Entry 2: Reynolds & Webber, Macdonald, & Beauchamp

 

All three Entry 2 articles have the purpose of defining curriculum, curriculum theory, and the historical development of curriculum/curriculum theory. All articles describe curriculum as an ever changing and intricate process or theory with many considerations. Curriculum is described as "statements" in each article stating that the statements change constantly. As an educator for the past 22 year I have seen many overlaps in how curriculum is thought of in schools and how curriculum is used and even how it is changed. Moreover, I was able to make many connections to the content in the texts. 

I wonder if schools continue to operate in the ways they do because there is really not yet a deep understanding of curriculum theory and how it has been applied over the years. Moreover, schools/districts seem to go with the flow and change with the change of educational movements and theories over time. I see and work for companies to review curriculum like EdReports that state that "Curriculum Matters". However who is creating the rubrics that deem a curriculum is well written?

I honestly feel that curriculum might work best if it is created with research based  instructional practices using the lenses of a culturally relevance. When we design curriculums with a population of students in mind the curriculum will align more with the needs of the students. I wonder should teachers be the ones designing curriculum? Are they shifted to semi-skill technicians rather than professionals when they follow curriculums word for work out of a teachers manual. I do feel that curriculum can serve as a model or as a means of professional learning for educators. Unfortunately, however many times teachers and administrators do not have a choice or voice in the curriculum that they teach or are told to teach. It makes me wonder are we turning teachers into "yes" people and not allowing them to think for themselves. Perhaps sharing such knowledge like we have read in the three articles this week should be shared with teachers and administrators before  they go into the field so that they can grapple with how decisions are made before really experiencing it.  Knowledge and awareness are power, this is true for curriculum, curriculum theory, and curriculum dis/positions. Perhaps Reynolds and Webber are on the right track. 

Chapter 1 Introduction: Curriculum Dis/positions (Reynolds, Webber)

• There are many ideas of what education is...it's paradigms, foundations, research and problems.
• Reynolds and Webber seek to look though different lenses in this chapter
• Deleuze (1995) states that while many seek and desert opportunity, education in reality provides opportunity for small number of people and we continue at the basic foundations to repeat this process. This is the philosophy that continues in curriculum research there is nothing new the a continuous cycle of debate. 
• Reynolds and Webber want to refuse this Deleuze's thought through questioning, debating, and seeking to think of curriculum as a dis/position rather than absolute positions or universal standpoints. I like this thought....as we must consider perspectives and purposes of curriculum...back to the question Whose knowledge is of most worth?  
• Finding new solutions can help us better understand purposes of education. 
• Questioning curriculum helps us see curriculum through history and the debates of it be a this or that concept. When we use look through curriculum through multiple and different lenses we understand in a different way.
• Some argue that looking at curriculum multiplicities causes the this or that mindset (disarray) and we continue to stay in the same place. Reynolds and Webber suggest that the disarray is actually a strength of curriculum studies.
• offentlichkeit (pubic or finding a public)
• Expanding curriculum theory requires grappling with ideologies. (Substituting AND for IS)
• Empiricism: the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. Stimulated by the rise of experimental science, it developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, expounded in particular by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Humm
• Use of the metaphors soar vertically like a bird or slither horizontally like a snake based on Deleuze's philosophy of multiplicities.  

Issue 1: What is curriculum studies research?

• This is a question of power where the marginalized opinions are silenced based on knowledge.
• It becomes a political question. Some want to keep the statue quo and others want to open a line of flight when grappling with the question.
• There is much disequilibrium around the question. 
• 1st Criticisms of alternate modes of research is that they are not research. ( a political tool of dismissal) Some ideas were not research but rather educational critics sharing information on what they think instead of research. 
• We must be open to new ideologies of curriculum and not stay stagnant. 
• 2nd Criticism of alternate modes of research is that this type of research lacks rigor and scholarship. Definitions of rigor vary. Research is politically, ideologically, or discursively (related to discourse) determined. 
• Discourse can be a means of control, exclusiveness and not open to all ( or rather repressive: inhibiting or restraining the freedom of a person or group of people.)
• We must be open to analyzing discourse
• Disciplinary, reform and management techniques have been developed into cognitive and persuasive control systems and positive reproduction in all realms of educations, educational research formulas, etc.
• WOW! Thought provoking: 
  
• Power in education research and research in general should continued to be grappled with.

