CURRICULUM STUDIES

TOPIC 2

Steps in Curriculum Design in relation to

Models of Curriculum Design

Dr. Lilliati Ismail

TYLER’S MODEL
 MAJOR COMPONENTS
• The Tyler Model is often referred to as the
‘objective model’ because of it’s objective approach
to educational evaluation
• It emphasizes consistency among objectives,
learning experiences, and outcomes
• Curriculum objectives indicate both behavior to be
developed and area of content to be applied
(Keating, 2006)
 THERE ARE 4 BASIC
STEPS
1) What is the purpose of the education?
2) What educational experiences will
attain the purposes?
3) How can these experiences be
effectively organized?
4) How can we determine when the
purposes are met?
 THESE QUESTIONS ARE
REFORMULATED INTO A
FOUR-STEP PROCESS
• Stating objectives
• Selecting experiences
• Organising experiences
• Evaluating
 PURPOSE
“Since the real purpose of education is not to have the
instructor perform certain activities but to bring about
significant changes in the students’ pattern of
behaviour, it becomes important to recognize that any
statements of objectives of the school should be a
statement of objectives of the school should be a
statement of changes to take place in the students”
(Tyler 1949, p.44)
TYLER’S OBJECTIVE
MODEL
 STATING OBJECTIVES

Three sources:
•learners
•contemporary life
•subject-matter
 STUDIES OF LEARNERS
• Tyler proceeds from the assumption that
“education is a process of changing behavior
patterns of people” (1949, p.4)
 STUDIES OF LEARNERS

“A study of learners themselves would seek to

identify needed changes in behavior patterns of
people” (Tyler 1949, p.5)
 STUDIES OF LEARNERS

Tyler (1949, p. 6) described the kind of study

he envisioned essentially as a two-step process:
1.Finding the present status of the students
2.Comparing this status to acceptable norms in
order to identify the gaps or needs
 STUDIES OF LEARNERS
One of Tyler’ illustrations of the process he advocates
is a case in point: A “discovery” is made that 60
percent of ninth-grade boys read only comic strips.
The “unimaginative” teacher, Tyler says, might
interpret this as suggesting the need for more attention
to comic strips in the classroom; the imaginative
teacher uses the data as a justification “for setting up
objectives gradually to broaden these reading
interests” (Tyler1949, p.10)
 STUDIES OF
CONTEMPORARY LIFE
• Tyler urges that one “divide life” into a set of
manageable categories and then proceed to
collect data of various kinds which may be
fitted into these categories.
 STUDIES OF
CONTEMPORARY LIFE
• One of Tyler’s illustrations is as follows: "Students
in the school obtain[ed] from their parents for
several days the problems they were having to solve
that involved arithmetic. The collection and analysis
of this set of problems suggested the arithmetic
operations and the kinds of mathematical problems
which are commonly encountered by adults, and
became the basis of the arithmetic curriculum."
 ESTABLISHING THE
PURPOSE
• Outline the goals – broad statements that
indicate what is to be the outcome of the
students’ education. For what are they
preparing?
 ESTABLISHING THE
PURPOSE
• Develop Objectives
a description of a performance you want
learners to be able to exhibit before you
consider them competent.

• Describes an intended result of instruction,

rather than the process of instruction itself.
 WHY DO YOU NEED
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES IN
YOUR CURRICULUM?
1. When clearly defined objectives are
lacking, there is
• no sound basis for the selection or
designing of instructional materials,
content, or methods.
• If you don't know where you are going, it
is difficult to select a suitable means for
getting there.
 WHY DO YOU NEED
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES IN
YOUR CURRICULUM?
2. To find out whether or not the objective,
has in fact been accomplished.
• Test items designed to measure whether
important instructional outcomes have been
accomplished can be selected or created
intelligently only when those instructional
outcomes have been made explicit.
 WHY DO YOU NEED
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES IN
YOUR CURRICULUM?
3. Good objectives provide students with a
means to organize their own efforts toward
accomplishment of those objectives.
• Experience has shown that with clear
objectives in view, students at all levels are
better able to decide what activities on their
part will help them get to where it is
important for them to go.
 GOOD OBJECTIVES. . .
• Are related to intended outcomes rather than
the process for achieving those outcomes.
• specific and measurable, rather than broad
and intangible.
• Are concerned with students, not teachers.
 SCREENING OBJECTIVES
• Tyler identified two considerations that
should be used to screen the important
objectives. The two considerations are
educational philosophy and psychology of
learners.
 SELECTING LEARNING
EXPERIENCES

