Exploring curriculum approaches and issues: A descriptive analysis

Abstract

A curriculum is a guideline used to achieve an educational goal, in which a curriculum contains at least four important elements: objectives, materials, methods, and evaluation. This descriptive study aims to describe several types of methods or approaches that are often used in teaching and learning activities. In addition, this paper also describes issues related to curriculum changes and the factors that influence such changes as well as the challenges faced in each curriculum change. The paper firstly elaborates the disciplinary curriculum approach in which it highlights the ideas of exploring a particular discipline science from single-focused lenses relating to such the science without linking it with other connected sciences. After exploring the disciplinary curriculum approach, the paper provides significant information on multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary curriculum approaches that have great potential in enhancing students’ critical thinking skills. This study is ended by exploring issues of curriculum changes and their driving factors, and challenges of curriculum changes.