Curriculum and Diversity, K–12

Curriculum Components

According to Peter Oliva, George Posner, Alan Rudnitsky, and Philip Jackson, this instructional plan typically includes five mandatory components:

• Rationale, or a statement about why students should learn a specific body of knowledge or skills in particular ways. This justification explains the importance and benefits of the proposed learning substance and processes for students, society, and the subject of study itself.
• Goals and objectives are expected changes in student behavior as a result of the planned instructional interventions. In other words, what students should know and be able to do after having been taught. In current nomenclature, goals and objectives are analogous to standards, or essential learning outcomes.
• Content is the information that is essential for achieving goals and objectives. It comes in many different forms, including facts, opinions, experiences, thoughts, perceptions, feelings, values, beliefs, and behaviors.
• Learning activities and experiences are the opportunities provided for students to engage with curriculum content to practice the intended goals and objectives. These activities may be teacher designed and directed, student initiated and self-directed, tightly controlled or loosely governed by teachers, routine habits of instructional engagement or special events, formal or informal, or a combination of these.
• Evaluation is the determination of the degree to which students have achieved the intended goals and objectives, and the overall quality of the entire curriculum. The tools and techniques used in evaluation can be designed and administered by teachers at the classroom level, or by educational agencies at the district, state, or national level. Student evaluations can be criterion-referenced (such as teacher-made lesson and unit tests, and behavioral observations), or large-scale standardized performance assessments conducted annually or at other specified multiyear intervals, such as standards tests administered by state departments and national education agencies.

Many curriculum scholars group these curriculum components into two broad categories based on their primarily functions and inherent characteristics. Rationales, goals, and objectives are considered substantive components because they identify what should be taught. Content, learning activities, and evaluation are syntactical or instrumental curriculum components because they indicate how and the extent to which expected outcomes should be taught.

Other curriculum design components—including time lines, scope and sequence charts, and resources for elaboration and extensions of basic information for different ability levels—are optional. They may or may not be included depending on the wishes of the designers, and the existential distance from the classroom where curriculum construction actually occurs. The greater the distance (such as commercial publishers), the more likely these “supplements” will be identified specifically. Local designers tend to embed them into the regular curriculum components.

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