HST Social Science: Online Study Materials-Curriculum

Curriculum

• ✸ The term ‘curriculum’ has been derived from a Latin word ‘currere’ which means a ‘race course’ or a runway on which one runs to reach a goal.
• ✸ Accordingly, a curriculum is the instructional and the educative programme by following which the pupils achieved their goals, ideals and aspirations of life.
• ✸ It is a curriculum through which the general aims of a school education receive concrete expression.
• ✸ Totality of experiences, inside and outside the classroom.
• ✸ Modern education is the combination of two dynamic processes.
• ✸ One is the process of individual development and the other is the process of socialisation, which is economically known as adjustment with the social environment.
• ✸ In short, curriculum is a series of potential experiences, set-up in educational institutions for the reason of disciplining the learners in desirable ways of thinking of the concerned society.
• ✸ It is a path by following which we can reach a specified destination. Furthermore, it is considered to be a series of learning opportunities which are planned and carried out by a teacher and pupils working together.
• ✸ Curriculum is one year plan- printed copy of plan for instructional programme.
• ✸ Curriculum include goals and study materials.
• ✸ Traditional curriculum was subject centered.
• ✸ Modern curriculum is child and life centered.
• ✸ Curricular is a study related program.
• ✸ Co curricular is other than the curriculum, eg- sports, arts.

Characteristics of Curriculum

• • ➡ The curriculum is continuously evolving
• • ➡ It is is based on the needs of the pupils
• • ➡ It is democratically conceived:-
• • ➡ The curriculum is the result of a long term effort
• • ➡ It is a complex of details
• • ➡ It provides for the logical sequence of subject matter

Definitions of Curriculum

Cuningham –

“Curriculum is a tool in the hands of the artist (teacher) to mould his material (pupils) according to his ideas (aims and objectives) in his studio (school)”.

Morroe –

“Curriculum includes all those activities which are utilised by the school to attain the aims of education”.

Crow and Crow –

“The curriculum includes all the learner’s experience in or outside school that are included in a programme which has been devised to help him developmentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually and morally”.

T.P. Nunn –

“The curriculum should be viewed as various forms of activities that are grand expressions of human spirit and that are of the greatest and most permanent significance to the wide world”

Modern trends in curriculum

• ➡ Digital diversity through ICT.
• ➡ Need based curriculum.
• ➡ Credit based system-grading.
• ➡ Constructivism.
• ➡ Learning by doing.

Four phases in curriculum planning

• ➤ Planning
• ➤ Content and method.
• ➤ Implementation.
• ➤ Evaluation.

Approaches of curriculum construction

➤ Concentric approach

• ➡ General to specific.
• ➡ Based on maxims of teaching.
• ➡ Indicate widening the scope.

Principles:

• ■ General to particular.
• ■ Simple to complex.
• ■ Easy to difficult.
• ■ Known to unknown.

➤ Spiral approach

• ➡ Unit is split into parts.
• ➡ Easy is linked to difficult.
• ➡ Helps to make long term

➤ Topical approach

• ➡ Teach easy portions and difficult portions at the same time
• ➡ No future learning of the content.
• ➡ Takes topic as a unit.

The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF 2005)

• ✸ The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF 2005) is the fourth National Curriculum Framework published in 2005 by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in India.
• ✸ The NCF 2005 serves as a guideline for syllabus, textbooks, and teaching practices for the schools in India.
• ✸ The NCF 2005 has based its policies on previous government reports on education, such as Learning Without Burden and National Policy of Education 1986-1992,and focus group discussion.

Perspective of NCF

The NCF was framed considering the articulated ideas in the past such as:

• ➡ To shift learning from rote method.
• ➡ Connecting knowledge to life outside the school.
• ➡ To integrate examination into classroom learning and make it more flexible.
• ➡ To enrich the curriculum so that it goes beyond textbooks.
• ➡ Nurturing an over-riding identity informed by caring concerns within the democratic polity of the country.

Important Points

• ➤ NCERT is formed on the basis of NCF.
• ➤ Connect knowledge to life outside the school.
• ➤ Life oriented/knowledge connected with real life.
• ➤ Learning shifted from rote method.
• ➤ Curriculum should aim for the overall development of children, not textbook centric.
• ➤ Made examinations more flexible.