ELEMENTS OF THE CURRICULUM

I. CURRICULUM CONTENT

Curriculum Content is the medium through which the objectives are accomplished. There
are three basic questions related to curriculum content.

1. What knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values are most worthwhile to be taught and
learned?
2. Why are they considered worthwhile?
3. How are they acquired?

One has the content with the so-called knowledge explosion phenomenon. Knowledge has
accumulated so fast that it is no longer just difficult but simply impossible to cram our
curriculum with summaries of all existing knowledge. With so much knowledge being added,
the inevitable question is which should be included in the curriculum? Obviously we cannot
include everything. There must be a careful selection to include why it is relevant to and
necessary at the level of the maturity of the learner.

SELECTION OF CURRICULUM EXPERIENCE

Selection of curriculum experience is necessary because specialized knowledge

increases. To make room for the new knowledge and concepts, more subjects must be added or
priorities must be assigned in the current offerings. It will be helpful to note that the more one
covers, the less one learns. There is therefore a need for criteria to determine what to teach.

The curriculum is consisted of two different things the content and the learning
experiences. The content covers the acquisition of knowledge with its four levels.

1. Specific facts and processes are raw materials given for low level of abstraction.
2. Basic ideas and principles. These show casual relationships.
3. Concepts, it is a complex system of highly abstract ideas which can be built only by
successive experience in a variety of contexts.
4. Thought systems and method of inquiry. This experience engages in discovery and
problem solving.

The other kind of curriculum experience is the learning experiences. In terms of the
objectives it covers skills and attitudes. It includes processes which the students employ in
dealing with the content. Learning experiences provide opportunity to practice appropriate
behavior.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF CONTENT AND LEARNING EXPERIENCE

1. Curriculum content should be valid and significant.
The content should reflect contemporary scientific knowledge. It must be
fundamental and basic. It must have a wider breadth of application. Often the
curriculum is loaded with insignificant detail because there is no way to determine what
is important and what is not, without a reference to basic ideas, any detail is as
important as any other.

2. Content must be consistent with social and cultural realities of the times.
The curriculum should orient the students to the world around us. It should
include sufficient materials and experience to develop conceptual understanding of the
phenomenon of change and of the problems introduced by it, and to develop minds that
can cope with change and reasonable techniques for doing it.

3. Curriculum should represent an appropriate balance of breadth and depth.

These criteria refer to the depth of understanding and breadth of coverage. It
requires full understanding of and certain basic principles, ideas, or concepts as well as
their application.

4. Curriculum should provide for the achievement of a wide range of objectives.

An effective curriculum provides acquisition of significant new knowledge and for
the development of increasingly more effective ways of thinking, desirable attitudes and
interests, and appropriate habits and skills. It is a fact that learning experiences and not
the content as such, are the mean for achieving all objectives besides those of
knowledge and understanding.
Achieving multiple objectives also involve increasing opportunities for the active
forms of learning. Learning experience can be advised in which a variety of active mental
process are imbedded in the very act of acquiring knowledge; experiences which
stimulates students to generalize instead of absorbing generalizations; to plan in place of
following ready-made plans, to abstract instead of absorbing abstraction.

5. Curriculum content should be learnable and adaptable to students experiences.

One factor to learn is the ability to adjust the curriculum content and the focus of
learning experiences to abilities of the learners. For effective learning, the abilities of the
students must be taken into account at every point of the selection and organization but
especially in planning concrete experiences designed to develop the power to discover
general ideas and concepts.

6. The curriculum should be appropriate to the needs and interest of the learners.
7. Opportunity to practice the behavior implied in the objectives.
8. Economy of time, effort and experience.
 DETERMINING FACTORS IN THE SELECTION OF LEARNING EXPERIENCES

1. Learning objectives set

The objectives stated at the instructional level define what the students can do
after the learning experience.

2. Student Characteristics
Two student characteristics influence the choice of learning activities:
a. Readiness level of the student the degree of competence with which students
enter the course referred to as entry competencies. This may be determined by a
pretest, the result of which can be of value in choosing the objectives and
activities.
b. Learning styles refer to the different ways a student learns. Some find certain
methods more appealing and effective than others.