• Tyler believes that students learn through

exploration. Like his mentor, John Dewey,
Tyler believes teachers should encourage
children to become actively engaged in
discovering what the world is like
 ORGANIZING LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
• Central to Tyler’s Model is effectively
organizing the learning activities
• Three major criteria are required in building
organized learning experiences: continuity,
sequence and integration
 EVALUATING THE
CURRICULUM
• The process of evaluation is essentially the
process of determining to what extent the
educational objectives are actually being
realized by the program of curriculum and
instruction
TABA’S MODEL
 SOME OF TABA’S
PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS ON
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
• Social processes, including the socialization of
human beings, are not linear, and they cannot be
modeled through linear planning. In other words,
learning and development of personality cannot be
considered as one-way processes of establishing
educational aims and deriving specific objectives
from an ideal of education proclaimed or imagined
by some authority.
• The reconstruction of curricula and programmes is not a
short-term effort but a long process, lasting for years.
 SOME OF TABA’S
PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS ON
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
• Social institutions, among them school curricula and
programmes, are more likely to be effectively rearranged
if, instead of the common way of administrative
reorganization—from top to bottom—a well-founded
and co-ordinated system of development from bottom to
top can be used.
• The development of new curricula and programmes is
more effective if it is based on the principles of
democratic guidance and on the well-founded
distribution of work. The emphasis is on the partnership
based on competence, and not on administration.
 TABA’S MODEL
• Taba model is an inductive approach.
• Taba model is a teacher approach.
• Taba believe that teachers are aware of the
students needs hence they should be the one to
develop the curriculum.
• Taba’s is the grass-roots approach.
• The main idea to this approach is that the needs
of the students are at the forefront of the
curriculum.
 TABA’S INDUCTIVE
APPROACH
• Taba advocated an inductive approach to
curriculum development.
• In the inductive approach, curriculum
workers start with the specifics and build up
to a general design as opposed to the more
traditional deductive approach of starting
with the general design and working down
to the specifics.
 STEPS IN TABA’S MODEL:
1. Diagnosis of learners needs and expectations
of the larger society.
2. Formulation of learning objectives.
3. Selection of the learning content.
4. Organization of learning content.
5. Selection of the learning experiences.
6. Organization of learning activities.
7. Determination of what to evaluate and the
means of doing it.
 DIAGNOSIS OF
LEARNERS NEEDS:
• Diagnose of achievement.
• Diagnosis of students as learner.
• Diagnosis of curriculum problems.
 SYSTEMATIC DIAGNOSIS
PROCESS:
1. Problem identification
2. Problem analysis
3. Formulating hypothesis and gathering data.
4. Experimenting with action.
 FORMULATION OF
LEARNING OBJECTIVES.
Main objectives of education are:
To add to knowledge they posses
To enable them to perform skills which otherwise
they would not perform
To develop certain understanding, insights and
appreciations.
Development of healthy personality.
Analysis of particular culture and society which
educational program serves.
 FUNCTION OF
EDUCATIONAL
OBJECTIVES:
• Transmit culture
• Reconstruct society
• Fullest development of individual
To guide on curriculum decision on
What to cover?
What to emphasize?
What content to select?
Which learning experiences to stress?
 PRINCIPLE OF
FORMULATION OF
OBJECTIVES:
• Objectives should be useful, clear and
concrete
• Objectives should describe expected behavior
and content
• Objectives should be realistic
• Scope of objectives should be broad.
 SELECTION AND
ORGANIZATION OF
CONTENT:
• Validity and significance of content
• Consistency with social realities
• Appropriateness to the need and interest of
students
• Making proper distinctions between the
various levels of content
• Sequencing the content
 ORGANIZATION AND SELECTION
OF THE LEARNING
EXPERIENCES
• This involves more then applying principles of
learning.
• Have you used a variety of teaching methods?
• Are there opportunities for students to learn from
one another?
• Are there opportunities for students to apply what
they are learning through solving real problems or
developing projects that could be used in a real work
setting?
 DETERMINATION OF WHAT TO
EVALUATE AND THE MEANS
OF DOING IT
• Plans need to be made for evaluation.
• How should the quality of learning be evaluated to
assure that the ends of education are being achieved?
• How does one make sure that there is consistency
between the aims and objectives and what is actually
achieved by students?
• Does the curriculum organization provide experiences
which offer optimum opportunities for all varieties of
learners to attain independent goals?
 TABA BELIEVED THAT:

