OVERVIEW OF THE

BASIC PHASES OF
CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT
PREPARED BY:
MISS PHYLLA LYNNE JUNE G. MAGALLANES
THE BASIC PHASES OF
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Curriculum Development as a process, is the
continuous adapting of the curriculum to the
changing needs of students, teachers and society
(Dunne, 1987).
People have attached different meanings to the
word curriculum, and as there are diversified
definitions for the word, there are also plenty of
models that describe the process of curriculum
development. However, the following four basic
steps or phases are found to be consistently present
in existing models:
CURRICULUM PLANNING
CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION/DESIGN
CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
CURRICULUM EVALUATION
CURRICULUM PLANNING
This phase lays the foundation for all the curriculum
development steps.
The steps in this phase include:
Identify Issue/Problem/Need
The need for curriculum development usually emerges from a
concern about a major issue or problem of one or more target
audience.
This sections help form an issue statement that will serve to identify
the members of a development team and the scope of the
curriculum content.
Form Curriculum Development Team
In this section, topics include (1) the roles and functions of team
members, (2) a process for selecting members of the curriculum
development team, and (3) principles of collaboration and
teamwork.
Conduct Needs Assessment and Analysis
There are two phases in the needs assessment process. The first is
procedures for conducting a needs assessment. A number of
techniques are aimed toward learning what is needed and
by whomrelative to the identified issue.
Analysis, the second part of this needs assessment step, describes
techniques on how to use the data and the results of the information
gathered. (El Sawi, 1996).
CURRICULUM PLANNING
What role do teachers play in curriculum planning?
Teachers know their students' needs better than others
involved in the curriculum process. While state or
federal standards often dictate the skills covered by
the curriculum, a teacher can provide insight into the
types of materials, activities and specific skills that
need to be included. Teachers from multiple grade-
levels may collaborate to identify skills students need
at each level and ensure that the curriculum
adequately prepares students to advance to the next
grade-level and to meet the standards (Zeiger, n.d.).
CURRICULUM PLANNING
If you fail to plan, you
are planning to fail!
Benjamin Franklin
CURRICULUM
ORGANIZATION/DESIGN
This phase determines intended outcomes, the
content, and the methods.
The steps in this phase include:
State Intended Outcomes
An intended outcome states what the learner will be able to do as a
result of participating in the curriculum activities.
This section includes: (1) a definition of intended outcomes, (2) the
components of intended outcomes (condition, performance, and
standards), (3) examples of intended outcomes, and (4) an overview
of learning behaviors.
Select Content
At this point, the primary questions are: "If the intended outcome is
to be attained, what will the learner need to know? What
knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours will need to be acquired
and practiced?
The scope (breadth of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours)
and the sequence (order) of the content are also discussed.
Design Experiential Methods
After the content is selected, the next step is to design activities
(learning experiences) to help the learner achieve appropriate
intended outcomes. An experiential learning model and its
components (i.e., experience, share, process, generalize, and
apply) are discussed in this section. (El Sawi, 1996).
CURRICULUM
ORGANIZATION/DESIGN
What role do teachers play in curriculum design?
Because teachers must use the curriculum, they
should have input in its creation. A teacher can gauge
whether an activity will fit into a specified time frame
and whether it will engage students. If multiple
teachers will use the curriculum, allow as many of
them as possible to provide input during the creation
stage. As teachers provide input, they will gain
ownership in the final product and feel more confident
that the curriculum was created with their concerns
and the needs of their particular students in mind
(Zeiger, n.d.).
CURRICULUM
ORGANIZATION/DESIGN
"Design is a funny
word. Some people
think design means
how it looks. But of
course, if you dig
deeper, it's really how
it works."
Steve Jobs
CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
The steps in this phase include:
Produce Curriculum Product
Once the content and experiential methods have been agreed
upon, the actual production of curriculum materials begins. This
section includes: 1) suggestions for finding and evaluating existing
materials; 2) evaluation criteria; and 3) suggestions for producing
curriculum materials.
Test and Revise Curriculum
This step includes suggestions to select test sites and conduct a
formative evaluation of curriculum materials during the production
phase.
Recruit and Train Facilitators
It is a waste of resources to develop curriculum materials if
adequate training is not provided for facilitators to implement it.
Implement Curriculum
This is the actual implementation of the designed
curriculum in the selected testing sites.
(El Sawi, 1996).
CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
What role do teachers play in curriculum design?
Teachers must implement the curriculum in their own
classrooms, sticking to the plan that has taken so
much time, careful planning and effort to create.
When a teacher fails to properly implement a strong
curriculum, she risks not covering standards or failing to
implement effective practices in the classroom. That
does not mean a teacher cannot make minor
changes. In fact, a strong curriculum is designed to
allow a teacher to be flexible and to insert a few
personalized components or choose from among a
selection of activities (Zeiger, n.d.).
CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
"The most difficult
thing is the decision to
act, the rest is merely
tenacity. The fears are
paper tigers. You can
do anything you
decide to do. You
can act to change
and control your life;
and the procedure,
the process is its own
reward."
Amelia Earhart
CURRICULUM EVALUATION
The steps in this phase include:
Design Evaluation Strategies
Two types of evaluation, formative and summative, are used during
curriculum development. Formative evaluations are used during the
needs assessment, product development, and testing steps.
Summative evaluations are undertaken to measure and report on
the outcomes of the curriculum. This step reviews evaluation
strategies and suggests simple procedures to produce valid and
reliable information. A series of questions are posed to guide the
summative evaluation process and a sample evaluation format is
suggested.
Reporting and Securing Resources
The final element in an evaluation strategy is "delivering the pay off
(i.e., getting the results into the hands of people who can use them).
In this step, suggestions for what and how to report to key
shareholders, especially funding and policy decision makers, are
provided and a brief discussion on how to secure resources for
additional programming. (El Sawi, 1996).
CURRICULUM EVALUATION
What role do teachers play in curriculum evaluation?
Reflecting on a curriculum allows teachers and others
involved in the process to find any weaknesses in the
curriculum and attempt to make it better. Teachers
reflect on curriculum in multiple ways, such as keeping
a journal as they implement the curriculum, giving
students surveys and reviewing the results or analyzing
assessment data and individual student performance.
Not only can reflection serve to improve a specific
curriculum, it may guide the creation of new
curriculum (Zeiger, n.d.).
CURRICULUM EVALUATION
The only man who
behaves sensibly is my
tailor; he takes my
measurements anew
every time he sees
me, while all the rest
go on with their old
measurements and
expect me to fit
them.
George Bernard
Shaw
We are more than role
models for our students; we
are leaders and teachers of
both an academic curriculum
and a social curriculum.
- Patricia Sequeira Belvel
(2009)
REFERENCES
Belvel, P. (2009). Rethinking Classroom Management:
Strategies for Prevention, Intervention, and Problem
Solving. Corwin: Thousand Oaks, California. Retrieved
from http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=p-
ygIOrjbdAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_sum
mary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Dunne, T. (1987). Curriculum Development and the World
Food Issue: A Case Study. Trocaire: Ireland. Retrieved
from http://www.trocaire.org/resources/tdr-
article/curriculum-development-and-world-food-issue-
case-study
El Sawi, C. (1996). Curriculum Development Guide:
Population Education for Non-Formal Education
Programs of Out-of-School Rural Youth. FAO Corporate
Document Repository: Rome. Retrieved from
www.fao.org/docrep/009/ah650e/ah650e03.htm
Zeiger, S. (n.d.) Role of Teachers in the Curriculum
Process. Chron. Retrieved from
http://work.chron.com/role-teachers-curriculum-
process-5344.html