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Leaders need alternative programs to support the rapid development of curriculum and teachers need online learning activities to support their classroom teaching. This dissertation reports an initial study in a long-term research agenda for developing an online curriculum. The primary purpose of the study is to explore student and faculty perceptions of an online curriculum to help decision-makers and researchers determine whether they would pursue the use of such a tool to support online curriculum development. The secondary purpose of the study is to generate design knowledge to inform future development of, and research on, this or similar curriculum development. The methodology of this study includes three components: development research, rapid prototyping, and qualitative methods. Development research and rapid prototyping provided a three-stage framework for this study: conceptualization, development, and research. I synthesized the literature to create conceptual models of an Online Curriculum Framework (OCF) at the conceptualization stage, built a prototype to implement the models at the development stage, and conducted research to evaluate the prototype at the research stage. Qualitative methods guided data gathering and analysis. To gather the data, I followed a two-step data collection process: pre-intervention email and group interviews, and post-intervention online questionnaire. Key themes identified through a constructivist approach to grounded theory were used as the basis of analysis of interview responses and the generation of theory. This study found that on one hand, faculty members might use an OCF, because they perceived that this tool could support their classroom teaching. On the other hand, however, their perceived decision to use an OCF would also be influenced by the perceptions of the usefulness and usability of the tool. The study identified the initial evidence supporting an OCF as an online learning resource and the challenges involved in developing and implementing such a solution. It provides a 3D-E-Learning model as a base for decision-makers and departmental leaders to determine whether they should adopt this tool. It also offers some design guidance for those who do want to pursue this solution to curriculum development.

In this autobiographical narrative study I consider how curriculum, in particular the mathematical curriculum, emerged for me throughout my life. My aims with this study are: - to show how my concept of curriculum has emerged and changed over time. - to encourage others to envisage curriculum in a range of different, but complementary ways. I started with a <i>naive</i> view of curriculum - the <i>received</i> curriculum. While teaching this changed. I began to appreciate <i>levels</i> of curriculum (national, school and classroom), to realize that within the constraints of a <i>national</i> curriculum I had professional freedom and to understand how students <i>negotiate</i> curriculum. I also became aware of curriculum as a continually changing <i>process</i> rather than a <i>product</i>. As an education officer in the curriculum development division, my views evolved further. I juggled with the conflict between <i>all planning for the classroom</i> and curriculum as government policy. My understanding grew about the <i>assessed</i> curriculum, the <i>global</i> curriculum, the development process (based on a <i>research-development-dissemination</i> model) and the notion that a curriculum should operationalize educational aims. I realized that contradictory perspectives on curriculum needed to co-exist. In the last 15 years I worked in tertiary institutions. My scholarship focussed on curriculum-related matters. My view of curriculum became <i>multi-dimensional</i> and <i>complex</i>, with associated documents and development being inseparable from curriculum; and I formulated a model in which curriculum, development and other influencing activities are envisaged as a <i>complex living system</i>.

Evidence is provided to support Kierkegaard's phenomenology that only what is learned through experience is truly known. It is demonstrated that the chiropractic curriculum represents a unique area of investigation and that it is possible to define curriculum; to create a functional and integrative model which subsumes elements from the traditional, cyclical and process models; and to design an integrative, problem-based, evidence-based, experiential chiropractic curriculum. A taxonomy is proposed for curriculum design in four domains which deal respectively with a) curriculum processes which include the selection, motivation and interaction of curriculum developers, curriculum definitions and models, and an algorithm for curriculum design; b) curriculum organisation which addresses philosophical, sociological, cultural and psychological foundations, curriculum paradigms and a chiropractic conceptual framework; c) curriculum development which concerns design strategies, situational analysis, intent, content, design and organisation of learning experiences and assessment of student performance; and d) curriculum application, which includes the learning climate, quality management, management of change, self-evaluation and external accreditation / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

Evidence is provided to support Kierkegaard's phenomenology that only what is learned through experience is truly known. It is demonstrated that the chiropractic curriculum represents a unique area of investigation and that it is possible to define curriculum; to create a functional and integrative model which subsumes elements from the traditional, cyclical and process models; and to design an integrative, problem-based, evidence-based, experiential chiropractic curriculum. A taxonomy is proposed for curriculum design in four domains which deal respectively with a) curriculum processes which include the selection, motivation and interaction of curriculum developers, curriculum definitions and models, and an algorithm for curriculum design; b) curriculum organisation which addresses philosophical, sociological, cultural and psychological foundations, curriculum paradigms and a chiropractic conceptual framework; c) curriculum development which concerns design strategies, situational analysis, intent, content, design and organisation of learning experiences and assessment of student performance; and d) curriculum application, which includes the learning climate, quality management, management of change, self-evaluation and external accreditation / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)