Page 145 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2020

MACROSCOPIC AND MICROSCOPIC CURRICULUM DESIGN

There are two levels of curriculum designing. The first level is the analysis of
curriculum sources and deliberations towards decision on the kind of curriculum designs to be
adopted, this is the ‘broad frameworks of curriculum design’ (Klein, 1991) which is also
appropriate to be regarded as the macroscopic aspect of the curriculum design (Ng, 2004). After
the macroscopic curriculum designs have been determined, the task of detailed or specific
organisation of learning elements (learning objectives, learning experiences, evaluation, subject
content) begins (Klein, 1991). This is the second level of curriculum designing which can be
regarded as the microscopic aspect of curriculum design (Ng, 2004). Formulation of the
microscopic aspect of curriculum design dwells into the ways contents are arranged, questions
raised includes: “Should thematic approach be used? What kind of themes to be developed?
How to formulate the learning objectives of content and skills? Should the content and skills
be integrated into single learning objective? How to create learning experiences which would
reflect the aims and goals of the program of study? Should we teach a particular concept or
skill as one-off and in-depth or should it be recursive across the years and more broad-based?”.
Microscopic curriculum design is tedious, need careful consideration and contemplation and
takes up a lot of time of the curriculum developers.

Macroscopic Curriculum Design in the National Curriculum

The concept of Integration in the National Curriculum

The Cabinet Report 1979 suggested the concept of ‘integration’ to be adopted in future
curriculum. The purpose of integration is to make learning contextual and meaningful to the
students. There are six major integration methodology adopted in KBSR and KBSM. Firstly,
integration between knowledge and practice, knowing without doing is futile, whatever is
learned need to be seen in practice, this give rise to behavioural curriculum design when all
learning need to have a ‘doing’ component. Secondly, the understanding of knowledge
encompasses various subjects and not compartmentalise, curriculum developers need to
identify these elements that can be taught across various subjects and allows each subject to
complement each other, this is the beginning of the concept of ‘Element Across Curriculum’
which exists till today. Thirdly, within each individual subject, acquisition of skills, knowledge
and values should not be in isolation, it need to be integrated to make it more contextual and
meaningful. Fourthly, curriculum developer and teachers need to be cognizant that students
bring with them their existing prior knowledge, thus there is a need to integrate between
existing and new knowledge to be learned. The fifth major integration is between curriculum
and co-curriculum where co-curricular activities should be supporting learning in the
classroom. The last major integration is the importance of integrating values across all subjects,
curriculum developers for all KBSR and KBSM subjects included in their subjects values to be
imparted such as integrity, honesty, diligence, systematic. In 2010 while planning for the new
KSSR and KSSM curriculum, the Curriculum Development Division decided to continue with
this concept of ‘Integration’ in the new curriculum and expanding it to include teaching and
learning methodologies such as project based and problem based learning where the concept of
integration can be further enhanced and made meaningful.

The Discipline-Cognitive Curriculum Design

The Smart School curriculum and subsequently the revised KBSR and KBSM followed
by KSSR and KSSM were designed to tackle the issue of lack of inculcation of thinking within

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