Conception, Features, and Framework of Curriculum and Instruction Integration

Experience shows that the separation of curriculum and instruction can seriously block the process of curriculum reform. In the context of the new round of elementary education reform, curriculum and instruction plans should involve developing in an integrated way to implement the goal of students’ key competencies. Therefore, there is great value to resist one-size-fits-all thinking and reassess the issue of curriculum and instruction integration from a practical perspective. Following the practical essences of the key competencies, the research involved constructing three dimensions, practice, system, and structure, to reconstruct the connotation of curriculum and instruction integration. Curriculum and instruction integration is defined as the process of reorganizing and sequencing the internal elements of the system to form a new structure and new educational function in practice. There are three characteristics: it takes student learning practice as the goal, the existing curriculum and instruction structure as the basis, and the system hierarchical structure integration as the result. Based on the determined connotation and characteristics, authors constructed a hierarchical framework model for curriculum and instruction integration that was oriented around the key competencies. Research may provide useful references for promoting the high-quality development of curriculum and instruction.