PME 810

  Using Canva as our digital platform, May and I created a visual representation to showcase the relationships of different philosophical foundations, curriculum conceptions, and curricular designs. Collaboratively, we thought of three guiding questions which helped to focus and organize our big ideas on the different relationships.   The questions are as follows: What is curriculum and its purpose?  How does philosophy connect with curricular conceptions? How do curricular conceptions dominate curriculum designs? There are also curriculum considerations that we have addressed such as scope, sequence, continuity, and integration. Different curriculum conceptions influence curriculum designs including subject-centered, subject-processed, learner-based, and society culture. Finally, at the end of the flowchart and slides, our takeaways have addressed and responded to our earlier guiding questions. We hope that we have succinctly delineated the relationships between the key ...

Various conceptions of curriculum continue to be used over time or are considered to be mainstream approaches, while others are not. These conflicting ideas surrounding curriculum have led to changes in dominant approaches and the evolution of curriculum over time. As a fairly new teacher, I have always heard my seniors talk about “the Harris years” and its impact on education in Ontario, so I had a limited understanding of the role of politics in the development of curriculum. In my educational program, I was always taught to follow the curriculum precisely, but I now have a deeper understanding of the role of inquiry and reflection in understanding the complexity of curriculum and how it changes over time. Al-Mousa (2013) states, “curriculum development and changes are based on understanding the foundations of the desired curriculum” (p. 21). The different conceptions of education emerge through a consideration regarding the desired content, goals, and organization that educational p...