Posners Terms Analyzing the Curriculum - Assignment Example

Posner’s Terms – Analyzing the Curriculum 1. Research, Development, and Diffusion (RD & D) as related to Curriculum Change The perception that the change in curriculum with the support of implementation of technologies to bring in betterment in teaching practices and procedures give rise to Research, Development and Diffusion model (RD&D) of curriculum change. According to Posner (1995), RD&D Model as related to curriculum change, can be examined as a struggle towards incorporating technology in the curriculum, hence bringing in a change. The model had steps to follow for implementing change. Researching the standards of curriculum and teaching, developing the conducted research on newly selected curriculum, distributing curriculum to the teachers and adopting the curriculum in the classrooms are the sequentially followed steps of the model. For example, teachers can conduct research, introduce their research in the classrooms, share it with other teachers and after seeing the effectiveness of the research, can be supportive in making it a part of the curriculum. 2. Robert Glaser/Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI) Robert Glaser made a curriculum by making use of the standards of RD&D model for curriculum change, which he named as Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI). IPI can be defined as a systematic approach to learning (Posner, 1995). Glaser intended to implement the standards of the RD&D model to the whole curriculum employed by primary and secondary classes through IPI. This approach individualizes the children as the students are allowed to learn with the support of technology. Teachers and students both can assess the behavior of the student in learning and understanding the curriculum. For example, students gain instructions and curriculum details with the support of computerized technology. Each of them has his own instruction to follow. 3. Collaborative Approaches as related to Curriculum Change The collaborative approaches as related to curriculum change were created after finding weaknesses in the RD&D model. The approach highlights that better teaching is based on experience and knowledge acquisition of teachers about their profession (Posner, 1995). Teachers are able o learn better by viewing other teachers’ teaching and sharing their notions with one another. Teachers and students should be collaborative in developing curriculums and bringing in a change in the curriculum. An example of collaborative approaches as related to curriculum change is to incorporate new and innovative materials such as computer usage in the curriculum by collecting the viewpoints of teachers and students collaboratively. Chapters 10 and 11 1. Purposes of Evaluation The purposes of evaluation sometimes disagree with one another. The academic institutions generally need evaluation data that they can reveal to the stakeholders and financers for showing the efficiency of their system (Posner, 1995). This evaluation data is provided as a source of measurement of the presentation of the academic institution for advertising purposes. In addition, the evaluation is conducted as a certified activity to assess the performance of individual educators in order to scrutinize and make better the learning strategies that they intend to provide. The profiles and yearly results of students given in newspapers and meetings for performance evaluation with the support of evaluation data are examples of purposes of evaluation. 2. Standardized Tests Standardized tests can be defined as a collection of questions with an acknowledged collection of most probably accurate answers (Posner, 1995). The standardized tests are assessments that are supervised and evaluated by following certain standards. Consistency can be found in standardized tests. Every student has to give the answers already assigned as correct answers. For example, a test in which, multiple choices are allowed with each correct answer already known to the checker. 3. Formative Evaluation Formative evaluation can be defined as a collection of formal and informal evaluation processes used by teachers throughout their teaching and student’s learning to bring in betterment in students’ learning and knowledge acquisition (Posner, 1995). The students and teachers both are expected to give detailed feedback that can be employed for improving students’ learning and teachers’ better teaching. For example, students receiving multiple assessments of essay format as well as multiple choice questions for showing their learning and are also required to give their feedback about their tests. 4. Summative Evaluation Summative evaluation can be defined as an evaluation of learning of students that is able to assess students’ timely performance in terms of their learning (Posner, 1995). Summative evaluation is to attain a summarized version of the knowledge acquired by the students till a certain time period. These tests are also conducted to evaluate the students’ performance to check their weaknesses and strengths in learning. For example, a teacher evaluates students’ learning by giving him a test after a month, which he gives to receive a test score. 5. Evaluation Data Evaluation data can be defined as an information collected after conducting an evaluation about something’s validity as per the set standards (Posner, 1995). Evaluation data is collected through systematic assessment related to importance and merit of a subject. This data is further usable to evaluate the performance of the institution, educators and students in order to bring in betterment in learning, teaching and administering. The evaluation data is also collected to check whether there is a need for change of not. Evaluation is essential to come to conclusion related to brining in improvement in the currently followed curriculum. For example, the evaluation data related to students’ declining monthly scores in Mathematics can support the teachers to incorporate new techniques to teach Mathematics. 6. Measurement-based Evaluation Measurement-based evaluation can be defined as evaluation for analyzing the students’ performance as per certain measures (Posner, 1995). The measures are certain scales that should be evaluated with students’ performance. It is quantitative evaluation. The students are evaluated as per their skills attained until a certain level. The measurement-based evaluation is not bigoted as the performance is assessed against certain standardized measures that are predefined. For example, students proficiency at English learning is assessed by means of levels designed for English language learners. 7. Integrated Evaluation Integrated evaluation can be defined as an evaluation that connects the academic experience and effective teaching skills to evaluate the students’ performance (Posner, 1995). The students can have an improved learning experience and teachers can have augmented contentment because of integrated evaluation. Many teachers are not fond of grading their students’ performance, but an integrated evaluation offers involvement of students in the evaluation procedure. For example, to ask students about their expectations related to a test and then incorporate their expectations within the assessment. References Posner, George J. (1995). Analyzing the Curriculum. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers. Read More