Curriculum

A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives.

"[9] The first known use in an educational context is in the Professio Regia, a work by University of Paris professor Petrus Ramus published posthumously in 1576.

[12] By the seventeenth century, the University of Glasgow also referred to its "course" of study as a "curriculum", producing the first known use of the term in English in 1633.

Community-based extracurricular activities may include "environmental clubs, 4-H, boy/girl scouts, and religious groups" (Hancock, Dyk, & Jones, 2012).

Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge that they wish to transmit."

A curriculum may also refer to a defined and prescribed course of studies, which students must fulfill in order to pass a certain level of education.

For example, an elementary school might discuss how its curricula is designed to improve national testing scores or help students learn fundamental skills.

Many after-school programs in the US have tried to apply the concept; this typically has more success when not rigidly clinging to the definition of curriculum as a product or as a body of knowledge to be transferred.

— John Dewey[15]Whatever the origins and intentions of early curricula, the function of inculcating culture had emerged by the time of ancient Babylonia.

[19] Ancient Roman curricula came to emphasise Greek as well as Latin skills, with emphasis on the study of classical poetry.

Per his cultural presumptions and social definitions, his curricular formulation has two notable features: Hence, he defined the curriculum as an ideal, rather than as the concrete reality of the deeds and experiences that form who and what people become.

[15] Robert M. Hutchins (1899–1977), president of the University of Chicago, regarded curriculum as "permanent studies" where the rules of grammar, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics for basic education are emphasized.

[citation needed] Dewey proposed that learning the lesson should be more interesting and beneficial than receiving a scolding, being ridiculed, or being required to stay after school, among other punishments.

Within these settings curriculum is an even broader topic, including various teachers, inanimate objects such as audio-tour devices, and even the learners themselves.

This definition is shared by Smith, Stanley, and Shores when they defined curriculum as "a sequence of potential experiences set up in schools for the purpose of disciplining children and youth in group ways of thinking and acting."

Curriculum as a process is when a teacher enters a particular schooling and situation with the ability to think critically, an understanding of their role and the expectations others have of them, and a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter.

"[28] Any definition of curriculum, if it is to be practically effective and productive, must offer much more than a statement about knowledge-content or merely the subjects which schooling is to teach, transmit, or deliver.

Crucial to the curriculum is the definition of the course objectives that usually are expressed as learning outcomes and normally include the program's assessment strategy.

So, a typical curriculum includes communications, numeracy, information technology, and social skills units, with specific, specialized teaching of each.

[citation needed] In 2014, the government implemented a revised version of the national curriculum, reducing the number of subjects covered from 20 to 10.

This coordination is intended to make it possible to use more of the same textbooks across states, and to move toward a more uniform minimum level of education attainment.

According to the CCSSI, "[d]ecisions on how to implement the standards, including the right supports to put in place, are made at the state and local levels.

This tension has received a large amount of coverage due to Harvard University's reorganization of its core requirements.

[43][44] An essential feature of curriculum design, seen in every college catalog and at every other level of schooling, is the identification of prerequisites for each course.

[clarification needed] These prerequisites can be satisfied by taking particular courses, and in some cases by examination, or by other means, such as work experience.

At the undergraduate level, individual college and university administrations and faculties sometimes mandate core curricula, especially in the liberal arts.

When The New York Times, The Economist, and other major news outlets picked up this story, the university became the focal point of a national debate on education.

A set of university administrators, notably then-President Hugo F. Sonnenschein, argued that reducing the core curriculum had become both a financial and educational imperative, as the university was struggling to attract a commensurate volume of applicants to its undergraduate division compared to peer schools as a result of what was perceived by the pro-change camp as a reaction by "the average eighteen-year-old" to the expanse of the collegiate core.

[45] As core curricula began to diminish over the course of the twentieth century at many American schools, some smaller institutions became famous for embracing a core curriculum that covers nearly the student's entire undergraduate education, often utilizing classic texts of the western canon to teach all subjects including science.

Physical education (PE) is an example where gender equality issues are highlighted because of preconceived stereotyping of boys and girls.