Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders in Curriculum - Report Example

Interview Report and Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders in Curriculum s affiliation Part I: Interview Report Interviewee: Kathy Crum Position Held: Director of Teaching & Learning, Springfield Public Schools District Time of the interview: Saturday 31st May 2014, 11:05- 12:33 (1 hour 28 minutes) Getting an interview from Kathy was never easy; she had kept postponing the interview every now and then. Numerous reasons for the same kept coming up. Finally we had to do it on a weekend morning, before her new busy schedule of the weekend could again kick start. Finally I had the chance to meet with one of the key decision makers of the Springfield Public Schools district. As far as the curriculum is concerned, she heads all the teams that have anything to do with it. Her experience in the education sector has seen her rise to be Director of Teaching & Learning in Springfield Public Schools district. Her words of wisdom depict a composed well informed person in this field. One of her key proponent is the need to ensure that the curriculum is localized or rather; it meets the needs of the local population. Kathy expressed her concern on the fact that 60 percent of the student population in the area belong to the Hispanic ethnic group while 20 percent are African American. The curriculum thus needs to ensure that it caters for the needs of other minority group where around 3 percent are multiracial save for the Hispanic, African Americans, Asians, Whites and Native Americans. She explains that if caution is not observed, there is a very high probability that the curriculum developers may lean more onto the Hispanic ethnicity which should not be the case. To achieve inclusivity of all the concerned ethnic groups, she expresses the need to ensure diversity in the initial curriculum development stage. The committee charged with the responsibility to draft the curriculum or even to undertake reviews need to be ethnically diverse. The need for this, she says is from the fact that some ideas that people have are at times tied to their ethnicity even without their knowledge. She is also quick to mention that while ethnic inclusivity may not be easy to achieve, the complete omission of the same would be as bad as biasing the curriculum to one ethnicity. She explains that culture is important in any area where history is learnt. Failure to have a culture today may mean no history in the future. She explains that culture cannot be ethnic less. This means that if culture is to be learnt in class, the ethnicity cannot be avoided. Culture is one of the key pillars of history. The law even acknowledges that its important and even forms a basis of precedence. There is no way therefore that the curriculum can be cultureless or silent on culture. Silence would even make it more prone to negative ethnicity. Another key pillar that Kathy expressed in the interview is on the need to have a curriculum that develops the students’ soft skills. While the traditional aspect of a curriculum have shown little concern of the learners’ soft skill there is need to enshrine such requirement in the curriculum. This helps guide the tutors on the extent to which such skills should be developed in class. While the traditional curriculum had some opening for this, she says that in the current district curriculum, the same is well explained and the extent to which it should be done. The issue of soft skills hen brought about another factor regarding constant updating of the tutors. This she said while curriculums are reviews severally, little is done to ensure that the tutors responsible for impacting knowledge to the learners using the new curriculum. This she says has ended up with some curriculum review being helpless as the tutors have no idea on how to teach emerging trends in the curriculum. She thus expresses the need to ensure that ever update or review done on the curriculum should always be accompanied with teaching materials on the same. Where applicable, she advocated for the tutors to undergo training where she suggested use of the District learning portal tutorials for the tutors. This would thus ensure uniformity in what I taught in different schools together with effective implementation of the changes. While asked of what the changes she would like are implemented in the current curriculum, she was quick to point out on transitional unionization of the various levels of education’s curriculum. She raised concern of the fact that the three levels of school managed by the board that is the High School, Middle School and Elementary school; there was little room for transition in their curriculums. While elementary school is supposed to lay ground for Middle school, little transitional room is left. It’s like those two curriculums exists in isolation. There is thus need to ensure that there is a recap of the elementary curriculum in the first stage of middle school. This ensures a smooth transition of the two. Thus, she suggested can be enhanced by ensuring that involvement of all the stakeholders. To cap it up, while she accepted that the district cannot pride itself with the best curriculum, she noted that the district was in the right direction. She promised more stakeholders’ involvement in future reviews together with fine-tuning it to ensure that it meets the needs of future employers in the future. Part II: Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders in Curriculum Stakeholders of the curriculum refer to people, organizations or even agencies who have invested or rather have a ‘stake’ in the education system. This therefore includes all persons who have any participation in the delivery of services in schools as well as those likely to benefit from the same (National Association of County and City health officials). This means that the stakeholders of any system refer to those individuals and organizations that stand to lose or gain from that system. They are thus the people who have an interest in the decision made in that system and may wish to influence the decision making process. Ogawa and Bossert, (1995) notes that in curriculum development, the role played by the various stakeholder brings about the issue of complexity and the multi-faceted nature of the curriculum. This helps bring about an all rounded curriculum that looks into the various factors that affect the student achievement. Some of them include; professional development, curriculum development and professional accountability. In Springfield Public Schools district, there is a director of curriculum development who is directly below Kathy Crum, the Director of Teaching & Learning. The director is in charge of all the major review that takes place within the district and oversees that there is uniformity and organization from the various school as far as their curriculums are concerned. While each school is in charge of developing the small details of their curriculum, all this has to adhere to some uniform basics within the district. This means while there is liberty in the way each school develops its curriculum, the same has to be approved by the director. This makes the director the head stakeholder as far as curriculum development is concerned within the district. He assumes the role of the leader in