By Shamsukama Mohd Zahri
Submited as assignment for EDUC7025-Curriculum Design
Master of Educational Studies, The University od Queensland
on 23rd March 2010
What Is Curriculum?
Discussion on the meaning of curriculum is still ongoing. Hitherto, there has been no so-called ‘precise’ definition for the term ‘curriculum’. Although the scope of ‘curriculum’ varies from one to another, scholars seem unanimous that the definition of ‘curriculum’ is more than just a syllabus and obviously, they establish connections between the education documents, learners, educators, education environment, administrators and society (UNESCO, 2006; Quicke, 1999; Print, 1993; Wilson as cited in Wilson, 2005).
Specifically, UNESCO (2006, p.3) defines curriculum as “all desired learning experiences within school environment including those not defined in the official curriculum”. Subsequently, this definition narrows down the scope of curriculum within the school boundaries. In a broader scope, Quicke (1999) on the other hand, had previously included learning activities that arise beyond the school boundary as one of the essentials in a curriculum. Indeed, in real life, learning processes do not only occur in an institutional setting but are ubiquitous throughout one’s life. A television program, for instance, may become an influential educational source for learners due to the fact that 94% of children between 6-months to 6-years old were reported to have watched television while 66% watch it on a daily basis (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). In other words, children may learn by watching television at home, obviously outside school setting. Therefore, it is important to design a curriculum that not only provides learning experiences in school environment but also preconditions the students for 'on-field' future life.
Footballers, Sky Divers or Taxi Drivers?
Picture 1: Strategizing to move on
Usually, footballers are able to use every single minute of their time in the field to creatively arrange their games in order to achieve goals. Time constraints, rules and regulations do not stop them from making precise decisions when needed. Different strategies are arranged for different games. To excel, footballers must not only be preconditioned with skills and technical aspects but also posses the ability to effectively and creatively manipulate the situation and continuously reflect on their mistakes within the provided time constraint.
Picture 2: Sky Divers
Apart from that, sky diving only has limited regulations once in the air where sky divers are totally free in action. They can do everything they want without limitations. The only crucial decision to take is when they should pull the trigger for the parachute. A small amount of skill is needed during sky diving. Good sides of sky divers are their braveness in facing risks and uncertainties and apparently, it seems that they are always enjoying their life as it is.
In contrast to sky divers, taxi drivers always follow instructions and regulations. Once passengers enter their cab, they must obey to their passengers’ decisions even though they have their own opinions. Very little reflection is used in their job. What is good about taxi drivers is their massive amount of experience, skill and information. Unfortunately, they might not be able to use them efficiently.
Unsurprisingly, life is not totally free of regulation like sky diving. On the other hand, it must not become so strictly regulated like taxi driving. Indeed, life is somehow like a football game that many decisions must be taken while very limited time is available and situations and challenges always vary from time to time. To succeed in future life, one must be able to make appropriate decisions, and subsequently be reflexive about one’s own decisions (Quicke, 1999). Therefore, the curriculum must precondition students with essential skills that are somehow similar to a footballer. They must be provided with the instrumental and factual basics yet become competent in using them when needed, democratic decision making and social skill, and ability to consciously notice and creatively react to continuous changes.
The Basics
Picture 4: What is 'the basic'?
Utilise ‘the basics’ is one of the most important moves that must not be taken for granted by curriculum designers or reformers. In evaluating the mathematics’ curriculum reform, Walle (1999) argues that reformers were too occupied with designing extravagant activities and so left the essential basics behind. However, the definition of ‘the basics’ differs from one to another. To clarify, Walle (1999) defines ‘the basics’ as the fact that everything makes sense, therefore the gap between the classroom and real life must be narrowed by deep learning. Conversely, for some behaviourist scholars like Aynes and Sweller (2000), ‘the basics’ was discussed as being more about the specific facts, and instrumental and procedural skills. To simplify, both definitions have efficiently defined ‘the basics’, that they are both mutually important to be addressed in curriculum design (see also Sahlberg, 2006). Consequently, the capability to competently use the instrumental basics and skills will enable them to continuously learning from their experience outside school environment.
Becoming a good citizen
Picture 5: A good citizen?
One of the purposes of education is to develop a community of confident, responsible, and globally as well as locally active and knowledgable citizens (CSCNEPA, 2007; MCEETYA, 2008; National Curriculum Board, 2009; Quicke, 1999). Hence, students must be prepared with the ability to responsibly make appropriate democratic decisions time by time in order to fulfil their current necessities. Quicke’s (1999, p.2) theory of “moral-political philosophy” outlined four fundamentals that closely related to democratic decision making. By considering self-betterment as one of the elements, a curriculum shall constantly focus on developing student’s ability to creatively invent his/her self-improvement by confidently and responsibly make democratic decision based on the improvement of social and decision making skill through the attainment of authentic knowledge and experience (Quicke, 1999; Sahlberg, 2006). As the result, the learning and self-improving process may continually happen beyond formal schooling environment.
Learning from experience
Picture 6: Experienced
Another consideration is by focusing on the ability to become reflexive. Due to the fact that the world is rapidly changing, a person in this new era must be able to efficiently conflux themselves into the main stream. Thus, s/he must be able to consciously aware of the changes and actively improve or change his/herself to suit the changes (Quicke, 1999). In order to become a reflexive citizen, s/he must be predisposition with several basics such as efficient critical and creative thinking, willingness to change, and agile yet accurate in decision making. Therefore, the changing world will become a secondary teacher, obviously because sufficient amount of learning experience and instrumental skills has been provided by the curriculum for them. In other words, these precondition skills and experiences facilitate them to learn from the continuously changing situation and react by upgrading themselves in order to blend with and overwhelm the changes for their own sake.
