Ritz Model

A Model to Take Theory  Into Practice

Curriculum development is one of the key factors related to meaningful and successful program improvement. If one were to examine the curriculum development procedure, a number of recurring structural elements would be identified that are useful in the construction of a curriculum for any subject area. This review will be devoted to an identification and explanation of these elements. It is pursued to offer educators and trainers additional tools that may be used in the educational process. Besides this point, if educators are familiar with the logic and rationale accompanying the curriculum development process, they should be better equipped to defend and implement any program in their subject/training area.

Analysis of reports and texts in the curriculum area reveal that many proposals have been suggested for models or steps to be taken in educational program development. Those that had the greatest influence on the author have been presented by Tabu (1962) and Zais (1976). Both writers have developed systematic procedures for the development of curriculum. Their models are based on the establishment of foundations, content, and evaluation procedures. These are illustrated in Table 1.

Many of those who study the components of curriculum are in agreement with the selection and need for these elements in the development of programs or courses. However, for any model to be useful to educators or trainers, detailed explanations are essential so those who wish to employ these elements in the development process can fully take advantage of them.

With this in mind, the author has analyzed the models of Taba, Zais, and others to determine those structural components most useful in curriculum development. To this list have been added other elements that have proven useful in structuring a resourceful curriculum document. The resultant curriculum development model appears in Table 2. The remainder of this analysis will explain each of the structural elements cited in Table 2 and how they may be employed in the development of a technical course or program.

The major headings cited in Table 2 have been identified as curriculum foundations, curriculum content, and curriculum evaluation. Each of these categories and their anatomy will be reviewed to exemplify their use in curriculum development.

Curriculum Foundations
Curriculum foundations are the components that influence and control the content and organization of the curriculum (Zais, 1976, p. 101). They are based upon values one has developed pertaining to knowledge, society, learning, and the individual. Foundations tend to influence the philosophies of those who are developing the curriculum, and these philosophies are, in turn, reflected in the curriculum. Such components as (1) definition of the program area, (2) rationale for the study of the program area, (3) content source, (4) content structure, (5) program aim, and (6) program goals are included in the curriculum foundations. As implied in the above discussion, curriculum foundations are used to establish a basis for further undertakings in curriculum development. At this point, each of the elements found within the curriculum foundations will be explained. The definition of the program area shall be the first element reviewed.

A precise definition of the program area under analysis can be useful to those involved in curriculum development. By establishing a definition of the program area, one is laying out the boundaries for the curriculum development process. In this way, both the developers and users of the curriculum will know exactly what knowledge or content is to be analyzed and conveyed. In the case of production technology (an area where the author has developed curriculum), a broad definition that has been offered for describing this subject is:

The application of knowledge and technical systems that convert resources into structures or industrial or consumer goods (Hadley & Ritz, 1991, p. 23).

Others have provided definitions for this program area that also could be used.

With a knowledge of the definition of the program area, the reader is ready to pursue the second element of the foundations. This is a rationale for the study of the program area. Information interrelating the areas of knowledge, society, learning, and the individual can be used in this element to emphasize the need to study the program in schools or the work environment. Instances used to support the study of production technology include:

• Integrating technology and daily life.
• Gaining an understanding of production systems.
• Using tools, materials and processes.
• Developing problem solving skills.
• Learning social/cultural impacts of technology.
• Practicing industrial safety.
• Practicing personal and business management skills.
• Building human relations skills.
• Practicing entrepreneurship skills.
• Discovering employment and post-secondary training needs.
• Developing leadership skills (Hadley & Ritz, 1991, p. 14).

With a definition of the program area and a rationale for its study, one should know the "what and why" of the content being shaped into a curriculum. With this information, the next step is to examine the source of the curricular content or knowledge base.

The content source is the third element that assists in establishing a foundation for the curriculum development process. It is the knowledge base where the curriculum content is derived for use in program development. In simpler terms, a content base is a bank or reservoir of knowledge where information (knowledge) is obtained for structuring a program. Depending upon whom is developing the program, and for what purpose it is being designed, i.e., work, leisure, general information, various content sources can be used.

A number of these include employment, job cluster training, general literacy, specific technologies, or technological areas. If one were to develop a curriculum on computing, these differing content sources would drastically change the shape of the curriculum. A computer course for general literacy would be much different than one to train network engineers or program designers. The source one selects to design a curriculum shapes its intent, or aim, and is often dictated by ones philosophy, understanding of the knowledge base, knowing the needs of society, and realizing how and why learners learn.

With an understanding of the content source, the next step in the curriculum foundations is to establish a content structure. It is the fourth element used in establishing a foundation for the curricular program. The content structure is employed to display graphically how the information being derived from the content source might be arranged for program and curricular unit development purposes. An example of a content structure for a production technology course appears in Figure 1. As can be observed, the content structure illustrates how the content for the program might be structured for program development purposes.

