Emerging curriculum

In this autobiographical narrative study I consider how curriculum, in particular the mathematical curriculum, emerged for me throughout my life. <br></br><br></br>My aims with this study are: <br></br><br></br>- to show how my concept of curriculum has emerged and changed over time.<br></br><br></br>- to encourage others to envisage curriculum in a range of different, but complementary ways. <br></br><br></br>I started with a <i>naive</i> view of curriculum-the <i>received</i> curriculum. While teaching this changed. I began to appreciate <i>levels</i> of curriculum (national, school and classroom), to realize that within the constraints of a <i>national</i> curriculum I had professional freedom and to understand how students <i>negotiate</i> curriculum. I also became aware of curriculum as a continually changing <i>process</i> rather than a <i>product</i>. <br></br><br></br>As an education officer in the curriculum development division, my views evolved further. I juggled with the conflict between <i>all planning for the classroom</i> and curriculum as government policy. My understanding grew about the <i>assessed</i> curriculum, the <i>global</i> curriculum, the development process (based on a <i>research-development-dissemination</i> model) and the notion that a curriculum should operationalize educational aims. I realized that contradictory perspectives on curriculum needed to co-exist.<br></br><br></br> In the last 15 years I worked in tertiary institutions. My scholarship focussed on curriculum-related matters. My view of curriculum became <i>multi-dimensional</i> and <i>complex</i>, with associated documents and development being inseparable from curriculum; and I formulated a model in which curriculum, development and other influencing activities are envisaged as a <i>complex living system</i>.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

The Open University

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Begg, Andrew John Cameron

Language dc:language

en