The Co-Constructed Curriculum: What It is and Why It’s Significant

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Holistic Education and Curricular Histories (Table 5)

Abstract

The co-constructed curriculum is presented in the literature as a recent innovation adopted in some schools and universities because it is shown to improve student performance. I argue that curricula have always been co-constructed, though not always intentionally. Also, students are said to play a variety of roles in constructing curricula, some more significant than others. I argue that curricula are as much the students’ creation as the teachers’. What’s missing in the literature, and which can be found in the classroom practices of Richard Peters, John Dewey and Paulo Freire, is recognition of the fact that students have their own curricula; and that actively negotiating a shared curriculum improves the performance of both students and teachers.

Author

• Kelvin S. Beckett, Purdue University Global