The program aim is the fifth element of the foundations portion of a curriculum development structure. This element describes the expected outcome of having students/learners study the content prescribed in the curriculum. For a production technology education program this outcome might be "to acquaint learners with the processes and systems used to produce our industrial and consumer products" (Hadley & Ritz, 1991, p., 5).

The final curriculum development element useful in establishing the foundations for a program or curriculum is the program goals. Goals are long range program outcomes that reflect the directions in which the curriculum should work. Examples of goals for production technology include:

• Learn how production systems originate.
• Describe how production systems influence people and societies.
• Discover how industry processes resources into products using processing, construction, and manufacturing systems.
• Use management systems to support the operation of production systems.
• Investigate technical developments in production technology systems which will probably change our products in the future.
• Analyze career options in the technologies of production systems.

As represented through this listing, goals are more specific than aims, but they still do not provide any means for direct student attainment of knowledge.

The above discussion has provided some insight into the development and utilization of foundations for curriculum development. Incorporation of these structural elements into the curriculum development process provides a means for expressing a philosophical view based on knowledge, society, learning, and the individual. Thus a strong foundation can be established for further undertakings in the curriculum development arena.

Curriculum Content
Curriculum content is the second major category of curricular elements. It includes the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (values) which educators are interested in conveying to learners. As the foundations of the curriculum determine what and why to teach, the content focuses upon the specific information to be transmitted and the means of transmission. In this category are the scope, sequence and unit specifications. The unit specifications may be further divided into goals, rationales, objectives, activities, and references. In all, the content elements provide direction for organizing curriculum content and for transmitting it to learners. At this point, each of the elements found within the curriculum content category will be discussed.

Scope and sequence are vital elements in structuring any curriculum in the education/training program. These elements establish content guidelines for the curriculum development and implementation processes. The use of a scope and sequence provides an effective format for organizing learning experiences for both curriculum developers and implementors.

The term scope encompasses the magnitude of content and objectives within a curriculum (Beauchamp, 1975, p. 198). More specifically, it is the breadth of knowledge to be covered within the curriculum or a particular subject area. As an example, in the production technology program, the scope of the curriculum might include production technology and its impact on societies, the production technology cycle, processing technology systems, manufacturing technology systems, construction technology systems, and future implications of production technology. From this example, one can see that the scope includes the breadth or magnitude of content that the program wishes to transfer into learning experiences.

Sequence is usually associated with scope. However, its meaning does differ. Sequence is the ordinal structuring of the content found within a curriculum (Beauchamp, 1975, p. 198). More simply stated, it is the order in which scope or content and objectives will be arranged for instructional purposes. In production technology, the sequence for a unit on the production technology cycle might include material resources, resource extraction, transforming materials, the production process, marketing, the service industry, and resource recovery. In curriculum development, the scope would list all the content areas to be taught, while the sequence would provide the ordering of this content in a coherent fashion.

To further assist in the development of curriculum and instructional plans, unit specifications are needed. Unit specifications are those rudiments which are helpful in the actual developing and structuring of a unit of study. The sub-components of unit specifications are unit goal(s), unit rationale, unit objectives or competencies, unit activities, and references. These curricular components will be reviewed next.

Unit goals are the overall outcomes which instruction within the unit should be directed. Examples of unit goals, for a production technology unit on marketing, could include:

• Describe the concept of market analysis.
• Organize marketing activities.

As can be gathered from this example, unit goals are broad in nature, but they attempt to show what the purpose and instructional focus of the units are.

The next unit specification component to be discussed is the unit rationale. It is an element which supports the unit goal(s) and explains the "what and why" of the unit. The unit rationale should provide the reasons for providing such a unit of instruction for learners. These descriptions should be short but meaningful narratives and provide specific reasons why study in such units are vital to the learner's total education.

A third curricular component under the heading of unit specifications is unit objectives or competencies. While aims and goals are broad and somewhat removed from the learning situation, objectives or competencies are measures of specific learning outcomes. They are essential targets and can be measured through classroom activities and evaluations. Examples of unit objectives are illustrated for a unit on resource extraction for a course in production technology:

• Describe how material resources were gathered during our early history.
• Explain how resources are extracted from our environment today.
• Differentiate between mining and harvesting.
• Construct models of resource extraction devices.
• Experiment with the production of materials through biotechnological means.

As illustrated through these examples, objectives or competencies are specific targets for instruction within the education or training program. They prescribe perimeters within which instruction should evolve, and they can be used to evaluate whether learners can achieve these targets.

Unit activities are the fourth set of components found under the element of unit specifications. These elements, as stated by Zais, "represent the heart of the curriculum because they are so influential in shaping the learner's experiences and thus [his/her] education (1976, p. 350). Unit or learning activities are those parts of the curriculum where learners become involved. They are the reading, listening, manipulating, writing, experimenting, and other learning processes that provide learners with experiences in the content of the curriculum. It is through these various learning activities that the content of the curriculum is transmitted to the learners. Activities are what involve the learners in the curriculum. Through these various experiences, the process of learning actually takes place.

