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Definition
When curricular material is translated in terms of activity. it is known as activity
curriculum. Learning of the prescribed material takes place through activities.
Activity is used as a media or means for imparting knowledge and skills.
Activity based curriculum approach is the greatest motivation, provides freedom of
expression to child 'himself fully. But activity should not be considered as synonym
for play. It is rather a play way of learning things. The emphasis is on the way and
then the activity becomes educative. Activity should not merely be considered as
physical activity.
By activity we mean physical as well as intellectual activity. The educator (teacher)
should engage students in activities in such a way that while manual skills are
gained there should be mental satisfaction found in the work. The students should
not be passive listeners, they should be active participants in the process of
learning. True learning is experiencing. While activity is the process then experience
becomes the product of activity. Activity results in experience. In fact activity and
experience cannot be separated-from each other. A purposeful activity must end in
gainful experience. The school must, therefore, plan its activities in such a way that
students gain mastery on various experiences. Such type of projects should be
completed under a problematic situation in a natural setting.
Activities which can be given in classroom situation:
The activities listed below can easily be provided in one form or the other:
(i) Oral activities: such as inviting questions and answers, narrating experiences
and participating in general class discussions.
(ii) Written experiences: such as selecting and copying relevant material from
books and journals, seeking information, making summaries, writing short book
review, taking notes and drawing diagrams.
(iii) Visual activities: such as reading and interpreting charts, diagrams and
graphs, studying apparatuses, specimens and pictures, seeing films and film strips,
and gathering information from bulletin boards.
(iv) Practical activities: such as setting up experiments both in the laboratory and
at science fairs and exhibitions, constructing and improvising apparatus, preparing
charts and diagrams and finding matter for the bulletin boards.
Impotence:
1. Relationship between theory and practical work.
2. The influence of the laboratory experiments on memory and acquisition of
scientific knowledge.
Merits:
1. Activity based instruction appeals to those who enjoy learning through doing. However, not all
learners are active learners. Some learners are more reflective and like to observe, while others
enjoy theorizing and thinking about concepts without any practical work.But it does work for those
who are actively inclined.
2. Activity based learning can be fun and motivate those students who are used to everything
being entertaining, exciting, instantly gratifying and easy and who would otherwise be lost
because of their poor attitude.
3. Activity based learning does give the child scope for independent learning and exploring
something on their own without direction from a teacher.
Demerits:
1. Activity is just part of learning. Without reflecting on the activity; thinking about it in certain
ways to make a theory; testing that theory again etc. the active learning will have very little
lasting value. There will be activity but nothing particular gained from it. Active learning should be
balanced with other less concrete experiences.
2. Young learners can totally loose the point of the exercise and not gain anything from it. For
example, using paints to make a chart to supposedly learn about graphing can degenerate to a
painting exercise where the child simply think they are making a picture. The exercise is too much
like play and the child does not realise they are meant to be doing something totally different.
3. Active learning can become very trivial for advanced learners. When a concept is understood
and the learner is ready to move on it would be very tedious and time consuming to do some
practical activity based around the concept. Comprehension of the concept can be tested in more
efficient ways and the learner spared the hassle associated with lengthly practical exercises.
4. Focusing on activity to make learning fun can actually hamper those students who would make
good progress without it. Those more able learners can also come to believe that all learning
should be fun and be hampered in their attitude for tackling more difficult advanced matter that
does not so easily render itself to being made into an "activity".
5. Much advanced matter (in sciences and maths especially) is abstract and doesn't not lend itself
to activity. The learner may be limited in their learning pathway because of being directed towards
more practical elements of knowledge and applications of theories rather than the development of
raw theories in themselves.
7. When students work alone, they dont learn to collaborate with other students,
and communication skills may suffer.
8. Teacher-centered instruction can get boring for students. Their minds may
wander, and they may miss important facts.
9. Teacher-centered instruction doesnt allow students to express themselves, ask
questions and direct their own learning.
Student or Learner Centered Curriculum
Learner Centered curriculum the center of interest is the learner. The students are
given more importance in this type of curriculum design. Most of the education
experts and educational psychologists are in favor of this learner centered
curriculum. First of all Rousseau emphasized that education should be according to
the interests of the child. He should be provided a free and democratic environment.
The interest of the child should be a base for the curriculum design. Learner
centered design emphasizes individual development and their approach to
organizing the curriculum merges from the needs, interests and purposes of
students. Deweys contribution in this respect is an important one. He organized so
many child centered activity programmes. These programmes were based on the
scientific study of child's mental, physical, social and spiritual characteristics and
needs.
Principles of Students Centered Curriculum
The following are the principles of learner centered curriculum.
1.
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3.
4.
5.
Students
Students
Students
Students
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8. Because students are talking, classrooms are often busy, noisy and chaotic.
9. Teachers must attempt to manage all students activities at once, which can
be difficult when students are working on different stages of the same
project.
10.
11.
problematic.
MERITS:
1. This type of curriculum is more appropriate for intellectual development. An
individual learner to think as the physicist, botanist, and geologist and so on. If he
cannot learn so to think, the fault is to be found in instruction and not in the
curriculum pattern.
2. It provides maximum security for both the teacher and the student. The teacher
knows what is expected of him to teach. The students also know what is expected of
them i.e. how much they have to cover. This provides them with a constant source
of security.
3. It assumes a logically sound framework for the organization of subject matter
used. of cause and effect principle in science and the chronological order of the
historical events (may not be psychologically sound) but they assumed an order and
are consistent to learning experiences, which might otherwise be disorder.
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4. Its evaluation is very easy. Achievement based testing is the only type of
evaluation needed for the mastery of the subject matter.
5. It has a bright future. Subject approach is useful for specialization in any branch
of knowledge. The continued increase in the store of human knowledge will cause
specialization to become more effective.
DEMERITS:
1. (Separation) Subject-centered curriculum prevents students from understanding
the wider context of what they're learning. In the traditional method of learning,
students learn math in one period, reading in another, science in another and social
studies in yet another, separate class. Every subject is taught as though it exists in
and of itself without regard for how one subject impacts another subject.
2. (Lack of Integration) A traditional subject-centered curriculum so focuses on
each subject in an individual context, students don't understand how one subject
impacts another subject or how each works together. Learning is fragmented into
little boxes instead of flowing together toward deeper comprehension of subject
matter as a whole. Students are not taught to use different aspects of their
knowledge in an integrated fashion.
3. (Passivity) In the traditional or subject-centered curriculum, students are
discouraged from entertaining a different point of view than what textbook or
teacher presents. The subject matter has already been chosen by experts in the
different subjects, by school boards and by teachers and deemed of value for
students to learn.
4. (Authority) The traditional subject-centered curriculum depends upon a system
of authority. Students are not part of the authority hierarchy. Their needs are
considered only in conjunction with type and difficulty level of the material. Subjectcentered learning does not offer a wide range of options that take into account ethic
background, family situations that impact learning or different learning styles of
students.