COURSE
CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION (ESS 814S)
ASSIGNMENT I
EXPLAIN CURRICULAR POLICIES, FIELDS OF STUDY, PROGRAM OF
STUDY, COURSES OF STUDY, UNITS OF STUDY AND LESSONS OF
STUDY
FEBUARY 11, 2017
INTRODUCTION
During the late 1800s and into the twentieth century, the advancement in industrilisation shifted
the focus from the role of the home to that of the school as a means to provide training for the
younger generation. The desire to formalise and bring greater order to the training being provided
by the school lead to experts designing what has come to be known as curriculum.
The word "curriculum" began as a Latin word, which means "a race" or "the course of a race"
(which was derived from the verb currere meaning "to run/to proceed"). In the educational
context, its first known usage was in the work of professor Petrus Ramus titled Professio Regia,
published in 1576. The term subsequently appeared in the University of Leiden records in 1582.
Even though there is no generally agreed definition of curriculum, curriculum is almost always
defined with relation to schooling where some influential definitions combine various elements to
describe it summarily as the formal and informal process of intentionally imparting some set of
skills, knowledge and values to a learner according to a well defined content within a scope of
time.
The curriculum plays a major role within education as it outlines the planned and structured
learning experiences that schooling provides and is the basis of the teaching and learning programs
provided by schools. Ensuring that the curriculum is relevant to local, national and international
needs and that it equips the next generation to maximize the many opportunities they will
encounter is an exciting challenge.
CURRICULLAR POLICIES
Since curriculum is one of the foundational elements of effective schooling and teaching, it is
often the object of reforms, most of which are broadly intended to either mandate or encourage
greater curricular standardization and consistency across states, schools, grade levels, subject
areas, and courses.
Some state policies directly address the intended curriculum and the resources needed to enact it,
as well as other facets of the education system that affect curriculum, such as regulations
governing remedial or special education programs. In many parts of the world, governments in
most instances, influence the school curriculum mainly through policy decisions that affect
resource allocations.
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Policies, practices, and resources of the central government, regions, districts, schools, and
teachers all play roles in influencing the development of curriculum and instructional programs,
their implementation, and thus, what is actually taught to particular students.
Curricular policies are therefore the written and sometimes an unwritten collection of laws and
rules that govern the operation of curricular in education systems that are enacted by the various
major players in the curricular development process. Curricular policies may cover areas like
equity, quality, relevance, efficiency, ethics, and other issues that serves as a channel of influence
on the education system.
Curricular policies, may also be influenced by community values and culture, including traditions
and expectations regarding what schools should teach and what resources should be allocated to
each school, that would aid in the implementation of the curriculum.
In addition, school-based decisions about class scheduling and the time allotted for various
subjects can influence the quality of the programs offered to students.
The curriculum channel is linked to the other components of the education system in multiple
ways. Teacher development programs, the use of assessment and accountability to spur
educational reform, and public influence on policy decisions may directly affect the school
curriculum.
FIELDS OF STUDY
Field of study, also known as an academic discipline refers a broad area of academic interest
containing many topics. It is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched as part of higher
education.
Field of study incorporates expertise, people, projects, communities, challenges, studies, inquiry,
and research areas that are strongly associated with a given scholastic subject area or college
department and learned societies. However, no formal criteria exist for defining an academic
discipline. For example, the branches of science are commonly referred to as the scientific
disciplines.
Disciplines vary between well-established ones that exist in almost all universities and have well-
defined rosters of journals and conferences and the nascent ones supported by only a few
universities and publications. A discipline may have branches, and these are often called sub-
disciplines.
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There is no consensus on how some academic disciplines should be classified (e.g., whether
anthropology and linguistics are disciplines of social sciences or fields within the humanities). For
example, the 'arts' field of study includes film studies, foreign languages and cultures, English
literature, anthropology, history, visual arts, performance, philosophy and political studies.
More generally, the proper criteria for organizing knowledge into disciplines are also open to
debate.
PROGRAM OF STUDY
The term program of study refers to the comprehensive, structured approach to delivering
academic, career, and vocational or technical education to prepare students for postsecondary
education and career success. Also known as the majors, its include a narrative description and a
summary of course requirements. It can also mean the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be
taught at each key stage in the national curriculum of a country.
The program of study helps the learner defines a path to completing an academic course of study.
