Spiral Curriculum

 

Spiral Curriculum

In my last block of practicum, my teaching associate was encouraging me to observe several classes besides her class to be familiar with different styles of teaching.

 I observed mathematics in grade 9, and I reviewed their Google Classroom.  I had a short conversation with the teacher after class. The organization of contents in the Google Classroom was confusing, so I asked for more clarification. The teacher explained to me that this organization is based on the spiral curriculum. However, I didn't get it completely. 

Last week, I reviewed some related articles to understand the concept. In this blog, I would like to share my thoughts/understanding of this method.  

Jerome Bruner described firstly this concept in 1960. The spiral curriculum is based on the continuous revising of lessons. Students revisit the lessons on several occasions, each time with an increasing layer of difficulty to previous ones.  The competence of students increases with each visit until the final overall objectives are achieved. R.M. HARDEN & N. STAMPER, mention 6 values for the spiral curriculum: Reinforcement, a move from simple to complex, integration, logical sequence, higher-level objectives, and flexibility. [1]

Although this concept can be implemented in all areas of knowledge, it is more understandable in mathematics. As we know, most of the topics in math build on each other with increasing layers of complexity. For example, we learn addition first, then subtraction, and later move to multiplication and division. I found how effectively revising and repeating the concepts over a long period of time, helped me to learn very complicated concepts. We had one course for one full year, and our teachers had enough time to review and revisit the concepts. I still remember those concepts; some concepts have been consolidated in my mind.

In the literature review, there is little solid empirical evidence of the implementation of a spiral curriculum. This indicates that despite the solid and sensible bases of the spiral curriculum, its effectiveness requires more field experiments.  [2]

I think, although this concept is new, in practice it is not new!  As a mathematics teacher, this is our routine of teaching, teaching less difficult topics, and gradually moving into more complicated ones. In each step, we review/revisit prior topics to be sure our students have already learned prior knowledge. We follow this technique because otherwise is not practical. For example, to teach solving a set of equations with two variables, we need to teach students how to solve an equation with one variable, etc.

In the spiral curriculum, the unit concept is replaced by a block. Each unit/topic of a course is divided into several blocks, in which moving to the next blocks means adding one level of difficulty. I think the level of complexity is not clear.  The sequence of lessons can be with changing complexity or not.  It means we go through lessons to cover lessons; it does not necessarily mean new lessons are tougher than previous ones.  Sometimes introducing a concept is hard and later the level of complexity decreases. For example, most students have difficulty capturing the definition of the concept of a radian as the unit of angular measure, however, when it goes to its application, it becomes easier. In addition to that, the level of difficulty is not a solid term. Visualization of 3-D objects seems to be hard, but certain students learn without any difficulty.   

 

1.       https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED538282.pdf

2.       https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01421599979752?casa_token=krxzRI_nV1oAAAAA:0sOw64tD70-idCv_6JOdv-JR3SGUC8cjqfnwno51QhP3Y_Hijl-BN2MP7t-a-3MuMWpizS8PNaqs