Dis/positioning Research

• Curriculum studies is a field that can dis/position research
• Since reconceptualization new flights of thought have been discussed but also ignored due to benefit of professionalism as an ideology in the academy
• Choosing to look at topics of curriculum through its lens has been dominated by looking a topics through theoretical methodologies. 
• Metaphor of nomads choosing to do things differently. ...moving from place to place
• Research should be connected to larger sociopolitical situations of our times and children...Moreover, culturally relevant. We must be skeptical that we think in this way so that we don't become a part of the status quo.

The Chapters

• nomadic orientation to curriculum scholarship of difference
• curriculum studies can center on differences...healthy, fluid, and nomadic
• Chp 2 focus is on corporations
• Think in the AND instead of IS. Thinking in multiplicity is the basis for curriculum dis/positions. 
• All lines of flight...all curriculum dis/positions are temporary
• sets the stage for thinking
• Chp 3: 
• moves from thinking of education for the benefit of  individuals that we think of ourselves as dividuals (divided among or shared)
• technology as a tool for social justice rather than an either/or position
• Chp 4:
• Use of technology in education furthers a globalized market of economy and closes down the voices of the marginalized
• What is this message sending?
• people want technology to take over socialization which has been a primary factor in education
• mythinformation concerns public education
• Chp 5:
• School violence and shootings
• Our response to it through the lens of Christianity or doing the moral thing
• re/constructionalize the way we think of it
• Chp 6: 
• the un/home of education
• exploring roots and spirituality in education
• curriculum as a theological and autobiographical text
• Chp 7:
• Character education is viewed as a means of making everyone the same
• Curriculum vita: always moving beyond what has been learned
• Chp 8: 
• hermeneutics (the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts)
• dance curriculum and dance as a metaphor for a line of flight in curriculum
• Chp 9:
• focused on informal education
• Education (especially for black women) does not occur in the content of school but rather in the environments in which they live daily and in relationships.
• Chp 10:
• exploration of the work of Wen-Song Hwu
• curriculum is paradoxical (absurd/contradictory) and nomadic and always transient
• rethink curriculum and do so poststructurally

Nomadic Multiplicities in Curriculum Studies:

• soar vertically
• get out, move though the middle without roads, remaining undefined or defining
• metaphor of a farm
• hope
• hope keeps the field alive for us...a continuing conversation of curriculum

Final Reflections: WOW! What a challenging and thought provoking chapter. I've learned new terms, new ways to reflect and am filled with hope as we grapple with curriculum dis/positions.  

Curriculum Theory (Mcdonald)

• Curriculum and curriculum theory does not have generally accepted criteria in which to distinguish it from other educational writings. Moreover, this confusion or lack of criteria causes problems in differentiating the two.
• Theory is based on a clearly related set of phenomenon However curriculum is far and wide. Some curriculum theory are statements or philosophies.
• There is also disagreement about the purpose of theorizing:
• The largest group sees theory as a framework for applied curriculum development and research and as a tool for the evaluation of curriculum development. It is not open to validation, but is more like a curriculum theory...theorized by untrained philosophers. 
• The younger and smaller group sees theory as a more conventional concept and scientific process that is conceptual in nature and used for validation and relationships among curriculums. It is more prescriptive in nature.
• The 3rd group looks at theory as a creative intellectual task looking for new ways (or more creative or artistic) for talking about curriculum.
• Some may look at curriculum theory through all three realms based on context and situations. 
• Hubener: languages used to describe curriculum primarily based on time and place
• Kliebard: out of phase cycles that are limited and based on the dominate production models of the past 50 years
• Bobbit & Tyler: controlling and prescriptive use of language grounded in technological rationale
• Smith & Moss: a more "state of the art" review of curriculum, has been used by most curriculum workers, not satisfactory as it accepts contemporary social values in determining "what" to teach
• The Concerns of Curriculum Theory Essentially curriculum theories are statements about what to teach and how to teach
• Knowledge Oriented Statements: Concerned with knowledge inside schooling, disciplines, social, human and personal qualities make curriculum decisions. (subject matter)
• Reality Oriented Statements: Focused on the nature of things as they are relevant to the consideration of curriculum in social , political, cultural , and personal contexts. (Disciplined centered, politically centered, conceptional, action based, language based, and values based curriculum) (social Phenomenon)
• Value Oriented Statements: several designs of curriculum, instructional designs, values of people vary and curriculums focus on priority of values (people as learners)
• The study of how to have a learning environment

