Psychological Foundations of Curriculum

1. Psychological Foundations of
Curriculum

2. PSYCHOLOGY
Concerned with the question of how people
learn, and curriculum specialists ask how
psychology can contribute to the design and
delivery of curriculum.
It provides a basis for understanding the
teaching and learning process. Both processes are
essential to curriculum workers because the
curriculum has worth only when students learn
and gain knowledge.

3. the unifying element of the learning
process; it forms the basis for the
methods, materials, and activities of
learning, and provides many
curriculum decisions.

4. Questions of interest to psychologists and
curriculum specialists
• Why do learners respond as they do to teachers’
efforts?
• How do cultural experiences affect students’
learning?
• How should curriculum be organized to enhance
learning?
• What impact does the school culture have on
students’ learning?
• What is the optimal level of student participation
in learning the curriculum’s various contents?

5. Importance of this Foundation
1.Teaching the curriculum and learning it are interrelated, and
psychology cements the relationship.
2.This disciplined field of inquiry furnishes theories and principles
of learning that influence teacher-student behavior within the
context of the curriculum.
3. Basis for understanding how the individual learner interacts
with objects and persons.
4. Screen for helping determine what our objectives and how
learning takes place.

6. Major Theories
of
Learning
Behaviorist
or
Association
Cognitive
Information-
Processing
Phenomenological
and
Humanistic

7. • deals with various aspects of
stimulus-response (S-R) and
reinforces.
• Learning tends to focus on
conditioning, modifying, or shaping
behavior through reinforcement and
rewards.

8. Twentieth Century
– The behaviorists, represent traditional psychology
rooted in philosophical ideas of
• Aristotle
• Descartes
• Locke
• Rousseau
They emphasize conditioning behavior and
altering the environment to elicit selected
responses from the learner.

9. Underpinnings in Behaviorist Theory
• Connectionism
• Thorndike’s Influence: Tyler, Taba, and
Bruner
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Acquiring New Operants

10. • founder of behavioral psychology. He focused
on testing the relationship between a
stimulus (something arousing interest) and a
response (reaction) .

11. • LEARNING as habit formation, as connecting
more and more habits into a complex structure.
• KNOWLEDGE comprised groupings of simple
components of a skill.
• TEACHING as arranging the classroom to
enhance desirable connections and
associations.

12. »As one acquired more
complicated units of
association, one
attained a more
sophisticated
understanding.

13. • Law of Readiness suggests that, when nervous
system is ready to conduct, it leads to a satisfying
state of affairs.
• Law of Exercise provides justification for drill,
repetition, and review.
• Law of Effect responses accompanied by
satisfaction strengthen the connection; responses
accompanied by discomfort weaken the
connection.

14. • 1. behavior was influenced by conditions of
learning.
• 2. learners’ attitudes and abilities could
improve over time through proper stimuli.
• 3. instructional experiences could be designed
and controlled.
• 4. it was important to select stimuli and
learning experiences that were integrated,
consistent and mutually reinforcing.

15. • No one subject was more likely than
another to improve the mind; rather
learning was a matter of relating
new learning to previous learning.
• No hierarchy of subject matter.

16. had application and thus could
be transferred to other
situations. Rote learning and
memorization were
unnecessary.
was based on generalizations
and the teaching of important
principles to explain concrete
phenomena.

17. • involves meaningful
organization of experiences can
be transferred more readily than
learning acquired by rote.
• The more abstract the principles
and generalizations the greater
the possibility of transfer.
• Science and mathematics as the
major disciplines for teaching
structure.

18.  was based on the science of
behaviorism what was
observable or measurable, not
cognitive processes.
 The key to learning was to
condition the child in the early
years of life.

19. • The role of the stimuli is less definite, often,
the emitted behavior cannot be connected to a
specific stimulus.

20. • Operant behavior will discontinue when it is
not followed by reinforcement.
– positive reinforcement simply the presentation
of a reinforcing stimulus.
– negative reinforcement is the removal or
withdrawal of a stimulus.
• Skinner believes in both positive and
negative reinforcement, he rejects
punishment because he feels it inhibits
learning.

21. • Behavior and learning can be shaped
through a series of successive sequence of
responses that increasingly approximate the
desired outcome.
• Through combination of reinforcing and
sequencing desired responses, new behavior
is shaped; this is what some people today
refer to as behavior modification.

