Curriculum Design: What Schools Teach Without Saying
From Tyler's four questions to backward design, how a curriculum is planned, what it hides, what it leaves out and why changing it is so hard.
Try 3 questions
1. The word 'curriculum' comes from Latin. What did it originally refer to?
- A scroll listing required books
- A council that approved new teachers
- A course for running, like a racetrack
Show the answer
Answer: A course for running, like a racetrack
Curriculum comes from currere, 'to run': a racecourse or a lap, later a course of study to be completed.
2. Researchers distinguish the intended, the enacted and the attained curriculum. What is the 'attained' curriculum?
- What official documents prescribe
- What students actually end up learning
- What teachers actually teach in class
Show the answer
Answer: What students actually end up learning
Each level can differ: plans are reinterpreted by teachers, and students learn only part of what is taught, plus things never planned.
3. How does a curriculum usually differ from a syllabus?
- It is written by the students themselves
- It spans a whole program, not one course
- It lists only the dates of the exams
Show the answer
Answer: It spans a whole program, not one course
A syllabus outlines one course's content and schedule; a curriculum covers the aims, content, sequence and assessment of an entire program.
The whole quiz comes before your apps
BrainTok asks a few questions like these before the apps you choose open, so your screen time turns into learning. For iPhone.
Join the beta