Underlying Concepts of CMD

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: At the end of the course, students would be able to

1. Explain Underlying Concepts of Curriculum and Materials Development (CMD)
2. Discuss the key features of the underlying concepts of CMD.

A. INTRODUCTION
1. What is curriculum?
Kelly (1999), curriculum is negatively viewed as a “syllabus which may limit the
planning of teachers to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge they
wish to transmit or a list of the subjects to be taught or both” (p83).
On the basis of language program, Candlin (1984) cited in Nunan (1988) contends
that curricula are concerned with making general statements about language learning,
learning purpose, and experience, evaluation, and the role relationships of teachers
and learners.
Kieran Egan (2003: 16) from Simon Fraser University defines curriculum as:
“The study of any and all educational phenomena. It may draw on any external
discipline for methodological help but does not allow the methodology to
determine inquiry. Of necessity, it will be methodologically looser and less secure
than disciplines with developed “paradigms,” but this is a condition of studying
education at this stage and producing knowledge that may have educational
value.”

More, Pellegrino cited in Seel (2008: 132) gives a definition of curriculum as

“consisting of the knowledge and skills in subject matter areas that teachers teach and
students are supposed to learn.”
Having the definitions above, we need to make a difference between curriculum
development and instruction design (ID). Theoretically speaking, both ones are about
to make little concern to make the difference.
In this concern, Seel (2008: 136) argued that,
 “Curriculum development is concerned with planning of education and related
pedagogical decision making in the same way as ID, but it differs from it in the
scope and bandwidth of activities related to the determination of the objects of
planning, the organization of planning, the instruments of planning, and the way
of mastering the implementation problem.”

More practically, Seel (2008: 137) simplifies that curriculum development is about
“global planning”, while instructional design is about “detailed planning.”

B. MAJOR FOUNDATIONS OF CURRICULUM

The commonly accepted foundations include philosophical, historical, psychological and
social. Highlights of each foundation are as follows:

a. Philosophical Foundation
Philosophy provides educators, teachers and curriculum makers with framework for
planning, implementing and evaluating curriculum in schools. It helps in answering
what school are for, what subjects are important, how students should learn and what
materials and methods should be used. In decision making, philosophy provides the
starting point and will be used for the succeeding decision making.
b. Historical Foundation
Curriculum is not an old field. Majority of scholars would place its beginning In 1918
with the publication of Franklin Bobbit’s book The Curriculum.
Philippine education came about from various foreign influences. Of all foreign
educational systems, the American educational system has the greatest influence on
our educational system.
Curriculum theorists have penned their curriculum view from historical perspectives
as follows:
a. Franklin Bobbit (1876–1956): curriculum is a science that emphasizes on
student’s need. It prepares students for their adult lives, and so, its objectives
should connect the activities in grouped and sequenced ways.
b. William Kilpatrick (1871-1965) – Curricula are purposeful activities which are
child centered. The purpose of curriculum is child development and growth. He
introduced the project method where teacher and student plan the activities.
 c. Harold Rugg (1886-1960) –to him, curriculum should develop the whole child. It
is child-centered and should produce outcomes. He also emphasized social studies
and the teacher plans curriculum in advance.
d. Hollis Caswell (1901-1989) – he sees curriculum as organized around social
functions of themes, organized knowledge and learner’s interest. He believes that
curriculum is a set of experiences. Subject matter is developed around social
functions and learner’s interests.
e. Ralph Tyler (1902-1994) – he believes that curriculum is a science and an
extension of school’s philosophy. It is based on student’s needs and interest. To
him, curriculum is always related to instruction. Subject matter is organized in
terms of knowledge, skills and values. The process emphasizes problem solving.
The curriculum aims to educate generalists and not specialists.
c. Psychological Foundation
Psychology provides a basis for the teaching and learning process.
1. Behaviorist Psychology
a. connectionism – Edward Thorndike (which influenced Tyler and Taba, the well
known curricularists)
b. classical conditioning – Ivan Pavlov
c. operant conditioning – B. F. Skinner
d. modeling and observation theory – (Bandura)
e. hierarchical learning – Robert Gagne
To the behaviorists, learning should be organized in order that students can
experience success in the process of mastering the subject matter.
d. Social Foundation
The social foundation of curriculum is based on the fact that schools are the only one
among many institutions that educate society. Society has institution such as family
and social communities play pivotal role to educate the people according to their
existence and nature. Differently, schools are formal institutions that address more
complex and interrelated societies and the world.
e. Law Foundation
 Indonesian Education Curriculum System stands on the law foundation of Year 2003
No 20 on the Indonesia Education Act, CHAPTER X CURRICULUM Article 36.
No 1: The development of curriculum is based on national education standards for
the pursuit of national education goals.
No 2: Curriculum Development at all levels and types of education is based on the
principles of diversifications, adjusted to the units of education, local and
learners’ potential.
In order to put this act into practice, then, the government addresses the Bill No 19
2005 on the National Standard of Education. Stated Chapter II Article 2 of the bill is
the scope of the National Educational Standards covering:
1. Standard of Content
2. Standard of Process
3. Standard of Competence
4. Standard of Education and Educational Personal
5. Standard of Facilities and Equipment
6. Standard of Management
7. Standard of Financing
8. Standard of Assessment
Each of these eight standards gives an emphasis, and so, the application of curriculum
must meet to the emphasis.

C. PURPOSE AND PROCESS OF CURRICULUM DESIGN

A curriculum comprises several steps, as follows:
1. Needs analysis
Grabowski (2004) cited in Seel and Dijkstra (2004) penned that,
“The purpose of the analysis phase is to gather enough information so that
designers can make informed and responsive decisions, first about whether an
instructional intervention is needed, and, if so, what type of content should be
learned, its sequence, media delivery, and instructional strategies and tactics that
would be appropriate for a particular audience in a given context”.
(p.172).
Nation and Macalister (2010: 24) highlighted that needs analysis aims to “discover what
needs to be learned and what the learners want to learn”.
 2. Principles:
Ralph Tyler Model introduces Four Basic Principles as formulated on four questions
below:
a. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
b. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these
purposes?
c. How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?
d. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained or not?
Tyler’s Model shows that in curriculum development, the following consideration
should be made:
a. Purposes of the school

b. Educational experiences related to the purposes

c. Organization of the experiences, and

d. Evaluation of the experiences

Hilda Taba improved on Tyler’s Rationale by making a linear model:

a. Diagnosis of learners needs and expectations of the larger society
b. Formulation of learning objectives
c. Selection of learning content
d. Organization of Learning content
e. Selection of learning experiences
f. Organization of learning activities
g. Determinations of what to evaluate and the means of doing it.

EXERCISES
Please answer the questions below and do the instruction below:
1. What does it mean by curriculum?
2. What is its purpose?
3. Please, give a highlight on the philosophical foundation, historical foundation,
psychological foundation and social foundation of curriculum.
4. What processes does curriculum take? Please, define each process.
5. How can we determine the curriculum to attain its purposes?