Evaluating the Hilda Taba Model of Curriculum Development

Identifying and analysing theories and models of curriculum development

Curriculum development is the process of systematic planning regarding the fats to be taught in academics as mentioned in the course and programs of the studies (Alsubaie, 2016). The Hilda Taba Model of Curriculum Development is a linear model where multiple-steps are mentioned to be followed in sequential manner initiating from diagnosing needs, formulating learning objectives, selecting learning content, organising learning content, selecting learning experiences, organisation and ending with evaluation for development of a plan that meets the objectives of the curriculum (Aydın et al. 2017). The advantage of using Taba’s curriculum development model is that it encourages the promotion of higher thinking skill within the classroom among the students. It leads the students to initiate learning with a concept and develop deeper information regarding the concept. This is because in this model the teacher already has knowledge regarding the key needs of the students based on which they develop the lesson plans allowing the students to have effective opportunity to explore the concepts required to learn in the class to develop better education (Newlyn, 2016). The model leads the students to have a focus on open-ended questions versus a right or wrong answer making the class have relevant discussion. This acts as strength of the model as open-ended questions lead the students to develop abstract thinking making them face challenge to use their brain in a more effective way (Kumral, 2016). However, the weakness of Taba’s curriculum model is that it cannot be easily applied to all content areas making it challenging for the teachers to develop proper curriculum for students of all backgrounds. Moreover, the weakness of the model is that it cannot be applied to provide teaching to non-gifted students making it difficult to be used ion curriculum development in inclusive educational settings (Rusman and Rohman, 2017). For those seeking education dissertation help, understanding such models can provide a structured approach to designing educational programs and evaluating their effectiveness.

Tyler's curriculum development model mentions that curriculum planners are required to determine objectives of learning by collecting data from the sources such as learners, subject matter and contemporary life of the students. The model mentions that after determining the objectives, they are to be refined through the philosophical and psychological screen. The objectives which pass through the screen are now to be regarded as instructional objectives. The four fundamental questions asked under Tyler's model for curriculum development includes the nature of educational purpose wish to be attained by the school, the educational learning experiences required to accomplish the purposes, the way the educational experiences are to be organised and determine whether or not the educational purposes identified are attained properly (Wraga, 2017). The advantage of using Tyler’s model is that it allows learning objectives to be clearly stated allowing the teachers to determine the way a good lesson is to be initiated. In addition, the model allows active participation of the learner to be included in the curriculum development (Voogt et al. 2019). The other advantage of using Tyler’s model is that it allows systematic guidance to the teachers regarding the way curriculum is to be planed and it aims to improve the student’s behaviour as a part of teaching activity (Wang, 2016). Thus, the use of the model allows the students to develop better academic skills as well as gather improved behaviour skills. The strength of Tyler’s model is that it can be applied in all form of learning areas which allows the teachers to have easy understanding regarding the appropriateness of the content of a subject along with the teaching activities and methods on the basis of objective evaluation (Newlyn, 2016).

The criticism regarding Tyler’s curriculum development model is that it leads to constant re-evaluation of the learning objectives as they are based on the society and needs of the students. This creates difficulty for the educators to construct effective objectives for the curriculum as they do not have such enough of time to be spent to continuously change the objectives. The other criticism regarding the model informs that it restricts the development of curriculum to student of certain skills and knowledge (Yusof et al. 2018). The further criticism regarding Tyler’s model is that it reduces the creativity level of the teachers along with their flexibility in the classroom. The model results the teachers ignore the unintended learning outcomes that in turn limit the ingenuity and inquiry intention of the teachers (Tjong et al. 2016). This leads the teacher to face rigidity in making curriculum development as they are unable to modify the lesson plans which are to be incorporated for encountering unexpected events. The weakness of Tyler’s model is that it leads the teacher to develop curriculum plans by thinking the intended outcomes which makes the intention of the curriculum to be developed in an explicit manner rather than being implicit (Stremmel et al. 2019). The intention during making of curriculum development is required to be explicit in nature as it leads the teacher to inform students regarding the way to resolve problems in creative manner. Thus, the implicit intention leads the learning opportunity of the students to be restricted through the use of this model (Miller, 2018).

