Various forms of curriculum


There are many forms of curriculum.
1.      Overt, explicit, or written curriculum:
This type of curriculum is what appears in documents and teachers' plans.
Is simply it may refer to a curriculum document, texts, films, and supportive teaching materials that are overall chosen to support the “intentional instructional agenda” of a school.
2.      Implicit (or Hidden)
Longstreet and Shane (1993) offer a commonly accepted definition for this term.
         “The hidden curriculum, which refers to the kinds of learning’s children derive from the very nature and organizational design of the public school, as well as from the behaviours’ and attitudes of teachers and administrators.”
This type of curriculum has to do with how particular assumptions about schooling and learning manifest in practice.                                                                                                                                                                        For example, when a teacher has her or his desk at the front of the classroom and "teaches" from this area, the message that is being learned by students is that the teacher is in control, including being the knowledge authority, and is the center of attention. The teacher is also of central importance.           
Another example involves the value of particular topics that is communicated implicitly. Such values can be communicated by time spent, by tone of voice, or by how the topic is treated (e.g., trivialized or marginalized).

3.     Null             

Eisner (1985, 1994) first described and defined aspects of this curriculum. He states:
There is something of a paradox involved in writing about a curriculum that does not exist. Yet, if we are concerned with the consequences of school programs and the role of curriculum in shaping those consequences, then it seems to me that we are well advised to consider not only the explicit and implicit curricula of schools but also what schools do not teach. It is my thesis that what schools do not teach may be as important as what they do teach. I argue this position because ignorance is not simply a neutral void; it has important effects on the kinds of options one is able to consider, the alternatives that one can examine, and the perspectives from which one can view a situation or problems.
The null curriculum is what is not taught. Not teaching some particular idea or sets of ideas may be due to mandates from higher authorities, to a teacher’s lack of knowledge, or to deeply ingrained assumptions and biases. Teachers and schools may not teach that Christopher Columbus slaughtered many of the native peoples he encountered when he "discovered" the Americas. Many teachers are under pressure not to teach evolution.
4.      Received curriculum
Those things that students actually take out of classroom; those concepts and content that are truly learned and remembered.

5.      Societal curriculum

As defined by Cortes (1981). Cortes defines this curriculum as: ...[the] massive, ongoing, informal curriculum of family, peer groups, neighborhoods, churches organizations, occupations, mas, media and other socializing forces that "educate" all of us throughout our lives.  This type of curricula can now be expanded to include the powerful effects of social media.

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