Curriculum

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Many different curricula exist. Curriculum may include any experience. It may also be conceived in a relationship, and it is this phenomenon that is the new paradigm view of curriculum.

In education, a curriculum (plural curricula) is the set of courses and their contents offered by an institution such as a school or university. In some cases, a curriculum may be partially or entirely determined by an external body (such as the National Curriculum for England in English schools). In the US, the basic curriculum is established by each state with the individual school districts adjusting it to their desires. Each state, however, builds its curriculum relying heavily on the input of national groups selected by the United States Department of Education, for example the National Council of Math Teachers for mathematics instruction. In Australia each state's Education Department sets the various curricula.

Note that the term curriculum may relate to the range of courses that students can select from (as defined above) but may also relate to a specific programme. In the latter context, the curriculum describes the collective teaching, learning and assessment materials that are available for that particular course.

A crucial part of the curriculum is the definition of the course objectives which are often expressed in terms of learning outcomes and normally includes the assessment strategy for the program. These learning outcomes (and assessments) are often grouped into units (or modules) and the curriculum, therefore, comprises a collection of such units, each specialising on a specific part of the curriculum. So a typical curriculum would include units on communications, numeracy, information technology, inter-personal skills together with more specialised provision.

In K9, the curriculum's scope and sequence must be "mapped" against the scope and sequence of previous and subsequent years as well as against other subjects.