EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This project builds on a model of curriculum developed by Peter Rushbrook (see Bound, Rushbrook & Sivalingam, 2013) that in this report we call the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL) Design Approach (IDeA) Model. The present researchers (Bound and Choy, in consultation with Rushbrook) envisage the Model as a tool for designers and facilitators of learning to reflect on their assumptions about curriculum, learning and learners. However, participants also identified many other potential applications, including for structured continuing professional development and as a communication tool at all stages of curriculum development. Given the changing landscape and focus of the Continuing Education and Training (CET) sector, these suggestions offer considerable potential to facilitate change; indeed some described the Model and heuristic as potentially “transformational”. In the process of conducting the research, the Model was refined, undergoing several iterations as a result of feedback from participants. Most were changes in the language used to describe the various dimensions.
What do we mean by ‘curriculum’? How ‘curriculum’ is understood in this report and within the IDeA Model is important, as the IDeA Model seeks to deepen and broaden understanding of curriculum by encouraging reflection on current beliefs and assumptions about curriculum.
A typical understanding of curriculum is that it is a framework or set of documents, and that it is essentially about content to be taught. These understandings can be described as instrumental, pragmatic perspective of what curriculum is. But there are deeper conceptualisations of curriculum that note its purpose (implicit or explicit) as a tool for reproducing dominant ideas, and ways of thinking and being, an emphasis on the learners, involving questions about the roles of teachers and learners and the ways in which learning and content are scaffolded. Curriculum is also understood as a journey: Currere is derived from the Latin infinitive verb that means “to run the racecourse”. Curriculum is a verb, an activity, or “an inward journey”. (Slattery, 1995, p. 56)
The IDeA Model The IDeA Model encompasses this range of understandings of curriculum as a means to encourage users to reconsider their underlying assumptions and beliefs. The results from the Bound et al. (2013) study revealed two forms of curriculum – ‘interpretive’ and ‘technocratic’ (which we subsequently renamed ‘instrumental’). In the IDeA Model, we place these two understandings of curriculum at opposing ends of a continuum. The placement of the ‘interpretive’ label at one extreme of the continuum represents a conception of curriculum as a flexible, dynamic and engaging map of learning possibilities guided by a consistent philosophy of learning. Within this interpretive approach, there is a tendency to favour an active relationship between the learner and the facilitator; the learner is to be respected for his or her choices in education as a lifelong journey, and the facilitator is encouraged to view the curriculum as a lens through which to exercise professional judgement and innovation.
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