3. The realities of the teaching learning situation

These give rise to constraints and limitations. Example: time frame of the course may
limit methods of teaching used and learning setting. Another is availability of the
learning resources such as the library.

4. Teacher Characteristics
The preparation of the faculty and her teaching skills and commitment to teaching spell
the difference between good and bad instructional plan.

SUGGESTED GUIDE IN THE SELECTION OF LEARNING EXPERIENCE:

STEP 1 State as precisely as possible WHAT the student is expected to do at various points
(units/lessons) of the course (intermediate competencies) and at the end of the course
(terminal competencies). Consider learning objectives in the cognitive, psychomotor and
effective domains.

STEP 2 Specify subject content arranged in logical sequence. This includes major topics and
sub-topics which the students must know to attain the specified learning objectives. The subject
content must support the objectives set.

According to Taba:

1. Decide which the subjects to include in the total program.

2. Decide what topics to cover in each subject.
3. Select the basic organizing concept.
4. Select the basic ideas.
5. Select he specific facts.
STEP 3 Select learning experiences essential to enable students to learn to specific topics and
the specific competencies desired. State what the teachers should do and what the students
should not do. Plan one more activity. It is important to understand the choice of learning
activity based on how the activity will function to facilitate students learning.

STEP 4 Estimate time required for the learning activities selected. Maximize use of time. Keep
in mind that a single learning activity can attain several learning objectives.

STEP 5 Specify the setting where the learning activity will take place a classroom, skills
laboratory, clinical are, etc.

STEP 6 Specify the learning resources (men, materials, facilities) needed to carry out the
learning activities. Choose resources appropriate to the learning objectives. Develop the
materials needed.

STEP 7 Specify how will you evaluate to determine whether students have attained the
learning objectives set.

Suggested Format of Instructional Plan

Specific Learning
Objectives Subject Experience Time Setting Resources Evaluation
(KAS) Content Teacher Students Allot

CRITERIA FOR THE ORGANIZATION CURRICULUM CONTENT AND LEARNING EXPERIENCE

1. Provide for the continuity and cumulative learning

Continuity is the vertical organization of learning experiences which refers to the
relationship existing between different levels of the same subjects or skills. The learning
experiences of tomorrow, next week and next month are planned so that they reinforce
those that are provided for today and this week. It requires a continual use of preceding
learning: using what happens at one point to build a foundation for the experience to follow.
2. Establish a sequence
Sequence is also a vertical organization of learning experiences. It is related to
continuity but goes beyond it. The learning experiences of this semester build upon
those of last semester but go more deeply and broadly into the subject so as to produce
a deeper and broader understanding and increased skill on students part.
 Sequence is not duplication. It is putting the content and materials into some order of
succession. With successive learning experience expected, a higher level of
understanding is gained.

Sequence of experience may be based on one of the following

a. Proceeds from simple to complex. This simple is defined as that which contains
few elements or subordinate parts.
b. Based upon concrete experiences to more abstract ones.
c. Based on chronological order which places or arranges events in succession in
terms of time in which they occur.
d. Proceeds from the whole to the part.
e. Based from part to the whole.
f. Based upon prerequisite learning.
g. Concentric circle which starts with that which is close at hand proceeding to the
remote.
h. Logical order based on decision of primary.

3. Provide for Integration

Integration is horizontal relationship of the various areas of the curriculum, such
as relating what is learned in one subject to what is learned in another area. It cuts
across several subjects and areas of the students life.

4. Determine the Focus

Organizing focus for study requires formulating the central ideas to pursue. The
basic ideas about a topic, a subject or a problem usually determine which dimensions of
a topic need emphasis, which details are relevant and to which relationship are they
significant.

