On Curriculum Communication

The relationship between curriculum and communication has long been intimate. So far, studies in this domain have been exclusively on the influence of media and information on learners'physical and mental development, and the application of media and communication in school curriculum activities, with researchers focusing on "school curriculum". The essential connection between "curriculum" and "communication" was seldom touched upon, and papers on school curriculum from the perspective of communication studies were limited in number as well. It is fair to say that researches on the relationship between "curriculum" and "communication" are still in the initial stages, far from scientific and systematic. Therefore, to carry out a cross-over study on curriculum theories and communication studies is of great significance for us to expand theoretical horizons of curriculum studies, and reconsider a series of fundamental theoretical issues such as the nature, content, implementation and evaluation of curriculum. This dissertation centers on "curriculum communication", attempting to uncover the nature, content, characteristic, form and structure of curriculum communication. There are all together seven chapters.Chapter One:"Introduction". Before exploring curriculum communication, this dissertation first of all reviews literature on curriculum communication studies, clarifies some key definitions such as curriculum, communication and curriculum communication, and introduces research perspective and method, laying the foundation for subsequent chapters.Chapter Two:"Curriculum and Communication", discusses the relationship between curriculum and communication. This chapter explains the impact of communication on society and individuals through the analysis of the relationship between communication and social development, and of that between communication and individual development. Then this chapter expounds the intimate relationship between media and curriculum development through the analysis of media and curriculum. Finally, this chapter introduces the communicative nature of curriculum. This new perspective views the purpose of curriculum as to promote learner development, and considers the sequential and constructive communication process of knowledge and information between educators and learners as a unique application of human communication activities in the field of education and also the "shortcut" to promote learner development both efficiently and effectively.Chapter Three:"General Introduction of Curriculum Communication".This chapter analyzes the characteristics of curriculum communication:instructive, schematic, sequential and constructive, which are the "boundaries" that differentiate curriculum communication activities from other human communication activities. The content of curriculum communication is made up of knowledge and information. Here, knowledge is different from information in that it is information with intellectual properties, while, information, on the other hand, is non-intellectual. Knowledge and information are the core elements of curriculum communication, which is the purposeful, schematic and sequential communication process revolving around the selection, organization and implementation of knowledge and information. There are three patterns of curriculum communication:linear pattern, control-theory pattern and system-theory pattern. From the perspective of social formation, there are three types of curriculum communication, interpersonal communication, organizational communication and mass communication. Knowledge and information transmitted by the above mentioned three patterns have to go through a series of complicated mental mechanism before they are internalized and fit into the unique knowledge and competence framework of individuals. The mental mechanism of curriculum communication includes cognitive mechanism composed of sensation, perception, memory and thought, dynamic mechanism composed of motivation, emotion&feeling, and will, and regulative mechanism composed of meta-cognition and meta-consciousness, etc. Motivation, emotion&feeling, and will provide the driving force for the cognitive processing of curriculum knowledge and information, while meta-cognition and meta-consciousness regulate cognitive and dynamic mechanism. The mental mechanism of curriculum communication is in fact the inward communication process in communication studies, namely, the communication of knowledge and information between leaner as I and learner as Me. The reflexive competence of human beings to "enable oneself to become the object of self-consciousness and self-will" ensures that humans are capable of self-construction of the framework of knowledge and competence, thus curriculum is not only the process of "knowledge-passing" and "information-giving" but also the process of learners' inner growth.Chapters Four to Six analyses the interpersonal communication, organizational communication and mass communication of curriculum separately, exploring the characteristic, classification, process, influencing factor of the three curriculum communication patterns, and expounding the theoretical and practical impact of them on curriculum development and learner growth. The three chapters also explore curriculum in its " narrow sense", school curriculum, from the standpoint of communication studies. School curriculum is the kind of curriculum that communicates mainly through organization. Its learner-promoting organizational nature, structure and unique condition support steadily guarantee the communication of curriculum knowledge and information. That is the reason why class teaching system has played a leading role in school education and curriculum so far.But school education has long assumed learners on a homogeneous ground, and that is the root for the limitations of school curriculum communication. In both education theory and practice, people have been discussing how to avoid and overcome these limitations. Some principles and methods such as asynchronous teaching, differentiated teaching, stratified teaching and individualized teaching have been proposed and experimented.Chapter Seven:"Discussion". This dissertation advocates and proposes a scientific sense of curriculum communication in both theory and practice. The sense of curriculum communication is part of curriculum consciousness, its core being the communicative nature of curriculum. The sense of curriculum communication is composed of subjective sense, content sense, process sense, media sense and effect sense, ete. The cultivation and formation of the sense of curriculum communication demands an open and broad curriculum idea, understanding of the communicative nature of curriculum, enhancement of the communicative competence and skills of both educators and learners, and the practical ability of reflective teaching. Upholding lifelong learning and learning society and aiming to promote learners'all-round and life-long development, a scientific sense of curriculum communication calls for a broad vision and a tolerant mind to examine curriculum phenomenon, study curriculum problems, fully utilize and transform the existent and potential curriculum resources in both life and work so as to comprehensively grasp curriculum communication and design curriculum communication activities accordingly, and to turn curriculum, this high-speed, high-efficiency education activity, into a real "shortcut" to better learner development.