FS 4 Episode 5

SIX CRITERIA IN SELECTING CONTENT OR SUBJECT MATTER In selecting the subject matter content or knowledge for designing a curriculum, here are some criteria:  Significance – It is significant if fundamental ideas, concepts, principles and generalization are supplied in the subject matter to achieve the overall aim of the curriculum.  Validity – the genuineness of a content selected is by its legality. The subject matter to be selected has to be legal to avoid selecting the obsolete ones.  Interest – the learner’s interest is a major factor in selecting the content.  Utility - deciding on subject matter, its usefulness is considered to be essential.  Learnability – if there is a quotation to “live within our means” then there is also the consideration of “teaching within the means of the learners.”  Feasibility – content selection takes into thought the possibility, the practicability and the achievability of the subject matter in terms of the availability of the resources, proficiency of the teachers, and the personality of learners especially within the framework of the society and the government.

B.A.S.I.C. Balance  Equitable assignment of content, time, experiences and other elements to establish balance is needed in curriculum design.  Too much or too little of these elements maybe disastrous to the curriculum.  Keeping the curriculum “in balance” requires continuous fine tuning and review for its effectiveness and relevance. Articulation 

This can be done either vertically or horizontally. In vertical articulation, contents are arranged from level to level or grade to grade so that the content in a lower level is connected to the next level.

Scope  Tyler in Ornstein(2004) defines scope as all the content, topics, learning experiences and organizing threads comprising the educational plan.  Scope does not only refer to the cognitive content, but also to the affective and psychomotor content.  It is the depth, as well as, the breadth of these contents.  The terms broad, limited, simple, general are few of the words that can describe the scope.  The scope of the curriculum can be divided into chunks: units, sub-units, chapters or subchapters. Integration  Emerging themes. This is the essence of integration in the curriculum design. Merging or integrate the subject like math to science.  Horizontal articulation happens when the association is among or between elements that happen at the same time like social studies in grade six is related to science in grade six. Continuity  This process enables the learners to strengthen the permanency of learning and development of skills. Gerome Bruner calls this “spiral curriculum” where the content is organized according to the interrelationship between the structure/ pattern of a basic idea

of major disciplines. Example:1.Concepts of living things in science which continuously occurs in the elementary curriculum but with different complexity from level to level