Frameworks in Curriculum Development

A curriculum framework is a subject-specific document that presents parameters to assist in the development of a curriculum and identifies learning outcomes for what schoolchildren are expected to know and be able to do as they relate to the knowledge and skills of a particular discipline. It provides direction to local districts and schools as they develop their curricula.

A framework is not a curriculum guide nor is it designed to be used as an instrument for the delivery of instruction. It can be used as a major resource for the development of regional or schools' curricula, instruction, and performance assessments and for professional development. Standards of achievement for subject areas are generally included in curriculum frameworks. Thus, curriculum frameworks provide the basis for teaching, learning, and assessing in a particular subject area or course. They also provide a framework for further development and implementation in areas such as student evaluation, staff development, and learning resources. They are developed to initiate discussions concerning curriculum integration within and across classrooms. Each subject-specific curriculum framework mainly includes an overview of student learning outcomes for each grade.

There are numerous approaches to frameworks for curriculum development. From a technical perspective, frameworks that identify procedures to develop curriculum include Ralph Tyler's Tyler Rationale, Hilda Taba's seven steps, Decker Walker's naturalistic model, Elliot Eisner's artistic approach, and Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe's backward design as just a few commonly mentioned models. These approaches simply provide teachers, researchers, curriculum specialists, policy makers, and school administrators with methods of studying and researching fundamental questions of curriculum development and research.

Tyler's model, nevertheless, may be the most widely recognized. Tyler proposes four basic frameworks for curriculum development, including purpose(s) of the school, educational experiences related to purposes, organization of experiences, and evaluation of purposes. Following Tyler, Taba developed a more complex model that elaborates Tyler's four principles and expands them to seven components: rationale, aims, content selection, content organization, learning experience selection, learning experience organization, and evaluation. The frameworks of curriculum design, as outlined by Tyler and Taba, propose that the curriculum development effort should be guided by information gained from industry, the students, educators, and society as a whole.

Curriculum frameworks give teachers a common starting point for what students should learn about the subject covered. The frameworks offer a basic structure for how and what to teach in education programs. They describe the components with which each program and teacher can design a curriculum that is relevant to the needs of a particular group of learners. They suggest examples of hands-on, real-world activities and classroom performance assessments.

The development of curriculum frameworks includes the revision of subject matters, evaluation of course content, and the development of new programs and courses that more closely reflect individual and societal needs and contemporary workforce requirements. The performance standards included within a curriculum framework aim to help ensure ease in a student's transition to another grade in his or her program.