Examples Accounting, Advertising and Graphic Design, Agribusiness Technology, Air
Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Technology, Auto Body / Automotive, Basic Law
Enforcement Training, Business Administration, etc.
COURSES OF STUDY
Courses of study are an integrated course of academic studies or education imparted in a series of
lessons or meetings that typically lasts one academic term, which is led by one or more instructors
(teachers or professors), and has a fixed roster of students.
A course of study is usually specific to the students' program of study (or major), which is an
individual subject that after completion students may receive a grade and academic credit. They
are made of individual sessions, typically on a fixed daily or weekly schedule.
In the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore, as well as parts of Canada, a course is the entire
program of studies required to complete a university degree. A course is usually specific to the
students' major and a professor instructs it. Courses can also be referred to as "electives".
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There are different formats of course in universities:
The lecture course - where the instructor gives lectures with minimal interaction;
The seminar - where students prepare and present their original written work for discussion
and critique;
The colloquium or reading course - where the instructor assigns readings for each session,
which are then discussed by the members;
The tutorial course - where one or a small number of students work on a topic and meet
with the instructor weekly for discussion and guidance;
The Directed Individual Study course - where students request to create and title an area of
study for themselves that is more concentrated and more in-depth than a standard course. It
is directed under a tenured faculty member and approved by a department chair or possibly
the dean within that specific college;
The laboratory course - where most work takes place in a laboratory.
The student is expected to do various kinds of work for a course. These include but not limited
to
Attending course sessions.
Reading and studying course readings assigned in the course syllabus.
Discussing material, they have read.
Writing short and long papers based on assigned reading and their own library research.
Completing homework or problem sets.
Completing laboratory exercises.
Taking quizzes and examinations.
The exact work required depends on the discipline, the course, and the particular instructor.
Unlike most European university courses, all of these kinds of work, not only the final
examination, generally determine grades.
UNITS OF STUDY
Units of study may refer to the various details that make up a course of study in a particular
discipline or field of studies. In other words, a unit of study is simply an extensive study of one
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topic (or unit) and the integration of all subjects (social studies, science, language arts, math,
Bible, music, art, etc.) around that topic.
A good unit study involves learning about one topic in an interesting and engaging way that will
captivate the student and make them want to learn more and continue to think about the things that
they are learning. Creating unit studies can be quite simple and fun! For example, a basic unit
study on photography might include a brief history for elementary grades.
When courses of study is divided into units of study, it works best for most subject areas like
History, Science, Health, Physical Education and the Arts, Language and Math.
Language and Math especially are subjects that must be taught precept upon precept (e.g. you
must learn to add before you can learn to multiply), but most other subjects can be approached in
various ways, either touched on vaguely or explored in depth.
LESSONS OF STUDY
Lessons of study comprise mainly of the various teaching and learning activities that a teacher
engages in during the delivery of the units of study. This is mainly the individual teachers
teaching notes, examples, assignments, and materials used to organise and teach a particular
subject.
In other words, it is a form of classroom inquiry, in which the teacher plans, teach, observe and
revise or discuss assessment results with students.
In higher education, there are varied reasons why lesson plan is important.
One main reason is that it helps the teacher to track his or her own progress in the delivery of the
important aspects of the school or subject syllabus. In addition, the teacher or instructor is able to
monitor the learners progress and any change in behavior because of the methodology used in the
delivery of the lesson.
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REFERENCE
Black, P., & William, D. (1998). Inside the black box. Phi Delta Kappan, 80, 39148.
Cohen, D. K., & Spillane, J. P. (1992). Policy and practice: The relations between governance and
instruction. In G. Grant (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 18, pp. 349). Washington,
DC: American Educational Research Association.
Hamilton, David (2014). Towards a Theory of Schooling. P.55. ISBN 9780415857086
Kamkam, Boadu (2016). Curricullum Studies, Abundance of Grace Printing press.
Les Bell, Howard Stevenson, (2006) Education Policy: Process, Themes And Impact, Taylor &
Francis.
Levin, B. (2002). Knowledge and action in education policy and politics. In A. Sweetman & P. de
Broucker (Eds.), Towards evidence-based policy in Canadian education (pp. 115). Montreal,
Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queens University Press.
Oxford English Dictionary, "Curriculum," 152
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
WEBSITES
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