Yi-Ying Huang
Center for Teacher Education Feng Chia University
The Ministry of Education recently claimed integrated activity curriculum as one of the seven core curricula. Activity curriculum has its unique theoretical bases and educational values. It is not a kind of curriculum just for occupying the rest of school days after finishing the instruction of subject curricula. This paper aims to clarify the essence and rationale of activity curriculum, discuss its relation with the integrated activity curriculum in the nine-year compulsory curriculum, and analyze the prospect that both bring into the educational system. First, the meaning of curriculum and the background of activity curriculum are discussed in order to generalize the essence of activity curriculum. Secondly, the rationale of activity curriculum is constructed from the viewpoint of system theories through analyzing cybernetics, theory of information, general system theory, and theory of dissipative structures. Thirdly, the paper introduces the current content and policy of activity curriculum in America, Canada, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Finally, compared are activity curriculum and integrated activity curriculum, of which prospects are claimed; and furthermore, strategies for developing an effective activity curriculum are suggested.
Keywords: activity curriculum, integrated activity curriculum, system theories, the nine-year compulsory curriculum