ABSTRACT
In current educational theorizing, curriculum involves so much more than the setting out of topics to be taught and learned, the latter being what we used to know as ‘syllabus’, a term that gets little airplay nowadays. ‘Curriculum’ in current usage involves the content of teaching, the methodology of teaching and also the people involved: the what, how and who questions introduced in Chapter 1. In this book we argue that attention must be paid to the social composition of the class and the cultural background of the educator and students in the planning and practice of engineering education in order for it to qualify as inclusive. The understanding of learning outlined here explains the reason for this claim. At the same time, teaching, learning and assessment remain the core business of every formal educational endeavour, and so it is important to consider how these processes are understood if we are to make effective interventions. Any educational action is predicated on an understanding, sometimes implicit, about what it means to learn and, relatedly, what it means to teach. Consequently, we begin this chapter by looking at learning theory.
