The objectives model of curriculum development: a creaking bandwagon?

Abstract

This article is written (like that of Carpenter, 1984) from my personal experience, in two schools for children with severe learning difficulties, of coordinating a Staff Curriculum Development Group using the Skills Analysis Model (SAM) (Gardner, Murphy, and Crawford, 1983). The aim here, however, is to illustrate reservations about the use of a SAM or “son of SAM” approach in such schools and to indicate possible alternative emphases. The point of view is expressed that SAM, and other behavioural objectives models, can lead to an unrealistic imbalance with an emphasis on what is being taught rather than what is being learned: approaches which ultimately degrade the learner, the teacher, and the learning process.