I’ll begin
with a statement for full disclosure:
As a student
in the public school system, I HATED spiralling curriculum.
I didn’t see
the point of revisiting content that I thought I already knew. I had been
tested on the material and had passed, why bother revisiting it? As future
educators we can see the folly of these ideas, but as a student at the time it
was how I felt.
However,
before we get too deep into the discussion of spiralling curriculum, let’s
start with a definition.
Spiralling
curriculum is defined by the Education in Japan Community Blog as “a
comprehensive programme ensuring continual revision and progression through
small and logical steps but with key aims of mastery each year. Rather than
simply reviewing the same material until all pupils have it memorised, this
spiral process allows for continual development to challenge the most able
learners, while also continuing to revisit earlier areas of knowledge for those
who may struggle[.]”
Source: “'Spiral
curriculum' or method – A Definition” Education in Japan Community Blog. Education in Japan Community Blog, n.d.
Web. 03 November 2015
'
Source: More on spiral curricula
https://drfautley.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/more-on-spiral-curricula/
The image
above shows a spiralling curriculum visual aid for a music department from
grades 1-6. The students in this program begin with the more basic aspects of
music, such as pulse, rhythm, and pitch, taking the majority of the class time while
the more advanced aspects such as timbre, dynamics and notation, are introduced but not yet studied for a comparable
amount of time. As students grow as learners and move through the years of the
program, they revisit the concepts of the previous years, both to cement their
learning from those years and to integrate new and more advanced sections of
those concepts, until the concepts are not only known but fully understood.
Ed Comparativ takes the concept of spiralling education one step further when he
discusses the work of Jerome Bruner’s constructivist spiral approach. Bruner
states that the reason spiralling curricula are so effective is because they
allow the learner to continually revisit past knowledge and build on it, making
fundamental connections along the way to other material and subjects to make
sure the student really understands the material. Comparativ states that the
integration of Bruner’s spiralling curriculum into the curricula of schools in
the Philippines is incredibly beneficial as students are allowed to learn in ways that are much closer
to their natural learning habits, as compared to the focus on “fragmented and
disintegrated content” from the previous curricula.
(The Role of Jerome Bruner’s Spiral Approach in the
Reformation of the Philippine Education System, 2014)
The following
video from the Ross Institute, educators explain the practical implications of
a well-implemented spiral curriculum in a school.
Source: Ross Institute
The Ross
Institute shows the effectiveness of a spiralling curriculum mixed with an
integrated curriculum in a practical setting. Not only are students revisiting
prior knowledge, constructing new understandings, and making fundamental
connections, they are able to connect the very subjects of learning. Students
are conducting scientific experiments originally found by Islamic scientists in
their history classes and making art, models, and sculptures about human body systems
in their science classes. Instead of knowledge being fragmented and
disintegrated, it is all interconnected and spiralling upwards as the learners
grow. Students are then allowed to choose the direction they wish their
learning to go for their final project, a practice which is so successful
students of the past have designed projects such as a hydrogen fuel cell system
and motorcycle thermoelectrics, at the age of grade 12 students.
This is not
to say, however, that spiralling curricula are perfect and are the saviours of
modern education. They are in theory designed so that students who are caught
up can make new connections and students who are behind can catch up during
reviewed topics, but if a student is not able to catch up quickly enough they
can be left behind. As Professor Martin Fautley points out on his education
blog posts, progression in a spiral curriculum is very linear. Students move
along the spiral system and the only way they can go is forward. Students who
need to occasionally take two steps forward and one step back can be left behind.
Spiralling systems are based around revisiting concepts, but if the original
concept is not properly understood the entire structure falls apart. Students
who do not properly understand the original concept are constructing new knowledge
on a faulty foundation and risk missing out on deep understanding.
Source: On linear progress and spiral curricula
https://drfautley.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/on-linear-progress-and-spiral-curricula/
Going back
to my original point about disliking the spiralling curriculum as a student, I
can now see why. Spiralling curriculum does not reach its peak effectiveness in
an assessment of learning setting. It requires assessment for learning for optimal use; students who realize that they are
learning only to be tested are less likely to wholeheartedly participate in a
spiralling system versus students who are learning for the sake of
understanding. As a future educator, I hope to implement the concepts present
within spiralling curriculum as much as I can, as I believe that the benefits outweigh
the downsides and that it is possible for the current spiralling structures to
be changed to reduce or eliminate those weaknesses.
References:
Ed
Comparativ. (2014, April 8). The Role of Jerome Bruner’s Spiral Approach in the
Reformation of the Philippine Education System: Mr. Ed Comparativ [Web Log
Comment]. Retrieved from https://edcomparative.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/the-role-of-jerome-bruners-spiral-approach-in-the-reformation-of-the-philippine-educational-system/
Linear
Progression [Image] 2015. Retrieved from https://drfautley.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/on-linear-progress-and-spiral-curricula/
Martin
Fautley. (2015, May 15). More on Spiral Curricula: drfaultley [Web Log
Comment]. Retrieved from https://drfautley.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/more-on-spiral-curricula/
Ross
Institute. (2015, July 9). Ross Spiral Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary
Approach to Science. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZhkB0FJik
“’Spiral
curriculum’ or method – A Definition” Education in Japan Community Blog. Education in Japan Community Blog, n.d.
Web. 03 November 2015
The
Interrelated Disciplines of Music [Image] 2015. Retrieved from https://drfautley.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/more-on-spiral-curricula/