22. • Observational Learning and Modeling. Albert
Bandura ---cognitive factors are unnecessary
in explaining learning; through modeling,
students can learn to perform at sophisticated
levels.
• Hierarchical Learning. Robert Gagné ---
comprises a sequence of instructional
materials and methods from simple to
complex.

23. Behaviorism and Curriculum
• Curriculum specialists can adopt procedures to
increase and that each student will find learning
and enjoyable.
• When new topics or activities are introduced,
connections should be built on student’s
positive experiences.
• Things about which each student is likely to
have negative feelings should be identified and
modified, to produce positive results.

24. • Behaviorists believe that the curriculum
should be organized so that students can
master the subject matter.
• Combining behaviorism with learning
includes careful analysis and sequencing of
learners’ needs and behavior.

25. A. interested in generating
theories that give insight into
the nature of learning,
specifically how individuals
generate structures of
knowledge and how they
create or learn reasoning and
problem-solving strategies.

26. • B. interested not only in the
amount of knowledge
people possess but also in its
type and its influence on
further cognitive actions.
• C. interested in the mind’s
architecture.

27. Underpinnings in Cognitive Theory
• The Montessori Method
• Jean Piaget Theories
• Piaget’s Influence: Tyler, Taba, Bruner and
Kohlberg
• Focus on Thinking and Learning
• Emotional Intelligence
• Problem Solving and Creative Thinking

28. ۩ emphasized looking and listening,
which she viewed as sensory input
channels of learning and as the first
phase of intellectual development.
1870-1952

29. • believed that the more things a child
listens to and looks at, the better for
mental development.
• emphasized a rich variety of visual and
auditory inputs.
• recognized that certain cognitive and social
abilities develop before others: children sit
before they walk, grab objects before they
manipulate them, and babble before they
talk.

30. • enrich children’s school
environment
• provide children with success in
performing tasks to bolster their
self-confidence
• provide structural play to teach
basic skills

31. • described cognitive
development in terms of
stages from birth to
maturity.
1896-1980
1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to age two)
2. Preoperational stage (ages two to seven)
3. Concrete operations stage (ages seven to
eleven)
4. Formal operations stage (ages eleven and up)

32. • Piaget’s cognitive stages presuppose a
maturation: mental operations are
sequential.
• The stages are hierarchical, the mental
operations increasingly sophisticated and
integrated.
• Learning depends on the individual’s
intellectual potential and environmental
experiences.

33. • His cognitive theories focus on environmental
experiences.
• The educator’s role involves, “the shaping of
actual experience by environing conditions”
and knowing “ what surroundings are
conducive to having experiences that lead to
growth.”

34. Piaget’s Influence
Three methods of organizing learning
experiences:
1. Continuity– skills and concepts should be
repeated within the curriculum
2. Sequence– the curriculum should
progressively develop understanding
3. Integration– the curriculum’s element
should be unified; subjects should not be
isolated or taught as a single course.

35. • concerned in organizing
curricula and teaching new
experiences so they are
compatible with existing
experiences, moving from
concrete experiences to
concepts and principles, and
classifying and understanding
new relationships.

36. • what a person has already learned
becomes an instrument of
understanding and dealing
effectively with the situations that
follow.
• previous learning is the basis of
subsequent learning, learning
should be continuous, and subject
matter is built on a foundation
(from grade to grade).

37. • the development of
children’s moral standards
and concluded that our
thinking about moral issues
reflects not only our
society but also our stages
of growth and age.

38. Thinking and Learning
• focus on thought processes, what
is happening inside a person’s
head.
• the brain is complex, as is the
process of thinking.

39. Multiple Intelligences
• Howard Gardner – we must nurture all types
of intelligence and all types of excellence
that contribute to the worth of the
individual and society.
• we must consider the versatility of children
and youth, their multiple abilities and ways
of thinking and learning.
• Eight types of intelligence: 1.
verbal/linguistic 2. logical/ mathematical, 3.
visual/ spatial 4. bodily/ kinesthetic, 5.
musical/ rhythmic, 6. interpersonal, 7.
intrapersonal, and 8. naturalistic

40. Emotional Intelligence
“ignoring human’s emotional side is
shortsighted.”
It is important to remember that students’
feelings color their view of a topic, including
their willingness to consider evidence.
Emotions strongly influence how we treat
information and even construct meaning.

