SIX CRITERIA IN SELECTING CONTENT

OR
SUBJECT MATTER
In selecting the subject matter content or knowledge for designing a curriculum,
here are some criteria:

Significance It is significant if fundamental ideas, concepts, principles and

generalization are supplied in the subject matter to achieve the overall aim of
the curriculum.

Validity the genuineness of a content selected is by its legality. The subject

matter to be selected has to be legal to avoid selecting the obsolete ones.

Interest the learners interest is a major factor in selecting the content.

Utility - deciding on subject matter, its usefulness is considered to be

essential.

Learnability if there is a quotation to live within our means then there is

also the consideration of teaching within the means of the learners.

Feasibility content selection takes into thought the possibility, the

practicability and the achievability of the subject matter in terms of the
availability of the resources, proficiency of the teachers, and the personality
of learners especially within the framework of the society and the
government.
 B.A.S.I.C.
Balance
Equitable assignment of content, time, experiences and other elements to establish
balance is needed in curriculum design.
Too much or too little of these elements maybe disastrous to the curriculum.

Keeping the curriculum in balance requires continuous fine tuning and review for its
effectiveness and relevance.
Articulation
This can be done either vertically or horizontally. In vertical articulation, contents are
arranged from level to level or grade to grade so that the content in a lower level is
connected to the next level.
Scope
Tyler in Ornstein(2004) defines scope as all the content, topics, learning experiences and
organizing threads comprising the educational plan.
Scope does not only refer to the cognitive content, but also to the affective and
psychomotor content.
It is the depth, as well as, the breadth of these contents.

The terms broad, limited, simple, general are few of the words that can describe the
scope.
The scope of the curriculum can be divided into chunks: units, sub-units, chapters or sub-
chapters.
Integration
Emerging themes. This is the essence of integration in the curriculum design. Merging or
integrate the subject like math to science.
Horizontal articulation happens when the association is among or between elements that
happen at the same time like social studies in grade six is related to science in grade six.
Continuity
This process enables the learners to strengthen the permanency of learning and
development of skills. Gerome Bruner calls this spiral curriculum where the content is
organized according to the interrelationship between the structure/ pattern of a basic idea
of major disciplines. Example:1.Concepts of living things in science which continuously
occurs in the elementary curriculum but with different complexity from level to level