Order Description

For this assignment, you will reflect on the past weeks’ readings, PowerPoint presentations, and notes to compose an essay on the
best curriculum design model for a developmental education program. Justify your selection and support with literature.
Maximum: 1000 words. Value: 100 points.
Below is the rubric that will be used to score your paper. Be sure to read carefully and address each criterion.

Required Readings

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.
Diamond, R. M. (2008). Designing and assessing courses and curricula in higher education (3rd
edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Diamond, Chapters 5, 6, 7

Suggested Readings
McBeath, Preface; Self Appraisal Form

Stark, J.S., Lowther, M.A., Bentley, R.J., & Martens, G.G. (1990). Disciplinary differences in course planning. The Review of Higher Education, 13, 141-165.

Required Readings

Diamond – Resources H, K, and O (These are found in the Resources section of the textbook, which begins on page 320)

Suggested Readings

Manganello, R.E. (1992). Psychosocial problems among learning disabled students. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 9(1), 67-78

Session 1 Notes
Descriptive and prescriptive models represent the nature and organization of the substantive elements of the curriculum—ways to conceptualize and analyze the organizational structure of institutions, departments, etc. Focus on what the college prescribes for student study.

Analytic models describe the relationship and interaction between institutional characteristics (of which the curriculum is one) and student social, economic and educational characteristics as they affect student learning, personal development and maturation.

U.S. has a differentiated system of higher education. It presumes that it is best to have different institutions, programs and courses of study with different purposes, methods and measures of attainment. It presumes differential effects on student learning. The American undergraduate curriculum is based on a differential structure at the system, institution and program levels that requires consideration of differential effects on students’ intellectual, personal and social growth.

Manifest (or formal) curriculum: the specified subject matter to be studied plus the behaviors needed for learning the subject matter. Includes the written goals, objectives, rules, and regulations of an institution (Bloom)

Latent curriculum: consists of the way people value time, order, neatness, promptness, interpersonal relations, etc. (Bloom)

Instruction v. curriculum: Instruction is the carrying out of the curricular goals and objectives; curriculum is the stating, structuring and ordering of the goals and objectives. (Bloom)

Curriculum is both process and outcome, latent and manifest, substantive and behavioral (Bloom)

Working definition of curriculum: “Curriculum refers to both the process and substance of an educational program. It comprises the purpose, design, conduct, and evaluation of educational experiences. Curricula exist at different levels, ranging from the single course to the educational program to the department or discipline to the college or university. The organization of curriculum is defined by educational philosophy, the structure and content of the knowledge imparted, and the institutional context and climate. Effective curricula have coherence and explicit definitions of aims and standards of attainment. They accomplish their aims through sequence and structure of learning experiences to facilitate student learning and development. They provide sufficient content and coverage to exhibit but not exhaust the limits of the subject of study. They include mastery of basic terms, concepts, models, and theories as well as some application of them to situations appropriate to the student, the learning aims, and the institutional context. Good curricula have the hallmarks of effective instruction and the evidence of the enhancement of student learning.” (Gaff & Ratcliff, 1997, pp. 12-13)

C. Curricular influences and curricular purposes

1. The curriculum is purposeful, reflects the needs of society, the ways of knowing shared within a field and students’ interests, abilities and prior learning

2. The curriculum’s aims are guided by its educational philosophy

3. Disciplinary influence

a. Role of individual disciplines as organizers of the curriculum
i. Historical development
b. Each discipline has a set of rules, rituals and routines by which knowledge in the discipline is acquired
c. Disciplines can provide a conceptual framework for understanding what knowledge is and how it is acquired
d. Disciplines provide much structure and coherence to learning
e. Curricular change is conditioned by the role of the disciplines in conserving and transmitting their organization and representation of what is worth knowing, why and how
4. Student influence
a. Relationship between curriculum and extra curriculum
b. Students’ out-of-class experiences are powerful determinants of what, how and how well they learn
c. Diverse students and their diverse approaches to learning influence what is taught, how it is taught and how learning is evaluated
d. No one form of curriculum best serves the learning of all students except in the most homogenous groups

5. Social, political and economic influence
a. Social conditions influence the purpose, organization and structure of the curriculum