Three Basic Curriculum Design:

I. Subject-Centered Curriculum Design

Subject-centered curriculum design revolves around a particular subject matter or discipline.
For example, a subject-centered curriculum may focus on math or biology. This type of
curriculum design tends to focus on the subject rather than the individual.

- It is the most common type of curriculum used in K-12 public schools in states and
local districts in the United States.

- Often revolves around what needs to be studied and how it should be studied. Core
curriculum is an example of a subject-centered design. This type of curriculum is
standardized.

Core curriculum are set of courses that are considered basic and essential for future class
work and graduation. These are Math, Science, English, History and Geography in middle
school or high school.

Teachers are given a set list of things that need to be studied along with specific examples of
how these things should be studied. You can also find subject-centered design in large
college classes where teachers have a tendency to focus on a particular subject or discipline
with little regard for individual learning styles.

The primary disadvantage of subject-centered curriculum design is that it is not student-

centered. This form of curriculum design is less concerned with individual student needs and
learning styles compared to other forms of curriculum design, such as learner-centered
design. This can cause problems with student engagement and motivation and may even
cause students to fall behind in class.

1. Subject design – the oldest and best known school design to both teachers and lay
people in which most of them are using it.
According to Henry Morrison who was the superindent of public instruction in New
Hampshire and later joined the University of Chicago claimed that the subject matter
curriculum aimed most to literacy, and therefore should be the focus of the elementary
curriculum.

And that such design permitted secondary students to create interest and competencies in
specific subject areas and he assumed that different courses should be offered to meet
students’ needs.
- Robert Hutchins – an American educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School
( 1927–1929), and president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University
of Chicago. In mid 1930’s indicated which subject such as curriculum design would
comprise a school:
1. Language and its uses (reading, writing, grammar, literature)

2. Mathematics

3. Sciences

4. History

5. Foreign Languages
John Dewey - a writer, lecturer and philosopher whose theories had a profound influence on
public education was interested in divorcing the knowledge from the learners’ experiences
and essentially transmitting second
hand knowledge and others’ ideas. For him curriculum should emphasize both subject
matter and the learner.

2. Discipline Design – this new design acquired popularity during the 1950s and reached
its peak during the mid 1960.
Proponents who supports this design like:
Arthur King and John Brownell – point out that a discipline is specific knowledge
that has the following important characteristics:
 - a community of persons
 - an expression of human imagination
 - a domain
 - a tradition
 - a mode of inquiry
 - conceptual structure
 - specialized language
 - heritage literature
 - a network of communications
 - a valuative and effective stance
 - an instructive community

Jerome Seymour Bruner (who was an American psychologist who made significant
contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational
psychology)– states “Getting to know something is an adventure in how to account for a great
many things that you encounter in as simple and elegant way as possible.” Wherein “getting
to know” relies on students’ engaging with a discipline’s content and methods.

The discipline design also encourages students to see each discipline’s basic logic or
structure – which is the main relationship in concepts and principles, which according to
Joseph Schwab (University of Chicago professor of education and natural sciences)“the
substantive structure” and Philip Phenix (emeritus philosophy educator) “realms of
meaning.” Structure means to allow a “deep” understanding of the content and knowledge of
how it can be applied.
- Harry Broudy (was a Polish-born educator. Broudy attended Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Boston University where he received his Bachelor's degree in German
literature and philosophy in 1929) named such knowledge as “applicative knowledge”
or “problem-solving procedures”.

3. Broad-Field Design- also known as interdiciplinary design.

- Designers of this dicipline tried to give students a comprehensive understanding of all
the content areas. Educators made an effort to integrate content that match together
soundly.
- They fused subjects in social studies like:
History, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Economics and Geography
Biology, Chemistry and Physics were fit into General Science
Linguistics, Grammar, Literature and Spelling were carved into language arts.
- Unique feature of this design was stimulated in the Sputnik era
- Broudy and his colleagues - suggested that curriculum be organized into categories:
- symbolics of information – English, foreign languages and mathematics
- basic sciences – general science, biology, physics and chemistry
- developmental studies - evolution of the cosmos, of social
institutions, and human culture
- Exemplars – modes of aesthetic experience, including art, music,
 drama and literature
- “Moral problems” that would address typical social problems
- Last classification requires an annual variety of course depending on current social
problems

4. Correlational Design
Most frequent correlated subjects:
- English Literature
- History at the secondary level
- Language arts and Social Studies at the elementary level

At present few teachers use correlation design maybe because it compels them to plan
their lessons cooperatively.
Say in elementary level – teachers will find it difficult to acomplish becasue they have
self contained classes and often donot have time for collaboration.
In Secondary level – are organized into separate departments that tend to encourage
isolation. Theyalso have to meet time schedules imposed by specific classes and so
teachers have little time to work with other teachers on team teaching.

