The Curriculum Descriptive Theory - Essay Example

(Marsh 2004, p. 201) The analysis in this paper is focused on the curriculum descriptive theory. The descriptive theory is marked against other theories in several ways. But its main distinction resides on its principle which is to understand the various steps and procedures in curriculum development and the relationships among them. This is achieved by identifying how curriculum development actually takes place, especially in school settings. (Marsh, p. 201) There are scholars who label the descriptive theory as the scientific theory as well.

The reason behind is, the methods employed in theorizing the curriculum is clinical and follows the scientific approach. Alfie Kohn (2000), who stressed that descriptive theory is technically aligned with constructivism, cites four of its principles that facilitate learning. According to him, the teacher should It is far more difficult to figure out how to implement descriptive theory than it is to generate it. I am reasonably intelligent, and it took me 14 years of almost full-time effort to figure out how to consistently work just four thinking skills into a detailed and effective curriculum.

(Reigeluth 1999, p. 15) Indeed, some degree of support was given by Dwayne Huebner (1999, p. 215) asserting that curricularists must be concerned not only with the descriptive theory but also with prescriptive theory. This statement explained the descriptive theory best and its relationship with the prescriptive theory content-wise in the perspective of most of its critics. That is, he who would talk about curriculum must do more than describe what’s going on; many people want him to issue imperatives about what should be done.

We should not forget that it is the scholars themselves who widely believe that theories are generally descriptive in nature. This is because situations like curriculum development can be thought of as dealing with cause-and-effect relationships or with flows of events in