Explaining ways in which the theories and models related to curriculum development is implemented in own area of specialism

The Taba’s model is used in own area of specialism that is acting as the art teacher in school for curriculum development by following each of the seven steps mentioned in the model. The diagnosis of needs of the learner is the first step in the model where the achievements to be made are diagnosed along with student as learners and the problems to be faced in curriculum are diagnosed (Ndlovu et al. 2019). Thus, by applying the model in this step the skills of students are diagnosed where it is identified that many of the children do not have information regarding how a horse is to be drawn or the different ways it can be coloured to look real. The second stage of Taba's model is the formulation of learning objectives (Kern, 2016). In this stage, in the area of specialism the learning objectives are identified based on the diagnosed needs of the children. The objectives include showing students regarding the way to sketch a horse, informing children through video and images regarding the way a horse looks like, mentioning different colour of the horses and showing hand-drawn picture of horses. The third stage is selection of learning content where the nature of content to be used for the curriculum of the students is mentioned (Little, 2017). In this stage, the learning content considered to be used in area of specialism is video and real images of horses along with hand-drawn images of horses previously done by students.

The fourth stage is organising the learning content in such a way so that effective education to the students can be provided in a systematic manner (Mitchell, 2016). Thus, in this stage, in the area of specialism, while working as a art teacher, it was ensured that at first real images of horses are to be shown to children to let them understand the way a horse looks and then a sketch is to shown to them to make them understand regarding the way horse is to be drawn. Later, the students are to be mentioned regarding the colour they can use on their sketches to make it look like a perfect hand-drawn picture of the horse. The fifth stage is selecting the learning experiences to determine the way learning content is to be educated to the student (Mitchell, 2016). Thus, in this stage, while acting as art teacher the students were analysed to understand their previous experiences regarding drawing a horse so that based on it the further lesson can be planned.

The sixth stage is organising the learning activities which is important to maintain continuous flow in learning (Mitchell, 2016). Thus, in this stage as the art teacher, it was determined the way learning activities regarding drawing a horse is to be arranged so that each of the students is able to draw a better picture at the end of the curriculum compared to the picture they have drawn in their first attempt. The seventh stage is evaluation of the curriculum plan for the students (Mitchell, 2016). Thus, at this stage, each of the students is to be asked to draw an image of the horse to examine to what extent and how many of the students are able to draw a proper picture of the horse.

Tyler's model informs that at the initial phase the education purpose required by the school to be attained is to be identified. For this purpose, the contemporary life of the student outside the school is to be determined (Kumral, 2016). Thus, as an art teacher, in this stage, the life of the students regarding what they are interested to draw while at home is identified. The second question highlighted in Tyler’s model is determining the learning experience to be provided to fulfil the purpose (Bron et al. 2016). In this phase, as an art teacher, I tried to identify the activities in the curriculum for the students to be planned regarding drawing based on their contemporary life so that they are able to become better artist in future. The third question is determining the way the educational experiences are to be organised (Buaklay et al. 2018). Thus, in this phase as an art teacher, I tried to determine the way activities of the curriculum is to be systematically planned to ensure better success for the students. Tyler's model at the last asks to determine whether or not the purpose is fulfilled (Widodo, 2017). Thus, in this stage, as an art teacher, I tried to determine the evaluation approaches to be used to determine to what extent the goal of making the students better artist is fulfilled.

Looking for further insights on Evaluating Achievement and Optimizing Success in Organizations and Sports? Click here.

References

Alsubaie, M.A., 2016. Curriculum Development: Teacher Involvement in Curriculum Development. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(9), pp.106-107.