The omnipresent learning opportunities
In conclusion, the curriculum must be designed with the awareness that learning is not necessarily occurs within an institutional environment. In fact, learning may happen outside school boundary and sometimes more efficient than that obtained from a controlled environment. Therefore, appropriate curriculum content and strategy is needed to ensure that school products will continuously involve in learning activities throughout their lifetime either formally, informally or in both settings.
PICTURE SOURCES
Picture 1: Writer's personal collection
Picture 2: http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/08/21/social-networking-common-mistakes-small-businesses-make/
Picture 3: http://www.conandrive.com.au/Taxi.html
Picture 4: http://theprophetofmercy.blogspot.com/
Picture 5: http://www.flickr.com/.../coghillcartooning/1237403391/
Picture 6: http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/01-Jun-2008/60252-Old_Man_detail_eye.jpg
REFERENCES
Aynes, P., & Sweller, J. (2000). Why investigation should not be compulsory in the years 9-10 mathematics courses. Report on investigational tasks in mathematics in years 9-10 for advanced and intermediate students (pp. 29-56). New South Wales: Board od Studies NSWPrint, M. (1993). Curriculum development and design (2nd ed.). St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin.
CSCNEPA (2007). Developing a Twenty-First Century School Curriculum for all Australian Students. Canberra: Australian Curriculum Studies Association.
MCEETYA (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. Melbourne, Vic: MCEETYA.
Quicke, J. (1999). A curriculum for life: schools for a democratic learning society. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Rideout, V., & Hamel, E. (2006). The media family: Electronic media in the lives of infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their parents. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation.
Sahlberg, P. (2006). Education reform for raising economic competitiveness. Journal of Educational Change, 7(4), 259-287.
UNESCO (2006). Guidebook for planning education in emergency and reconstruction. Paris: UNESCO.
(Assignment sent on 23/3/2010 for EDUC7030-Curriculum Design)
Untuk pengetahuan para pembaca, petak-petak sifir ini digunakan untuk menentukan digit sa (units @ ones) bagi setiap sifir yang akan dibina. Katakan kita ambil sifir 7. Bagi membina sifir 7, petak sifir perlu diputarkan 90* ke kiri seperti di sebelah. Lalu digit sa bagi sifir 7 dicatatkan mengikut arah anak panah... Jadi jujukan digit sa bagi sifir 7 adalah 7, 4, 1, 8, 5, 2, 9, 6 dan 3... 
Manakala jika kita ingin membina sifir 3, petak sifir diputarkan 90* ke kanan seperti di sebelah. Lalu jujukan digit sa (unit @ ones) bagi sifir 3 adalah 3, 6, 9, 2, 5, 8, 1, 4 dan 7... Adalah penting untuk memahiri kaedah ini bagi sifir ganjil iaitu nombor yang mewakili sifir yang ingin dibina mestilah berada di petak (1,1) iaitu di baris pertama dan lajur pertama petak sifir...Demikian pula jika sifir-sifir ganjil yang lain ingin dibina (sudah tentu anda tidak ingin membina sifir 1 kan? Jadi sifir ganjil lain yang tidak ditunjukkan hanyalah sifir 9)...
Sesudah membina jujukan digit sa (ones), digit puluh (tens) akan ditentukan supaya jujukan nombor yang terhasil daripada gabungan digit sa dan puluh tersebut menjadi suatu jujukan nombor menaik iaitu 07, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56 dan 63... Pastikan anda memulakan digit puluh (tens) dengan sifar seperti yang ditunjukkan di sebelah... Oleh itu, jika sifir 3 dibina, jujukan tersebut akan menjadi 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 dan 27... Kaedah ini dapat dilihat daripada rumusan oleh ramai guru pakar matematik. Umumnya, rahsia sebenar Sifir KilatS yang saya rumus ini adalah berada pada pembinaan sifir genap.
Pembinaan sifir genap juga menggunakan petak sifir yang sama dan teknik memutarkan petak sifir ke kiri dan kanan juga digunakan. Namun, terdapat perbezaan dalam menentukan petanda sifir dan jujukan digit sa-nya. Jujukan digit sa (units @ ones) ditentukan melalui gerakan 'kilat berbentuk S' (nama yang diberikan bagi kaedah sifir ini)... Kaedah menentukan digit puluh (tens) adalah sama seperti kaedah yang digunakan dalam menentukan jujukan sifir ganjil... Oleh itu, bagi sifir 2 di sebelah, jujukan digit sa-nya adalah 2, 4, 6 dan 8... Sesudah itu masukkan angka sifar dan ulangi jujukan tadi. maka jujukan itu menjadi 2, 4, 6, 8, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8... Maka jujukan sifir 2 (setelah dimasukkan digit puluh) adalah 02, 04, 06, 08, 10, 12, 14, 16 dan 18... Perhatikan bahawa petanda sifir bagi sifir genap adalah petak (1,2) iaitu di baris pertama dan lajur kedua petak sifir... Sebarang pertanyaan lanjut, sila hubungi Ibnu Zahr di laman Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CikguSam.
