Spiral Curriculum
SPIRAL CURRICULUM
The Spiral Curriculum is founded on a cognitive theory advanced by Jerome Bruner (1960). Bruner hypothesized that human cognition occurred in three stages: Enactive, actually manipulating and interacting with objects; Iconic, manipulating images of the objects or phenomena; & Symbolic, the manipulation of representations of the actual objects or phenomena.
Learning is spread out over time rather than being concentrated in shorter periods. In a spiral curriculum, material is revisited repeatedly over months and across grades.
Key features of the spiral curriculum are:
• The student revisits a topic, theme or subject several times throughout their school career.
• The complexity of the topic or theme increases with each revisit.
• New learning has a relationship with old learning and is put in context with the old information.
The Spiral Curriculum is founded on a cognitive theory advanced by Jerome Bruner (1960). Bruner hypothesized that human cognition occurred in three stages: Enactive, actually manipulating and interacting with objects; Iconic, manipulating images of the objects or phenomena; & Symbolic, the manipulation of representations of the actual objects or phenomena.
Learning is spread out over time rather than being concentrated in shorter periods. In a spiral curriculum, material is revisited repeatedly over months and across grades.
Key features of the spiral curriculum are:
• The student revisits a topic, theme or subject several times throughout their school career.
• The complexity of the topic or theme increases with each revisit.
• New learning has a relationship with old learning and is put in context with the old information.
