It is common for people to dislike change. When curriculum implementation is taking place there may be resistance to the new ideas and innovations presented. Thomas Harvey has provided a list of common reasons people may resist change.
Lack of ownership. Change must be an internal movement to have success. If the ideas are coming from an outside push success is much less likely to happen. Few people enjoy taking orders from external powers.
Lack of benefit. If teachers do not see any advantages to the new program for themselves or their students, they may not accept it. The strong 
More work. Few teachers want more to do. Change often brings additional responsibilities, at least, initially. Wise implementation entails removing current responsibilities in order not to overburden teachers with too much work.
Lack of support. This is closely related to the previous point. If leadership does not support the change, the workers will not either. The example and support of administration is key to the success of any change happening in an organization.
Insecurity. The risk of failure is always present when new ideas are tried. This can make some people really hesitant to try new ideas. A supportive atmosphere where failure is okay is needed for dealing with this. If people look bad using a new curriculum they will not use it for long.
Incongruence with Norm. The philosophy and beliefs laid down in the innovation must be consisted with the beliefs of the people who will use it. If there is a conflict in beliefs there will be a potential rejection of the innovation. This is especially true over controversial topics like sexual orientation, abortion, or creation.
Chaos. Change often brings disorder. If the amount of chaos and disorder is perceived as too high people may resist. People want change that brings order and not disorder.
Complete/wholesale change. A change that calls for a complete revamp of a current system is too much for most people to handle. An incremental approach is much more acceptable when dealing with bringing curriculum change. Many schools will role out a new curriculum a grade at a time rather than all at once. This helps the students and gives the teachers time to prepare.
There are many other reasons besides these that may be the root cause of resistance to curriculum change in a school. These reasons serve to provide a basic introduction into causes for resistance.
from the discussion and are expected to obey. This is, unfortunately, an extremely common type of change in education. Often governments or administrators will create a curriculum and simply dump it on the teachers. Without input, there is a high risk of failure because people need ownership in order to be motivated.
instructional approach, or adjusting assignments for students. A rollout in increments of a new curriculum instead of all at once is another example.
sudden, people may not use or adapt the new curriculum as they may not have been a part of the decision process. During the incremental implementation of curriculum, there needs to be agreement on the following questions
learning. The domains are cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Each domain has several levels of behavior from simple to complex and within each level, there are many verbs that can be used to develop the active component of an objective.
what the students will do. They guide the instruction of the teacher and help to maintain consistency within the curriculum. Objectives are derived from behaviorism and they must be observable and measurable.
statements about the philosophy of the school while goals provide a vision of the destination or results of learning.
develop a concise philosophy is to develop several different aims for the school. Aims are in many ways statements that provide direction and reflect the values of the stakeholders. Several aims in a paragraph can be used to develop a philosophy/mission statement of a school.
example, if there is a need for a new English curriculum someone may suggest that public speaking should be a part of the new curriculum.
are below.
the objectives of the curriculum. For example, in an English class, one activity is developing paragraphs. Therefore, writing paragraphs should be one objective that is a part of the larger English curriculum. The evidence of a well-written paragraph was an indication that the student had achieved the objective.
different purposes.
Some examples of correlation design include biochemistry, which is the combining of biology and chemistry. Other examples include social psychology, which is sociology and psychology; bio-statistics, which is biology and statistics; and music technology, which focuses on music and its use through technology. Â Generally, correlation design is found at the university level where students need expertise in specific subjects.
To deal with this fragmentation of knowledge, broad-field designers try to collapse subjects with similar content into a larger umbrella subject. Two of the best examples from would be Social Studies and Language Arts.
Articulation can also happen within a grade but across different subjects. For example, it is common for science and math classes to cover many of the same material but with a different application. Â A chemistry class might require students to take algebra 2 at the same time or a physics class may require concurrent enrollment in calculus. Â This is an example of horizontal articulation because it is happening across subjects rather than between grades.
layer of complexity to it. This process is repeated over and over again until the entire concept is explained to the students.
but the sequencing of the prerequisite knowledge does not matter as long as all of it is addressed before the more complex knowledge. Many college majors have prerequisites that must be taken before other classes. Many times, the order in which these classes are taken does not matter as long as all of them are taken before a more advanced class.
and subjects discussed, while not being very deep because nothing is discussed in detail. An example of this would be any kind of music or art appreciation class. Â There are many topics that are discussed in a shallow way. This is because the goal of the course is often exposure to unfamiliar content rather than mastery of it. Other classes are much more narrow in focus but concepts are dealt with in great detail.
In contrast to this group, other see morals as a source of curriculum. Morals are often derived from what people consider to be spiritual authorities such as the Bible. For this source, lasting truth and inequality in regards to the value of different subjects is part of adhering to this source.
These parts are the objectives, content, learning experiences, and evaluation. How these parts interact is what curriculum design is about.
constructivism is a philosophy that addresses the nature of knowledge and learning.
intellectual stimulation. Piaget created a framework for cognitive development. More modern examples include Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences.
the relationship between a stimulus and a response. A classic example of this is Thorndike’s experiments with animals. The animals were placed inside a puzzle box with a door that they had to learn to open. If they opened it they received a reward of food. The animals developed a connection between the lever for the door (stimulus) and the reward for opening it (the response).
believed that a curriculum should be interdisciplinary. This allows students to make connections between subjects rather than learn in isolation. He also stressed the role of democracy in the classroom. Students and teachers need to plan what will be learned together. This was radical at the time and still highly uncommon in the 21st century.
focused on what is necessary foundational knowledge that students currently need. Perennialism’s curriculum tends to be unchanging since it is focused on absolute truth.
Human nature is constant and mankind has the ability to understand the truths of nature.
In education, existentialism can be seen in curriculum’s that emphasize study choice in what they study. The arts are a strong component as well as other forms of the humanities. Self-expression is also important and experiences that contribute to individual choice are highly valued.
concern for testing ideas is derived from the scientific method. Critical thinking is important for people who support pragmatism. In addition, the teaching focuses more on exploring ideas rather than explaining them. The focus of the curriculum is upon the learner’s experiences with an interdisciplinary approach. As they inquire and discover students are having experiences that prepare them for life. The biggest proponent of this philosophy of learning was John Dewey.
experiencing things through as you may have guessed, experiences. Experiments in many ways are really just experiences people have had that were conducted in a scientific manner.
teaching the students. The education is highly structured and one of the best examples of this is the liberal arts education. The humanities are viewed as the most important subjects because these fields deal with ideas. The sciences are lower on the scale because they deal with observation.
general knowledge will prepare students to handle many different problems in life. Where these beliefs come from is the teacher’s own experiences and the values that were passed down to them from their parents and teachers.
the mind is what is most important. Observable actions are not as significant in this approach. When people adopt this approach they believe in training the mind like a muscle. A strong muscle can be used in many different ways just as a strong mind can be used in many different occupations in life.