5. Process Design- this design stresses those procedures to allow students to analyze reality
and construct frameworks different from the way the world appears to the casual
viewer.
A lot of discussion has followed as regards to involving the students in learning and
empowering them to be the vital players in the classroom but still this has been
studied.
- This design reveals a modern orientation, the process of knowledge acquisition which
needs to be learned by students, for them to reach a certain degree of consensus.
As what Jean Francois Lyotard (a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary
theorist) and others claimed that we must be involved in a process not to reach
unanimity but to search for variability.
- This design will most likely be active in the future because they will likely increase in
merging with the learner-centered.

II. Learner-Centered Curriculum Design

Learner-centered curriculum design revolves around the learner. It takes each individual's
needs, interests and goals into consideration. In other words, it acknowledges students that
are not uniform and should not be subjected to a standardized curriculum. This type of
curriculum design is meant to empower learners and allow them to shape their education
through choices.

Instructional plans in a learner-centered curriculum are not as rigid as they are in a subject-
centered curriculum design.

A learner-centered curriculum is differentiated and often gives students the opportunity to

choose assignments, learning experiences or activities. This can motivate students and help
them stay engaged in the material that they are learning.

The drawback to this form of curriculum design is that it puts a lot of pressure on the
teacher to create instruction and find materials that are conducive to each student's learning
needs. This can be very difficult for teachers due to time constraints, or even lack of
experience or skills. It can also be difficult for teachers to balance student wants and
interests with student needs and required outcomes.
 1. Child-Centered design

- Advocates of child-centered design draw on the thinking of some pedagogical giants

like Henrich Pestalossi and Friedrich Froebel, they claimed that children would
achieve self realization through social participation which they expressed as a
principle of learning by doing.

- Using the social approach to education Pestalossi and Froebel argued that effective
education did not call for strict discipline, instead attaining the child’s innate tendency
to become involved in exciting things is in the institutional approach that is somewhat
free.

2. Experienced- Centered design

- John Dewey commented that children’s impulsive power, their demand for self-
expression cannot be suppressed.
- For Dewey interest is purposeful.

- In the book Experience and Education, he wrote that education should commence
with the experience learners already possessed when they entered school and that
experience is the starting point for all further learning.

- Dewey also stated that children exist in a personal world of experiences and their
interests are personal concerns, rather than bodies of knowledge and their attendant
facts, concepts, generalization and theories.

- He never supported building children’s interests in the curriculum or placing children

in the role of curriculum makers.

- He pointed out, “The easy thing is to seize upon something in the nature of the child,
or upon something in the developed consiousness of the adult, and insist upon the
key to the whole problem.”

- For Dewey, educators must analyze children’s experiences and see how those
experiences formed children’s knowledge.

- He required educators to think of the child’s experiences as fluid and dynamic in

which the curriculum will frequently change to focus on students needs.

3. Romantic (Radical) Design

- Before, crusaders who support radical school modification have highlighted learner-
centered design in which they follow Rosusseau’s position on the value of attending to
the nature of individuals and Pestalozzi’s philosophy that individuals can find their
true selves by looking to their own nature.

- Normally, the radicals reflect current society as corrupt, suppressive, and powerless to
remedy itself. For them, schools are using their curricula to indoctrinate and then
control students rather than to educate and liberate them.

- Freire’s teaching influenced the thinking of the present day radicals. He believes that
education should inform the masses about their oppression, provoke them to feel
 dissatisfied with their condition, and give them the skills necessary for connecting the
identified injustices.

- Jurgen Habermas, theory emphasized that education’s goal is liberation of the

awareness, skills, and attitudes that people find necessary to take control of their
lives. This means, educated people do not follow social rules without reflection.

- Curricular leaders who supports radical views consider that individuals must learn
ways of involvement in an analysis of knowledge.

- Learning is reflective, it is not externally inflicted by someone in power.

- Knowledge does not reside in a unit plan or course syllabus.

- Ornstein and Hunkins explained in their book Curriculum, Foundations, Principles

and Issues, that the biggest difference between mainstream educators and radicals is
that radicals view society as deeply flawed and believe that education indoctrines
students to serve controlling groups. For example, schools neglect to incorporate into
the curriculum issues and problems related to race and gender relations, the
environment (both social and natural), crime and violence, and economic imperialism.

- Curricula with a radical design address social economic inequality and injustice
and foster for diversity which are very political.