Core ideas as focusing centers serve important functions:

a. They structure the units of the topic of the subjects by giving them a perspective of the
dimensions of the content to be treated. If these are clear, it is possible to make
intelligent judgment regarding which details to include, rather than, trying to overt
anything and everything.
b. Core ideas will assure a fuller scope for the development of content. The what, where,
when and why of the idea will follow.
c. Core ideas will also help with coverage, which is the setting of limits to the amount of
detail that must be studied. An adequate scope of ideas, combined with a minimum
necessary sample of specific content, assures a balanced treatment and balanced
 understanding without the undue burden of coverage, whereas extensive coverage often
results only in learning a little bout a lot of things.
d. Core ideas prevent the use of time for unproductive mastery of details. Time can be for
more thorough study of that which is offered.
e. There is greater freedom to adjust content to the backgrounds and abilities of the
students without jeopardizing the fundamental sample or content. Core idea may be
according to the ability and maturity of students, their interests, current experiences, or
local needs.
f. Ideas as focusing centers can serve as threads for either a vertical continuity or a
horizontal integration. They can provide the structure for comparing and contracting
learning experiences.

5. Provide variety in modes of learning

Learning activities needs to represent a balance of various means of learning,
reading, analyzing, doing research, observing, writing, experimenting and contracting.
Dependence on one way of learning deprives some students for an adequate access to
learning.

STRATEGIES AND METHODS OF TEACHING

II. Curriculum and Instructions

Curriculum was derived from the Latin root of the word which means a race course
or a prescribed course to follow. Later, the term was adapted in education to refer to a
prescribed course to take. Sergiovanni and Staratt (1983) used the following definition of
curriculum, that which the students is supposd to encounter, study, practice, and
master, and what the student learns.
Instruction according to Conway, refers to the broad range of activities that take
place in the classroom, laboratory and clinical setting. Instruction then consists of set
experiences and resources that the teachers and learners can also utilize to achieve the
learning objectives.

So how are these two related? Curriculum is the blueprint or masterplan of selected
and organized learning content and the actual implementation of this plan brought
about by experience in the classroom is called Instruction.

Indicators of a Good Curriculum in Developing Instructional Experiences:

 1. A good curriculum provides experience that are rich and varied and designed for
culturally diverse students.
2. A good curriculum is organized flexibility to serve the educational objectives of the
school.
3. A good curriculum uses resources that are appropriate to the needs and interests of
the learners.
4. A good curriculum includes appropriate teaching strategies to carry out learning
objectives
5. Broad principles should be emphasized in professional and in general courses.
6. The student should have an opportunity to concentrate on electives in one or more
special areas other than nursing or allied subjects.
7. The collegiate nursing practice should offer a rich basis of learning experience in the
humanities and social studies as well as in the natural sciences.
8. Courses in the collegiate nursing program should be planned on an academic term
basis. Assignment of credit courses and for clinical practice should be in accord with
the policies of institution.
9. Specialization in Professional Nursing is reserved for graduate study.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Instruction has 2 aspects: Teaching and Learning. Teaching is the responsibility of the teacher
which involves the proper arrangement of the environment and the resource of learning that
will evoke the right kind of response from the learners. Learning is done by learners by using the
learning resources and undergoing the planned learning experience.

8 M's OF TEACHING

1. Milieu: The Learning Environment

Since learning is triggered off by stimuli in the environment, it assumes primary

importance in teaching and learning. The classroom is the usual although not the exclusive
environment of learning at school. Teachers need to make the learning environment as
"stimulating" as possible. Every stimulus in the classroom should contribute to learning. Very
much part of this environment are the human stimuli, the most important of whom is the
teacher himself. Material stimuli include objects in the room as well as common routine
activities. Checking of receptors of the learning stimuli, the senses, to make sure that every
student is properly equipped for and disposed to receive the stimuli of learning. Provisions for
proper lighting and acoustics as well as corrective measures for students who may be impaired
somewhat in this regard.
2. Matter: The Content of Learning.

This refers to the what is to be learned as specified in the instructional objective.

Mastery of every lesson instead of its mere coverage by the class is a very important "rule-of-
thumb" The teacher should make sure that the minimum standard or level of proficiency is
attained by the class before moving onto the next lesson or unit. Curriculum makers are advised
to be realistic in projecting subject matter and avoid giving the students "too much, too soon,"
and to teach only "little matter, but well mastered."

