Programs for Adult Learners

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Thus far, we have focused upon models and approaches for determining the purposes that curriculum should fulfill. Other decisions must be made about how to achieve stated purposes and how best to evaluate progress toward goals intended. The choice of emphasizing purpose and content as a first step in curriculum development is arbitrary. Alan Purves has been building curriculum for over twenty years. When was asked to think about the processes by which he developed and arranged materials to effect learning, he realized that existing models are a fine way to look at curriculum but that they don't tell a person how to proceed any more than a blueprint tells where to begin building a house. Purves knows that curriculum reflects the maker's view of the society, the people who are to be affected, and the nature of what is to be learned. However, he thinks the metaphor of a game is the best way to describe the process by which curriculum is built.

Rules for playing the curriculum game center on these pieces: legal constraints and administrative structure. Who is the decision maker in the institute the principal, the teacher, or some more remote body? How does the proposed curriculum fit with other curricula? Other pieces include teacher attitude and capacity, student interests, principles for sequencing activities, activities themselves, and the constraints of time and resources. Obviously, formulating objectives and anticipating possible outcomes are important pieces. Purves believes that the formulating of objectives and outcomes might take place at the same time as the selection and arrangement of materials, just as evaluation can take place during the course of devising the curriculum.

Curriculum is like a board game. J...

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...ol Systems for a Non-Rational World (Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1986).
4. Thomas McCarthy, ed., The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981).
5. Alan C. Purves, "The Thought Fox and Curriculum Building", in Strategies for Curriculum Development, eds. Jon Schaffarzick and David Hampson (Berkeley: McCutchan, 1975.).
6. Brandt, Ronald and Tyler, Ralph W. "Goals and Objectives" in Fundamental Curriculum Decisions, ASCD Yearbook, ed. Fenwick W. English. Alexandria, VA: 1983.
7. Clatthorn, Allan A. Curriculum Renewal. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1987.
8. Kaufman, Roger. "Assessing Needs" in Introduction to Performance Technology, ed. R. Smith. Washington, DC: National Society for Performance and Motivation, 1986.
9. Mathematical Science Education Board Curriculum Framework for K-12 Mathematics. Washington, DC: Mathematical Science Education Board, 1987.

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