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Curriculum Development
A Guide for Educators

First Edition
  • Bill Boyle - Education Consultant, The World Bank
  • Marie Charles - Director, Many Faces in Teaching Research Organisation [MFIT]


June 2016 | 232 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

Curriculum and curriculum issues are at the heart of current debates about schooling, pedagogy and learning. This book will enable practitioners, scholars and academics to understand how to re-design or to suggest changes to curriculum structure, shape and content. Grounded in theory and philosophy, the book also offers practical help in grasping this controversial area.

Inside, the authors:

  • provide practical planning templates
  • support and provoke analysis, discussion and experimentation
  • include definitions of key terms and reflective questions
  • incorporate practical examples and case material based on their work worldwide on curriculum design and evaluation.

 
Introduction
 
Chapter 1 - Curriculum Evolution
 
Chapter 2 -Developing a National Curriculum: Consultation
 
Chapter 3 -Curriculum Development: Case Specific
 
Chapter 4 -Curriculum Reviewing Criteria: Case Specific
 
Chapter 5 -Science Curriculum: Case Specific
 
Chapter 6 -Early Years Foundation Curriculum: Case Specific
 
Chapter 7 -Balancing Raising Standards with a Well-designed and Broad Curriculum
 
Chapter 8 -Integrating Subjects and Themes
 
Chapter 9 -Curriculum Construction
 
Chapter 10 -Curriculum and Assessment
 
Chapter 11 -Assessment and Testing
 
Chapter 12 -National Curriculum and Summative Testing

This interesting book provides those involved in curriculum development, enactment and evaluation with a useful overview and checklist of important themes that can support their work. These themes are informed by the author’s involvement in a range of curriculum development experiences in the UK and elsewhere. Emphasis is placed on the broader goals of education, with a clear warning on the invidious impact of educational reforms that focus narrowly on attainment standards.

Jim Ryder
University of Leeds

This provided a clear overview of the considerations that need to be taken into account when developing appropriate and relevant curricula to support teaching and learning.

Mrs Eleanor Power
School of Education (Clifton), Nottingham Trent University
July 16, 2020

Interesting reading but not ready for adopting for trainee teachers' use.

Ms Maria McArdle
School of Education, Bedfordshire University
March 30, 2016

Fairly good overview.

Professor Ewald Mittelstaedt
Engineering and Business Managment, South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences
May 1, 2016

Excellent book for any student studying Curriculum Development

Mr David lawson
Faculty Of Health, Edge Hill University
June 6, 2016

A systematic approach that facilitates the intended work and reduce the time consumed in adopting the process.

Dr Mohab Abou-Elkawam
Lairdside Maritime Centre, Liverpool John Moores University
November 23, 2016

This book enables practitioners, scholars and academics to understand how to re-design or to suggest changes to curriculum structure, shape and content. Grounded in theory and philosophy, the book also offers practical help in grasping this controversial area.

Miss Syreeta Charles-Cole
Education, Carshalton College
May 20, 2016

the book is really very good for this kind of courses. Some of the ideas are implemented and for the time being it seems they are producing good results.

Professor zaharin strahilov markov
defence advanced research institute, national defence college
October 21, 2016

The publisher’s promotional description of this book caught my eye: as a person tasked with developing new curricula in the field of distance-mode tertiary theological education, I assumed that it would offer me the conceptual and practical tools I need.

Has it done so? Yes and no.

No: What the publisher’s blurb didn’t make clear was that this book is primarily about England’s National Curriculum for primary and secondary schools, with some case-study references to national school curricula in other countries. So a lot of its content was, for me, very unfamiliar and (on the face of it) irrelevant. However…

Yes: Through the course of the book, principles and practices began to cohere, even through the sometimes thick fog of acronyms, technical terms, and long sentences. Once that began to happen, I could relate it to my own contexts (South Africa, tertiary theological education, distance-mode delivery).

For me, the most useful parts of the book were Chapter 4 (‘Curriculum Reviewing Criteria’) with its template for creating, developing, and reviewing curricula; and Chapter 12 (‘National Curriculum and Summative Testing’), in which the book’s hitherto rather veiled critique of political ‘meddling’ in curriculum and assessment processes burst into the open, in its strong advocacy of a restored focus on formative assessment as critical to quality learning. Amen to that!

Despite the book’s rather depressed conclusion about the prospects of significant change in England’s national school curriculum, I have found much – particularly in the last few chapters – to encourage and stimulate. It probably won’t become a widely-read text in our college; but I hope to see its insights find their way into how we design and carry out our academic work.

The value of this book would have been greater if the following issues had been addressed:

• The text needed closer copy-editing: the lack of punctuation (for example, on page 168 one sentence runs for eight full lines without a single comma or other punctuation mark) often makes it turgid and forced me to re-read many passages just to understand them. There are also a number of typos.

• A list of acronyms would have been very useful.

• The Appendix seems not to contain what the text says it does (e.g., on page 151).

• Some in-text references that I checked at random seem to have been omitted from the list of references.

Mike McCoy
Programme Developer
Theological Education by Extension College, Johannesburg, South Africa

Mr Michael McCoy
Religion , Theological Education by Extension College
July 31, 2016

Used to support our own knowldege as we revaildate the course with the NMC

Mrs Amanda Hutcherson
St Bart's Schl of Nursing & Midwifery, City University
September 27, 2016

For instructors

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