By Dr. sultan Muhammad Khan
Keywords: Activity base curriculum, Experience base curriculum,
what are the Characteristics of
Activity Curriculum? Children’s Interest Determines the Activity
base curriculum, Activities
are Planned by Students with the Teacher help, Problem solving is the Method of Activity Curriculum,
Requirements of Activity Curriculum
There are many types of curriculum, but here we will discuss only Activity/Experience
base curriculum. Types or curriculum are; Subject
curriculum, Teacher Centered curriculum, Learner
centered curriculum, Activity/Experience curriculum, Integrated curriculum,
Core curriculum, Board field curriculum, Hidden curriculum
Activity Based Curriculum:
The Activity Based Curriculum is
also called project curriculum or an experience curriculum but the name
activity is a fundamental conception.
Activity Curriculum has a long history. The title “Activity Curriculum”,
however, did not come into general use before 1920, although Dewey used the
expression “Activity Programme” as early as 1897 in a talk to the parents and
teachers at his laboratory school in Chicago (U.S.A). Activity is the natural
urge of the child. He wants to do things by himself. 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 is the greatest motivation
for child. He enjoys the freedom of expressing his potentialities during
activities.
These activities should not merely
be considered as physical activity but also intellectual activity. The educator
(teacher) should engage pupils 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 listener 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.
Characteristics of Activity
Curriculum:
1.
Children’s
Interest Determines the Educational Programme:
The primary principle of the
activity curriculum is that the interests and purposes of children determine
the educational programme. The basic principle of the activity programme refers
to the felt needs of children and not of adults. The educational programs are aimed at doing
something in the best interest of the children and not for adults only. It is
the task of the teacher to discover these interests and to build educational
activities upon them.
Whims (urges) must not be considered as basis
of an educational programme. The interest of the students must be carefully
analyzed and then accepted, these
intended courses of actions are accepted after their consequences are reviewed.
The subject matter is a mean of fulfilling the purposes of an individual or a
group and as a result of manipulating subject matter children learn within the
boundaries of group interests. The teacher’s responsibility is to find out the
interest of individual students and of the groups. He helps children to select
the most interesting activity for study;
Building a cage for an animal, making preparation for a field trip,
gathering information on a current political affair, running a school store,
planning family budget
The Activity Curriculum is
not planned in Advance:
The teacher discover the interests
of students in group or individually. He guides the students in the selections
of activity and their interest among activities. He helps them to plan and
carry out these activities according to their interests. He also guides the
individual or group in assessing what they have accomplished in the process. This
is the responsibility of the teacher to make plans for himself how to guide the
students and their activities in the classrooms. Although teacher does not come
into the classroom with a preplanned subject matter. He does come with ideas
and a background of experience of the students and their interests. These are
his working tools.
Activities are Planned
Co-operatively by Students and the Teacher:
The teacher and the students plan
the activities cooperatively what needs to be done? And how, first of all
objectives are formulated with the help of the teacher, and then the class
students considers means of teaching the objectives e.g. a group has determined
to improve the beauty of its own classroom. The class may be divided into small
groups so that students can talk with their seat mates.
A student from each of these groups
report to the total class. There should be ample opportunity to organize for
investigating, seeking information, selecting materials, interviewing people
and carrying on the activities needed to solve the problem, in each of these
steps the students take part in making decisions and they assume full
responsibility for it. Here the teacher is guide in the process of learning, he
guide the students how to select group leaders and how to make intelligent
decisions. Most important is the quality of thinking that goes in the group.
There is a given and take of ideas in the group. The opinions of different students
in the group are evaluated by the students to select the best idea of all. It
is really a laboratory for learning group processes.
Problem solving is the Dominant
Method of Activity Curriculum:
In the activity curriculum, the
teaching learning process consists largely of problem solving. In the pursuit
of interests in the groups to complete an activity various difficulties will
arise. The teacher and his students are to find ways of overcoming these
obstacles. As the interests of children lead to problems requiring a great
diversity of content so the subject matter from almost every field of
Knowledge is used in the activity
curriculum. But the subject matter is studied as a means of solving problems
and not as subject.
The Teacher Assists the Group as a
Resource Person:
Here the teacher works as a guide
and resource person. He serves to small groups, to individual students. He
sometimes leads the discussion to help the students to analyses the problem. He
works with them in improving their skills. He is a part of the total learning
situation rather than task master.
Practice and Individual Assistance
are provided as needed:
In activity curriculum the need for
practice grows out of the learning situation. As the students show the need for
working on spellings of certain words, or grammar, the teacher gives them the
opportunity to learn and practice these skills. If the students ask the teacher
to help them in writing a letter to invite a speaker, the teacher will not
write the letter for them, but he will guide them. He will work with them on
the use of words and thus he will encourage them to write a letter inviting the
guest speaker.
a.
Requirements for Optimum Operation of Activity Curriculum:
1.
Training
of Teachers:
Teachers should have a broad general
education with specialized training in child and adolescent development,
guidance and methods of teaching.
1.
Physical
Features of the School:
Activity base curriculum needs
spacious Building, grounds and classrooms to permit as many activities as
possible. Will light rooms and have ample facilities; for displaying and
decorations devised by children. The ample use of school grounds in addition to
outdoor class work and for other countless outdoor activities in which children
may engage as they follow their interests.
To complete these possibilities the
school will require several times more space than they have now.
Tentatively ten acres of land (one
acre= 4940 sq. yards) would likely be the minimum to meet the needs of an
activity curriculum. To those critics who criticize the activity curriculum as
the most expensive pattern of curriculum organization, the advocates of an
activity programme will give a reply that there is no such thing as “a good
cheap education:.
Read more about types of different
curriculum
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