curriculum vitae ("course of one's life") became a common expression to refer to a brief account of the course of one's life.^[1]

A curriculum is prescriptive, and is based on a more general syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to achieve a particular grade or standard. Curriculum has numerous definitions, which can be slightly confusing. In its broadest sense a curriculum may refer to all courses offered at a school. This is particularly true of schools at the university level, where the diversity of a curriculum might be an attractive point to a potential student.

A curriculum may also refer to a defined and prescribed course of studies, which students must fulfill in order to pass a certain level of education. For example, an elementary school might discuss how its curriculum, or its entire sum of lessons and teachings, is designed to improve national testing scores or help students learn the basics. An individual teacher might also refer to his or her curriculum, meaning all the subjects that will be taught during a school year.

On the other hand, a high school might refer to a curriculum as the courses required in order to receive one’s diploma. They might also refer to curriculum in exactly the same way as the elementary school, and use curriculum to mean both individual courses needed to pass, and the overall offering of courses, which help prepare a student for life after high school.

Beliefs

The fundamental beliefs and principles underlying a curriculum are very important. Traditionally high school prepared students for college. Those students who did not intend to go to college often dropped out of high school. During the middle of the 20th century it was believed that high school was valuable for all students so the high schools began tracking students. Some took more rigorous classes to prepare for college while others took a general track. Later high schools added courses to prepare for vocations that did not require college. Now high school is desired for all students.

· Should curriculum be designed as pieces or as a whole? One concern in the 1990s and after is the fragmented curriculum. This has resulted from adding courses and content without aligning them to what is already being taught. The curriculum today has many pieces, but seems not to have a wholeness about it. For example, even in the primary grades, there may be classes in phonetics, reading, language arts, and writing. This is very fragmented as reading and writing are part of the whole system of communicating with symbols.

· What is a good balance between academic achievement and developmentally appropriate curriculum is an ongoing question. Academic achievement sets levels of standards to meet in certain grade levels which is advocated by those who believe all students should attain the same skills; however, those who are aware of developmental stages and the problems of late development believe that levels of standards should be more flexible and compared over multiage levels.

· Should it be a spiral or mastery curriculum is a major design question. The American curriculum has been a spiral curriculum in which many ideas are introduced at each grade and then repeated at following grades to add depth of understanding. The Outcome Based curriculum advocated by Spady used a different approach, that of mastery. For this, the students study a topic in depth until it is mastered. The question of “what is mastery?” has been discussed by many curriculum committees as they implement this type of curriculum.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21