To evolve a theory of curriculum development

and a method of thinking about it, one needs to
ask what demands and requirements of culture
and society both are, both for the present and
the future. Curriculum is a way of preparing
young people to participate in our culture.
 40

WHEELER’S
MODEL

03/02/21
 41

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
• Some curriculum
experts like Tyler say
that the steps are
followed in a sequence
or a straight line.
• This model that
assumes that
curriculum decision
making follows a
straight line is called
linear model

03/02/21
 WHEELER’S MODEL

• Cyclical models view elements of curriculum as

inter-related and interdependent.
• In the 1970s, a new element was introduced into
the curriculum process of cyclical models called
Situational Analysis.
 WHEELER’S MODEL

• A former member of the University of Western

Australia, Wheeler developed and extended the
ideas forwarded by Tyler and particularly Taba.
• He suggested five inter-related phases in the
curriculum process which logically would produce
an effective curriculum.
 44

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
• Other scholars argue that
curriculum decision making
is not a simple linear process
that necessarily starts with
aims.
• One of them is Wheeler
(1978) who believes that
curriculum decision making
can start from any point and
can come back to any of the
points e.g. like a cycle

03/02/21
 45

EVALUATION
 What was useful?

 What was not so useful?

 What needs to be Changed?

03/02/21
WALKER'S MODEL
 • The model comprises of three phases of
curriculum planning – platform,
deliberation and design

Figure 1: Walker’s Model (Print, 1993, p.75)

APPLICATION OF THE MODEL TO
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

• The model used for curriculum development is

influenced generally by the level at which the
development is occurring.
• used at a macro level for curriculum development
(national)
• For example: Alberta, Canada
“For Pan-Canadian or regional curriculum
development the models used are often derived from
the instrumental or communicative model, as
frameworks and specific learning objectives are the
key aim of these development activities, and
consensus among partners is a desired outcome”
(Alberta Education, 2012, p. 35).

• focuses on the subjective perceptions and views of

the designers, the target group, and other
stakeholders
 ADVANTAGES

• One of the strengths of Walker’s model is the input

of curriculum developers , target group, and other
parties/stakeholders in the development of the
curriculum.
• Stakeholder engagement in the planning and
development stages empowers and acknowledges
them, especially teachers, as valuable contributors.
• One of the strengths of the deliberative model is the
broad social support that the intended product will
have; after all, users and other parties involved were
given ample opportunity to contribute.
 DISADVANTAGES

• Walker describes what happens in the process of

curriculum design but does not describe what
actually happens in the classroom.
• The processes for deliberation can be time
consuming and resource intensive, and can result in
curriculum products that may not be consistent and
aligned internally.
• Consensus is often hard to achieve when
developing curriculum at national or regional
levels.