The contemporary preference for curriculum outcomes seems to address knowledge as fixed and stagnant. For those of you working in curriculum contexts, how often are you renewing?
Chapter Curricular Fixations and Poetic Tactics
I assume that by “curriculum knowledge”, you are referring to the lists of hierarchically ordered “objectives” (that usually specify the knowledge and abilities that learners are supposed to “acquire” during the course of their studies) in an “official” curriculum (one developed and sanctioned by a Ministry of Education)? Here in Quebec, there is a curriculum “renewal” (nobody likes the word “reform” anymore) about every 20 years.
In French, there are two words for knowledge, and with respect to curriculum development, they are used differently. The word “savoirs” (or “savoirs codifiés: codified knowledge) refers to what you are referring to, the body of standardized knowledge shared by a community of specialists in a particular discipline, the “canon”, if you will; and that is considered relatively fixed and stable (although of course it evolves and expands, especially in this day and age). Then there is the word “connaissances”, which refers to the knowledge that individual people (e.g. students) “construct” with respect to the codified knowledge. Connaissances are not stagnant; they are alive, dynamic, constantly changing as the result of new experiences, new knowledge, age, etc. Connaissances cannot be listed in a curriculum precisely because they vary from individual to individual, and from one point in time to another.
Recognition of the changing nature of knowledge (at both the macro and micro levels) has motivated curriculum reform around the globe, with many States opting for competency-based curricula. In the adult education curriculum in Quebec, competency is defined as the mobilization and effective use of an integrated group of resources in order to handle a class of real-life situations. The curriculum is thus organized around situations (or classes of situations), rather than being organized around “decontextualized” items of knowledge or ability (“savoirs”). There are still lists of “savoirs”, but they are identified as external resources that the learner appeals to in order to deal competently with a group of situations. Thus, knowledge is conceived to be at the service of competent action, and competent action is contextualized in situations. Outcomes are defined in terms of the competent handling of a class of situations.
Such an orientation to curriculum design is more open-ended than traditional objectives-based curricula, since it focuses not on particular items of knowledge to be acquired, but rather on the varied uses to which such knowledge is put, and indeed through which it is developed.
(Sorry for the lengthy reply.)
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