3. Method: The teaching-learning Strategy.

This consist of purposeful, planned activities and tasks that are undertaken by the
teacher and the students in the classroom to bring about the intended instructional objective.
Methods are means to an end, never an end in itself. There is good straggly per se, it is deemed
good or effective only if it brings about the desired learning outcome. Furthermore, an objective
may be archived using different strategies just as a strategy may be utilized to attain different
objectives.The strategy must be appropriate to the level of maturity and sophistication of the
learners. It must also be adequate or sufficient for the lesson objective and the teacher must be
adept or skillful in the use of the strategy. The learners must also show efficiency in handling the
activity, going through it without hassle. The strategy must also be effective to yield expected
result and must be economical in time, effort and expense.

4. Material: The Resources of Learning.

Materials are resources available to the teacher and learners which serve as stimuli in
the teaching-learning situation. This may be either a "human person" or a "physical object." The
whole purpose of materials is to initiate the students to the "real world" they live in.
Instructional materials represent elements found in that world are are meant to help students
understand and explain reality. Portraying reality can be by direct experience, reproduction,
representation or abstraction

5. Media: Communication in Teaching and Learning.

This pertains to the communication system in the teaching-learning situation. This serves
dual purpose: to promote common understanding in instruction and to set and maintain a
healthy psychological climate in the classroom conducive to learning.

6. Motivation: Arousing and Sustaining Interest in Learning.

 Motivation is the cardinal principle in learning. A learner will learn only those things he
wants to learn.

7. Mastery: The Be-all and End-all of Learning.

This means internalization of learning resulting in automatic or habitual change behavior

through meaningful repetition and application. Mastery comes through a "fixation" of what is to
be learned, shifting it from short-term to long-term memory, allowing for ease in use and
transfer to new situations in the future. Some call it executive control"

8. Measurement: Getting Evidence of Learning.

This is the final stage in the teaching-learning sequence, involving the systematic
collection of the evidence of learning. This is concerned with the "behavior" aspect of the
objective.

III. COURSE OUTLINE

It is the principal features or general principle of a subject of discussion; relatively brief and
condensed treatment of a particular subject. It should be logically organized to facilitate
learning. One effective method of accomplishing this is to divide topics and subtopics into a
clearly delineated sections. It guides the teacher and the students the things to be discussed in
a particular time.

Developing Course Outline:

1. Settle upon the stated principal course objectives.
2. Decide which major topics or units will be taken up in the course and their orders.
a. Is the topic important?
b. It the topic appropriate to the course?
c. Is the topic one which the instructor is capable of handling?
d. Are there adequate resources?
e. Is the topic of special interest to students?
3. Determine major learning activities.
a. Those which are primarily engaged in by instructors.
b. Those which are undertaken by the students.
c. Select appropriate instructional materials.
d. Develop a course calendar for the entire team.
e. State the basis upon which student performance will be judged.
 IV. RESOURCE UNIT

As the name implies, the resource unit is the resource from which teachers may draw
materials to be used in unit plans for their particular learning groups.

According to Klohr, resource unit is defined in this study as a carefully planned series of
suggestions centered in some broad problem, topic, or area of experience and organized to
serve as a source of ideas, materials, and procedures to help a teacher in pre-planning a
learning unit.

According to Heidgerken, it is a compendium of suggested activities and materials,

accompanied by statement of significance, scope, objective educational resource materials and
suggestions for everything used by the teachers in their preparations for the teacher-student
unit planning. In a way, resource units are refined editions of broad curriculum guides and more
detailed. Resource units are constructed by faculty groups than by individual teachers.