4. Humanistic Design

- This design gained prominence in the 1960s and ‘70s. But as early as the 1920s and
‘30s this design appeared as part of progressive philosophy and the whole-child
movement in philosophy.

- This new psychological orientation stressed that human action was more than a
reaction to a stimulus, that meaning was more important than methods, that the
emphasis of consideration should be on the subjective rather than the objective nature
of human existence, and that there is as association between learning and feeling.

- Abraham Maslow one of the most influential psychologist in the 20 th century and was
considered the father of humanist movement in psychology, described a hierarchy of
needs that he argued provides a model for understanding the need for human
relations in the classroom. Needs lower on the pyramid, such as physical and safety
needs, must be met before an individual will consider higher-level needs.

- This explains important components of behavior, including school behavior. Teachers

often assume that the physical security and safety needs of their students are
ensured, but in many schools, they are not. Increasing numbers of homes and schools
are unable to provide simple safety. When physical security and safety, including
sleep, are challenged, students will use most of their time, energy, and creativity
simply trying to survive. This struggle interferes with learning.

- In Moslow’s heirarchy of needs characterized the following :

Self actualization – Morality, creativity, sponteinity, acceptance, experience purpose,
meaning, inner potential
Self esteem needs – Confidence, self achievements, respect of others, connections,
need for individuality
Love and belongingness needs – Friendship, family, intimacy, connections
 Safety and security needs – Health, employment, property, family, stability
Psychological needs – Air, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep

- Carl Rogers – in his effort he stated that self-directed learning wherein students draw
on their own resources to develop self-understanding and guide their own behavior.
- In this design, educators should plan an environment that inspire genuineness,
empathy, and respect for self and others.
- He affirmed that with this type of environment, students will naturally improve as fully
functioning individual.

III. Problem-Centered Curriculum Design

Like learner-centered curriculum design, problem-centered curriculum design is also a form
of student-centered design.

It focuses on teaching students how to look at a problem and come up with a solution to the
problem. This is considered an authentic form of learning because students are exposed to
real-life issues, which helps them develop skills that are transferable to the real world.

Problem-centered curriculum design increases the relevance of the curriculum and allows
students to get creative and innovate while learning. The drawback to this form of
curriculum design is that it does not always take learning styles into consideration.

1. Life situation design

- uses the past and present experiences as a learner as a means to analyze the basic areas of
living.
- As a starting point, the pressing immediate problems of the society and the students’
existing concerns are utilized.

- Based on Herbert Spencer’s curriculum writing

• his emphasis were activities that sustain life, enhance life, aid in rearing children, maintain
the individual’s social and political relations and enhance leisure, tasks and feelings
• The connection of subject matter to real situations increases the relevance of the
curriculum.

- Life Situations Strengths and Weaknesses

• Presents subject matter in an integrated manner
• Encourages students to learn and apply problem solving procedures
• Relevant
•Determining the scope and sequence of essential areas of living is difficult
• Does not expose student adequately to their heritage
• Teachers lack adequate preparation

2. Social problems/ reconstructionist design – the main purpose is to involve students in

critical examination of the local, national, and international community inorder to address
humanity’s problems.
- it encourages curriculum changes in industrial and political system.

- George Counts (1920s and 30s) – considered society to be totally reorganized to

promote the common good.
For him the time required a new social order, and the schools should play a major role
in such redesign.
“Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive?” his speech which presented some of
his thinking.
 He challenged the Progressive Education Association to broaden its thinking beyond
the current social structure and accused its members of advocating only curricula
that perpetuated middle-class dominance and priveledge.
He argued that curricula should involve students in creating a more equitable society.

- Harold Rugg believed that schools should engage children analysis of society in order
to improve it.
He criticized child-centered schools, opposing that their laissez-faire approach to
curriculum development produced a confusion of disjoined curriculum and rarely
involved a careful review of a child’s educational program.

- Theodore Brameld – who advocated recontructionism well into the 1950s, claimed
that recontructionist were committed to facilitating the emergence of a new culture.
He also believed that times required a new social order, existing society displayed
decay, poverty, crime, racial conflict, unemployment, political oppression, and the
destruction of the environment.

- He stated that schools should help students develop into social beings dedicated to the
common good.
References:

The Work of Abraham Maslow, D.E. Campbell – Pearson Allyn Bacon, Prentice Hall updated
on April 30, 2014

Karen Schweitzer, updated December 5, 2017

Norman V. Lucena, BSED IV-E Biological Science Educ 10 Curriculum Development. Prof.
Josefina De Jesus

Rose Ann H. Manalang

Curriculum Development, Emerita Reyes, Ed.D., Erlinda Dizon, Ed.D, Danilo K. Villena,
Ph.D. Author/ Consultant