Curriculum Theory: Chapter 4 Beauchamp

• Curriculum is a sub-set of education just like administration, instruction, assessment, etc.
• Curriculum has unique properties and functions in the set of other curriculum components  (CCC: Structure & Function)

• Curriculum theory explains ways the character of and relationships among the properties and unique functions of curriculum subset
• Chapter shares historical perspective
• This chapter discusses the definitions of curriculum and curriculum theory. It continues to share a historical perspective of curriculum and how it has changed through the years. It ends with more current thinking of curriculum and discussions of definitions, designs, sources and implementation of curriculum. Lastly, the chapter has several implications and consideration for the future of curriculum theory.

• Theory Processes in Curriculum
• Definitions and Theory Content
• Theory is a set of statements to communicate meaning of parts and the whole of an idea
• The statements have different purposes
• Curriculum theory is a set of statements giving purpose to a curriculum it's purposes, uses, evacuations, etc.
• Uses of curriculum:
• Curriculum as a phenomenon: a plan with intended outcomes
• Curriculum as a system or framework for which decisions are made
• implies a governed cluster of relationships which in return describes the phenomenon of curriculum
• Curriculum as a field of study to advance understanding
• The relationships among the uses help us understand curriculum and that curriculum theory is a sub-theory of educational theory
• Curriculum Theory Building Activities
• Descriptive and Prescriptive Definitions
• Classification of new Knowledge
• A systematic definition is still missing
• Inferential & Predictive Research
• The highest order of work for theorists
• Prediction is a special case of Inference to estimate the unknown
• Curriculum is an expression of prediction...curriculum developers and planners predict outcomes 
• Sub Theory Development and Development & uses of Models (So much seems like SEP's)
• procedures for building and planning curriculum and implementing curriculum
• Exemplars in Curriculum Thinking
• Early Curriculum Experts
• content in curriculum
• vocational curriculum
• function of school to prepare for adulthood
• shifted to focus on phycological behaviors of learners
• child centered vs. society centered
• first real "statements" of curriculum
• formal school vs. experiences as school
• building tasks vs. tasks themselves
• Later Developments
• qua (in the capacity of: building) theory
• Tyler: questions purposes of school, educational experiences aligned to purposes, organizing experiences based on purposes, attainment of purposes
• theory building in other domains of knowledge
• role of philosophy in curriculum theory
• failure to notice relationships of curriculum and programs
• models of curriculum became prevalent
• curriculum depicted as a part of a system of influence directed at students
• curriculum vs. teaching distinction
• Beauchamp discovers framework for curriculum theory or a schema for schooling
• Types of curriculum theory varied
• rational curriculum ,integrated curriculum
• 
  
• Emerging Status of Curriculum Thinking
• Curriculum Definitions -has been done but not well
• Sources of Curriculum Decisions- historical, social, political and cultural
• Curriculum Design Issues- should it be a written document or not?
• Issues in Curriculum Engineering-who is creating the curriculum?
• Theory Implications or generalizations
• begin with definition of events
• clear values and sources
• characteristics of curriculum design
• processes for making decisions and interrelationships
• continuous regeneration of curriculum decisions