Curriculum Descriptors

Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.

Curriculum Descriptors

A good definition of curriculum is:

‘A programme of activities (by teachers and pupils) designed so that pupils will attain so far as possible certain educational and other schooling ends or objectives (Grundy 1987: 11).

Or, if you view curriculum as a process then its better to use Steenhouse's 1975 definition:

'A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice'. He suggests that a curriculum is rather like a recipe in cookery." 'It is a way of translating any educational idea into a hypothesis testable in practice. It invites critical testing rather than acceptance' (Stenhouse 1975: 142).

A good 1-pager of all these is found at: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm

(: It would be good to find out about COL's curriculum framework ~ if it is for non-formal education undertaken, and how that consistency is applied (i.e., if there is a website as reference source for future users to validate against.))

Other suggested nuances

• Overview --- identifying rationale, objectives, outputs, outcomes and approach pertaining to the workshop
• Agenda --- a schedule of activities for each day of a workshop - a 'roadmap'
• Facilitators Outline --- a detailed, step-by-step outline of the workshop process, roles and activities over the duration of the workshop, which has more process notes to guide the implementation of the agenda
• Activities or Learning Activities --- the learning activities within the workshop (i.e., these should be consistent with the workshop rationale and approach, as well as the objectives and desired outcomes)

Suggested Text for Note to Colleagues for Feedback

This is important because in the non-formal education portals, e.g. cmty media, we are gathering a lot of workshop agendas, outlines, learning materials, etc., however we are concerned that no curricular framework is yet defined to provide a framework that ensures our work is standardised and validated, for future quality assurance.

Now that we have seeded for some time, how about we take a crack at this and demonstrate our curricular professionalism?

Randy and I have put out 2 ways forward, one a programmatic approach, the other a process-approach to curriculum,

(add in some lines about getting their input etc.)