Resource units contain the following characterisitics:

1. They offer innumerable suggestions but do not restrics; they provide plenty of
margin for teachers ingenuity.
2. They indicate the scope of a particular area of knowledge, thereby helping the
teacher to view it as a whole.
3. They contain behaviorally defined objectives which can serve as guides to the
teacher in goal-setting and evaluating.
4. They take into account the principle of individual differences by suggesting a wide
variety of activities geared to different levels of learning.
5. They are the work of a teacher representing the polled resources and the strength of
that group.
6. They contain an extensive annotated bibliography including books, pamphlets,
periodicals, community resources.

Content of Resource Units

1. Significance of the topic area
A paragraph or two explaining the central problem, question, need, or interest around
which the unit was or can be developed.
2. Inventory of possible objectives
 A list of concepts and specific attitudes developed by or planned for the unit-developed
in such detailed as appropriate to the subject matter involved.
3. Content Outline
It is the expository outline of the subject matter or things to be discussed.
4. Suggested Activities
List of specific aids actually used or definitely available, including:
a) Printed aids books, magazines, pamphlets
b) Visual aids films, slides
c) Community resources
5. Bibliography
6. Evaluation Techniques
A brief description of the means which could be used:
a) To determine whether the unit was successful and what changes might be made
another time.
b) To determine what progress was made by individual pupils.

Course Syllabus It is a summary outline of a course. Includes the following items:

a. Course Title
b. Course Number
c. Course Description
d. General and Specific Objectives
e. Scope
f. Course Procedure
g. Name of the Textbook
h. Reference

V. Module
It is a self-contained package of learning activities designed to help the student
accomplish certain well defined objectives primarily thorough independent study.

It is a self-instructional package (SIP) that tells the student:

1. What s/he expected to know or do by the end of the module.
2. How the competencies knowledge and skills required can be achieved.
3. How knowledge and skills beyond that expected in the module can be gained.
4. How the mastery of the objectives is to be demonstrated

Module can be described in Several Ways

Modules Pyramid when one wishes the learner to be able to gain depth in a subject. Some
students may require or desire to know more about the subject. Learners who have a special
interest in pursuing the subject matters do modules more.
Module Cluster when there is an objective or a group of objectives to be achieved, the
modules form clusters because each one contributes to meeting the objectives or part of the
objectives. The learners may select in order to achieve the objectives.
Modules are Autonomous when they stand completely alone. They can be taken
smorgasbord fashion by the learner. The learner practices a self-selection process.

Sequence of Elements

1. Introduction it provides a first glimpse at the program and may strongly influence the
readers attitudes. It serves to interest the learner in what s/he is about to learn and to
provide an orientation so that to learn with what s/he knows.
2. Objectives it should be a behavioral objective. It describes the desired outcome which
is expected to result upon successful completion of the module.
3. Recommend Preparations it is useful to include a brief statement at the beginning of
a program the pre-requisite skills or knowledge expected from the learners. This can be
recommended reading materials, glossary of terms or any other learning activity. If there
is no recommended pre-requisites it must be stated to inform the user.
4. Content the text portion of the SIP should be logically organized to facilitate learning.
The content should not exceed the amount normally covered in a one or two lecture.
This serves two purposes: it allows for a greater focusing of attention of the learner and
thus, lightens comprehension and retention of information; and it becomes a time
saving mechanisms or both instructor and student since learning may be individually
paced.
5. Content Summary This should highlight the most important points in the SIP. The
summary helps learners retrieve the things they have learned from the different
sections. Also it reinforces retention of the contents of the program.
6. Reference and/or Bibliography Sources of information should be documented
properly.
7. Post-Test Questions and Answers These simulated at the end of the material. It covers
the content of the entire materials. Likewise, answers should be provided for immediate
feedback.
8. Recommend Follow-Up It may be in the form of additional reading materials of
experiment. It maximized the learning experience by projecting it beyond the immediate
time period spent studying the material.
REFERENCE:

Escano, Rhodora G. Learning Modules in Curriculum and Teaching in Nursing 2009 PWU

CURRICULUM AND TEACHING IN NURSING

ELEMENTS
OF THE
CURRICULUM

SUBMITTED BY:
Diane Avelino, R.N

SUBMITTED TO:
Prof. Rhodora Escano

February 11, 2012