The final component of unit specifications is references. These are the books, videos, periodicals, and other resource materials that are helpful in developing instructional plans to implement the educational program. Many who have proposed models for curriculum development have not included this element, but it is felt by this author that references are a vital component for those who are faced with implementing the curriculum. For this reason, it has been listed under the unit specifications element.

In this review three major elements have been included in the curriculum content section of this model. These have been labeled the scope, sequence and unit specifications. After one attempts to transmit the content of the curriculum to the learner using these elements, a final category of curriculum development comes into use, i.e., the evaluation elements useful to curriculum development.

Curriculum Evaluation
The final broad category of curriculum elements is evaluation. It exists for two primary purposes. First, it attempts to measure whether the learners are achieving the content objectives set forth in the curriculum, and second, whether the curriculum is doing what it is supposed to do, content validity. Therefore, the evaluation category of a curriculum should be divided into student evaluation and document validation elements.

The student evaluation element is concerned with unit objectives and unit activities. Through student performances and assessment through testing, learners are measured to determine if they can competently achieve those standards prescribed in the unit objectives. In addition to this means of evaluation, there exists an area know as document validation. This type of evaluation determines whether there is a correspondence between the ideas set forth in the foundations section and the information transmitted through the content section of the curriculum. All too often, curriculum documents describe one set of intentions and offer a different set of content and outcomes. Consequently, the curriculum document is not fulfilling its intended purpose. The document validation is intended to insure the curriculum foundations and content are directed toward the same outcomes.

In the above discussions, a number of useful curriculum development elements have been cited and illustrated. These elements have been organized into three categories. These included curriculum foundations, content, and evaluation. If these elements are used in the development of a curriculum or program, a more meaningful and understandable curriculum should result. This occurs because those who are developing the curriculum must identify and structure their ideas following a logical sequence. This allows for more directed dialogue and research by those undertaking the curriculum development. When these steps are used in the curriculum development process, a number of effective instructional programs and units of instruction should result.

Ritz Curriculum Model
Curriculum Foundations Curriculum Content Curriculum Foundations

Curriculum Foundations
Definition of Program Area Rationale for the Study of the Program Area Content Source Content Structure Program Aim Program Goals

Curriculum Content
Definition of Program Area Rationale for the Study of the Program Area Content Source Content Structure Program Aim Program Goals

Scope
Scope Sequence Unit Specifications Unit Goal Unit Rationale Unit Objectives Unit Activities References
Form 1040 1099 Schedule A Child Support Home Office	Schedule C Interest Family Deductions Mortgage Interest IRA

Sequence
Scope Sequence Unit Specifications Unit Goal Unit Rationale Unit Objectives Unit Activities References
Form 1040 1099 Schedule A Child Support Home Office	Schedule C Interest Family Deductions Mortgage Interest IRA

Unit Specifications
Definition of Program Area Rationale for the Study of the Program Area Content Source Content Structure Program Aim Program Goals

Curriculum Content
Definition of Program Area Rationale for the Study of the Program Area Content Source Content Structure Program Aim Program Goals

References

• Beauchamp, G.A. (1975). Curriculum theory. Wilmette, IL: The Kagg Press.
• Hadley, W.F. & Ritz, J.M. (1991). Teacher's guide, exploring production systems. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, Inc.
• Ritz, J.M. (Sept/Oct, 1980). Systematic curriculum development for industrial education. The Technology Teacher, 40, (1), pp. 11-13.
• Taba, H. (1962). Curriculum development: theory and practice. New York: Harcourt, Bruce & World, Inc.
• Zais, R. (1976). Curriculum principles and foundations. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

© Author: John M. Ritz, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA. This manuscript is based on 1980 publication.

Table 1 Models for Curriculum Development
Hilda Taba (1962) Diagnosing Needs Formulating Specific Objectives Selecting Content Organizing Content Selecting Learning Experiences Organizing Learning Experiences Evaluating Checking for Balance and Sequence Robert Zais (1976) Curriculum Foundations Knowledge Society Individual Learning Theory Anatomy of the Curriculum Aims Goals Objectives Content Learning Objectives Evaluation

Table 2 Structural Elements Useful in Curriculum Development (Ritz Model)
Curriculum Foundations Definition of the Program Area Rationale for the Study of the Program Area Content Source Content Structure Program Aim Program Goals Curriculum Content Scope Sequence Unit Specifications Unit Goal(s) Unit Rationale Unit Objectives Unit Activities References Curriculum Evaluation Student Evaluation(s) Document Validation

Figure 1 A Content Structure for Production Technology
Production Technology | | Production Cycle | | Genesis -- Extraction -- Transformation -- Marketing -- Service -- Recovery | | Production Systems | | Construction -- Manufacturing -- Processing