41. Problem Solving and Creative Thinking
• Students must be given supportive conditions
in which they can develop creativity, but they
must be held responsible for confirming or
disproving the value or correctness of their
assumptions.
• Problem- solving procedures do not lead to
creative discovery but establish discoveries’
validity.

42. COGNITION AND CURRICULUM
• Most curriculum specialists, learning theorists,
and teachers, are cognitive oriented because
– 1. the cognitive approach constitutes a logical
method of organizing and interpreting learning.
– 2. the approach is rooted in the tradition of
subject matter.
– 3. educators have trained in cognitive approaches
and understand them.

43. Learning in school involves cognitive
processes, and because schools emphasize
learning’s cognitive domain, it follows that most
educators equate learning with cognitive
developmental theory.
The teacher who has a structured style
of teaching would prefer the problem-solving
method, based on reflective thinking and
scientific thinking.

44. • Curriculum specialists must understand that
school should be a place where students are
not afraid to ask questions, be wrong, take
cognitive risks, and play with ideas.
• Schools should be places where students can
fulfill their potential, and not always be right
in order to be rewarded by the teacher.

45. • emphasizes the total person.
• Individual self-awareness of an “I”.
• The study of immediate experiences as one’s
reality is called phenomenology and is
influenced by, an existentialist philosophy.
• Phenomenologist point out that the way we
look at ourselves is basic for understanding
our behavior.
• Our self-concept determines what we do,
even to what extent we learn.

46. Underpinnings in Phenomenology and
Humanistic Theories
• German word means shape, form,
and configuration.
• what people perceive determines the
meaning they give to the field;
likewise their solutions to other
problems depend on their
recognition of the relationship
between individual stimuli and the
whole.

47. • On this basis, learning is complex and abstract.
When confronted with learning situation, the
learner analyzes the problem, discriminates
between essential and nonessential data, and
perceives relationships.
• In terms of teaching, learning is conceived as a
process of selection by the student.
• Curriculum specialists must understand that
learners will perceive something in relation to
the whole; what they perceive and how they
perceive it is related to their previous
experiences.

48. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-actualization
(potential fulfillment)
Esteem needs
(respect, power)
Love and belonging needs
(social relationships)
Safety needs
(emotional and physical)
Survival needs
(hunger, thirst, sleep, sex)

49. • The teacher’s and curriculum maker’s role in this
scheme is to view the student as a whole person.
The student is to be positive, purposeful, active,
and involved in life experiences.
• The goal of education is to produce a healthy,
happy learner who accomplish, grow, and self-
actualize.
• Learners should strive for, and teachers should
stress, student self-actualization and sense of
fulfillment.

50. Rogers: Nondirective and Therapeutic
Learning
• Reality is based on what the individual learner
perceives.
• This concept of reality should make the teacher
aware of that children will differ in their level
and kind of response to a particular experience.
• He views therapy as a learning method to be
used by the curriculum worker and teacher.
• He believes that positive human relationships
enable people to grow; therefore, interpersonal
relationships among learners are as important
as cognitive scores.

51. • The teacher’s role in nondirective teaching is
that of a facilitator who has close professional
relationships with students and guides their
growth and development.
• The teacher helps students explore new ideas
about their lives, their school work, their
relationships, and their interaction with society.
• The curriculum is concerned with process, not
products; personal needs, not subject matter.
• There must be freedom to learn, not restrictions
or preplanned activities.

52. • The raw data of personal experiences are vital
to understanding the learner.
• It suggest maximum self-fulfillment, self-
actualization, and self-realization.
• Seek to understand what goes on inside us–
our desires, feelings, and ways of perceiving
and understanding.
• Self-esteem and self-concept must be
recognized as essential factors in learning.
• Learners must feel confident about performing
the skill or task required.
PHENOMENOLOGY & EDUCATION

53. • Student-teacher relationship be based on
trust and honesty so that student knows when
the teacher’s ideas of a subject are wise and
deserve respect.
• Value the uniqueness of human personality.

54. • All the theories have something to contribute
to explain various aspects of behavior and
learning in classrooms and schools.
• Readers should come to their own conclusions
about what aspects of each theory they can
use for their own teaching and curriculum
development.