Aydın, B., Unver, M.M., Alan, B. and Sağlam, S., 2017. Combining the old and the new: Designing a curriculum based on the Taba model and the global scale of English. Dil ve Dilbilimi Çalışmaları Dergisi, 13(1), pp.304-320.

Bron, J., Bovill, C. and Veugelers, W.M.M.H., 2016. Curriculum negotiation: the relevance of Boomer's approach to the curriculum as a process, integrating student voice and developing democratic citizenship. Curriculum Perspectives, 36(1), pp.15-27.

Buaklay, N., Pimdee, P., Pupat, P. and Klinhorm, L., 2018. Development of a Curriculum to Enhance the Characteristics of the Future Teaching Professions of Undergraduate Students in Thailand. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 9(6), pp.213-223.

Kern, D.E., 2016. A six-step approach to curriculum development. P. Thomas, D. Kern, M., Hughes, & B. Chen, Curriculum development for medical education, pp.5-9.

Kumral, O., 2016. A Trial for Curriculum Development: The Effect of Educational Philosophy Curriculum on the Attitudes towards Course and Educational Views. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 4(3), pp.174-188.

Kumral, O., 2016. A Trial for Curriculum Development: The Effect of Educational Philosophy Curriculum on the Attitudes towards Course and Educational Views. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 4(3), pp.174-188.

Little, C., 2017. Designing and Implementing Concept-Based Curriculum. In Curriculum for High Ability Learners (pp. 43-59). Springer, Singapore.

Miller, J.L., 2018. Curriculum theory: A recent history. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 1(1). pp.23-78.

Mitchell, B., 2016. Curriculum Construction and Implementation. International Journal of Liberal Art and Social Science, 4(4), pp.45-56.

Ndlovu, C., James, A. and Govender, N., 2019. Towards an IK-SCIE integrative model, A theoretical reflection on the agricultural college curriculum in Zimbabwe. Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, 35(1).

Newlyn, D., 2016. Traditional curriculum theory: its place in the development of law units. Asian Journal of Education and e-Learning, pp.25-29.

Newlyn, D., 2016. Traditional curriculum theory: its place in the development of law units. Asian Journal of Education and e-Learning, pp.25-29.

Rusman, R. and Rohman, A., 2017. Development of Training Curriculum in Improving Community-Based Geological Hazard Mitigation Competency. Mimbar: Jurnal Sosial dan Pembangunan, 33(2), pp.416-425.

Stremmel, A.J., Burns, J.P., Nganga, C. and Bertolini, K., 2019. COUNTERING THE ESSENTIALIZED DISCOURSE OF CURRICULUM. Curriculum in Early Childhood Education: Re-examined, Reclaimed, Renewed, p.177.

Tjong, Y., Warnars, H.L.H.S. and Adi, S., 2016, November. Designing Knowledge Management model for curriculum development process: A case study in Bina Nusantara University. In 2016 International Conference on Information Management and Technology (ICIMTech) (pp. 17-22). IEEE.

Voogt, J., Pieters, J. and Roblin, N.P., 2019. Collaborative Curriculum Design in Teacher Teams: Foundations. In Collaborative Curriculum Design for Sustainable Innovation and Teacher Learning (pp. 5-18). Springer, Cham.

Wang, V.C., 2016. Instructional Leadership in Light of Ralph Tyler’s Model. Educational Leadership and Organizational Management: Linking Theories to Practice, p.319.

Widodo, H.P., 2017. Approaches to needs analysis in ESP curriculum development. The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, 6(1), pp.127-146.

Wraga, W.G., 2017. Understanding the Tyler rationale: Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction in historical context. Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, 4(2), pp.227-252.

Yusof, R., Yin, K.Y., Norwani, N.M. and Jaafar, H., 2018. Conceptualizing Curriculum Evaluation in Education Degree Programmes in Higher Education Institutions. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(6), pp.1020-1033.