Spiralling curriculum: how does it stack up?

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

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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/