curriculum development within the district. As Wiles (2008) notes the most effective of the curriculum leaders have to embrace dynamic roles and should make sure they go far beyond their responsibilities to ensure they align people with the resources, help in school improvements activities while at the same time motivating the participants. This is the role assumed by the district curriculum director. The leader is also expected to show strong leadership in curriculum development by embracing collaboration with the different stakeholders especially the various individuals who are at different level (Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2001). Another stakeholder who assumes similar role is the school head. The school heads are supposed to review the various curriculums areas that are developed within the school and ensure that there are enough provision to ensure smooth running and fulfillment of all the curriculum objectives. This means that they must be involved in the development so that they can give an assurance that the resources will be availed. For example in the physical Education curriculum, a master piece curriculum may developed, however the resources may not be available to ensure that the curriculum is implemented. The school heads sits in school boards and it’s only them who can negotiate with the board to ensure funding of the curriculum requirements. The same case applies with a change in the curriculum that may require a change in the class text being used. Okumbe (1999) explains that in every curriculum development, the parents and the guardians must be involved. They may not provide much input into the curriculum development but their involvement is highly important. They not only need to feel involved but they also have valuable part to play in ensuring the successful implementation of the curriculum. One of their main roles is in ensuring that they provide moral support to the learners while at home. They need to constantly ensure that they encourage their children on the importance of taking each activity given at school with uttermost important. This helps the learners in having an objective view of the various activities they undertake at school. They are also expected to provide some resources for their children while at school. For example in an Art class there may be requirements for colours and other materials by the school, such requirements are bought by the parents and guardians. It is therefore very important that the parent understands their importance to ensure ease of implementation. The learners are the other members who are very important in the curriculum development. They are the ones to whom the knowledge will be impacted and the ones who will have to pass through the various requirements of the curriculum. They thus need to be informed of the various requirements of the curriculum in advance to ensure they prepare adequately for the same. They are also to be tested upon completion of the same. This requires that the course outline given at the beginning of each learning period such as a semester is a true reflection of what is set out in the curriculum. They also need to be taken through the curriculum covering all the areas required in the required depth. Their tests should be a reflection of what was taught in class and should test the various objectives of the course learnt. The teachers are the other stakeholders who are involved in the curriculum development process. They are among the key stakeholders in the education sector. Its them who see that there is total implementation of the curriculum. They need to know what the curriculum requires of them so that they can be able to develop materials that will ensure its implementation. They are also expected to test the understanding of the students at the end of each training period. If they therefore fail to be reading from the same script as far as the curriculum is concerned then the implementation of the curriculum will be crippled. They will end up having their own curriculum and implanting it instead of the accepted one. The other group that has interest in the development of the curriculum is the members of the community. Learning institutions do not exist in a vacuum (Office for standards in education (OFSTED), 1995). There are other bodies within the external environment that must always be considered. The community is highly important owing to the fact that they are the main absorbers of the learners when they are through with their study. This means that the curriculum must fulfill the requirements of the employers. The learners must meet the expectations of their employers. This means that one cannot develop a curriculum without having an idea of what the employers will require of the learners when they will be looking for jobs in future. The community also expects that certain other key values are taught to learners while in school. This means other than educational excellence, it is expected that the schools impacts knowledge regarding other values such as integrity, service, excellence, respect and stewardship. This therefore requires that while developing the curriculum that the same is incorporated. Soft skills are also a major requirement from the community as they enable the learners to survive more easily in the outside world. The Springfield Public Schools district is one of the large education districts in Illinois. It had a total of 25,729 students in the 2012-2013 academic year making it one of the major districts in the country (Quick Facts about the Public Schools-2013). With such a student population, the district has a fully-fledged director who is in charge of curriculum who is appointed by the district education board and who reports to board directly through the Director of Teaching & Learning. When there is a major review of the curriculum, he is charged with the oversight of the same. However a team of specialist is at times assembled though his appointments for the relevant curriculum development. He heads such a team as the chair to see that there is smooth running of the changes up to the implementation. Together with the team of the specialist, they all report directly to the Teaching & Learning director and write a final report to the board. References National Association of County and City health officials. (n.d.). /MAPP_Glossary. Retrieved June 03, 2014, from National Association of County and City health officials: www.map.naccho.org/MAPP_Glossary.asp Okumbe J.A(1999). Education management Theory and Practice, SinLitho Ltd, P.O Box 13939 Nairobi, Kenya Office for standards in education (OFSTED), (1995). Key characteristics of effective Schools. A Review of schools effectiveness research: A report by the Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom Quick Facts About the Springfield Public Schools 2012-2013 Volume 5 , Version 1 - Published on December 17, 2012 available at www.sps.springfield.ma.us Spillane, J., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. (2001). Investigating school leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 23–27. Wiles, J. (2008). Leading curriculum development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Zepeda, S.J., & Kruskamp, B. (2007). High school department chairs: Perspectives on instructional supervision. The High School Journal, 90(4), 44-54. Read More