Emily Kline
EDCI 510 – Summer I 2002
Curriculum Workbook

Abounding Definitions of Curriculum

Three Definitions of Curriculum:

1. all the experiences children have under the guidance of teachers (Caswell and Campbell)

2. a body of material to be worked on, processed, and made sense of, by students (Schlechty).

3. all planned learning outcomes for which the school is accountable (Popham and Baker)

Similarities and Differences

As we have learning in EDCI 510 this summer, there are many different definitions of curriculum. Curriculum means something different to everyone – ranging from students’ opinions, teachers’ thoughts, government’s ideas, and school boards guidelines. There is a great deal of diversity in these definitions and one challenge that educators face is the convergence of these ideas. They are similar and different. They cover a broad spectrum of how learning is accomplished. This essay will focus upon the three above mentioned definitions of curriculum and how they can be compared to one another. All the experiences that students have under the guidance of teachers is one definition of curriculum, as defined by Caswell and Campbell. This means that everything that students do, see, learn in a classroom is the curriculum. This involves the advertised curriculum, for example in a kindergarten class, learning to count; hidden curriculum, how to interact with other students; and null curriculum, which would be what teachers don’t teach, perhaps religion in some cases. Basically, this definition says that everything that is done in a classroom, from experiments, assignments, even recess and snack time, combine to be the curriculum of a class. In contrast to this definition is the idea that curriculum is a body of material to be worked on, processed, and made sense of, by students, as defined by