Education: Analyzing the Curriculum - Assignment Example

Definitions CHAPTER 4 Educational goals There are various educational goals that include administrative goals, societal goals, economic goals, and educational aims. The educational goals are determined by the policy makers and include the aspects that educators want the society to attain from education (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). The educational goals enable learners attain various values, traits and virtues from learning. For instance, the goals promote individual responsibility and accountability and positive attitudes towards conservation of the natural environment. 2) Levels of educational purposes There are various types of educational purposes that include Societal goals Administrative aims Educational aims Educational goals Learning objectives Economic goals 1. Societal goals – The societal goals of education aim at furthering political and social awareness such as understanding political structure of the global economy and attaining high levels of patriotism. 2. Administrative goals- The administrative goals aims at ensuring that the learner attains administrative skills that are essential in driving change and attaining organizational goals (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). For instance, one is taught on planning, time organization, delegation of responsibilities and leadership aspects. This is the case with principals of high schools and administers in higher learning institution. 3. Educational aims- These goals are set by the policymakers and curriculum professionals. For instance, educational aims may include promoting respect for cultural diversity and fostering positive attitudes towards other nations. Accordingly, attaining sound moral values is another educational aim. Some educational and training dimensions that have been identified include Personal development of the learner in order to attain high self-awareness and self-realization. For instance, students are taught to abstain from anti-social behaviors and drugs Another dimension is socialization that aims at training the students on communication, relating with others and handing interpersonal conflicts. For instance, the students are taught different cultural norms, belief systems and values in order to interact well with their peers from other cultures (Moore, 2012). Another dimension is skills for continuous learning and professional development. For instance, the students will learn how to use library resources and conduct research in order to challenge their prior knowledge and gain creative ideas. 4. Educational goals - (As indicated above). 5. Learning Objectives – These are traits and characteristics that enable the learner become a better person in the society. For instance, the student may learn about honesty, patriotism, and team work. 6. Economic goals- These include the knowledge, skills and expertise that are essential in supporting the economy and industry. The six categories of education and training dimensions consider the Bloom’s taxonomy, Ryle’s types of knowledge and Gagne’s categories. 3) Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloom Taxonomy was developed in 1956 under leadership of Dr Benjamin Bloom, a educational psychologist who aimed at promoting education through analysis and evaluation of concepts, procedures and principles (Moore, 2012). The taxonomy outlines three domains of educational activities that include cognitive (mental skills), affective (attitude or self) and psychomotor (manual or physical skills). 4) Cognitive domain Cognitive domain deals with knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The domain deals with development of intellectual skills that are essential in recognition of procedures and concepts that further development of intellectual abilities (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). The learners should be capable of remembering, understanding, apply the knowledge in real life situations and analyze the knowledge in order to differentiate between inferences and facts. The student should also be able to evaluate in order select the most appropriate alternative and integrate the knowledge through generating patterns, summarizing and revising the procedures of things such as training manuals or policy manuals (Moore, 2012). 5) Purposes of Standards The main objectives of standards are to ensure uniformity in education curriculum and ensure teaching leads to desired outcomes. The standards outlined the required knowledge and skills that learners should acquire at different stages and ensures teachers conform to the expected standards (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). The standards guide the development of school prospectus and quality assurance benchmarks. 6) An example of a ‘standard’ An example of standard is the learning and education standards by the states. For instance, solar system is taught in 4th grade. 7) Curriculum alignment Curriculum alignment refers to the attempts that are made by schools in order to ensure the curriculum is aligned with the expected standards and lesson plans (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). CHAPTER 5 1) Behavioral perspective and relationship to purpose and content of curriculum Behavioral perspective and relationships to purpose and content of curriculum enables students to attain interest in learning and improve the learning outcomes. These considers the strategies of ensuring students remain motivated and strategies that will reinforce the behaviors such as providing assessment feedback and counseling the students (Moore, 2012). The behaviors are identified by how students should feel or achieve after the completing the curriculum. The teaching experience should provide learners with an opportunity to practice the desired behaviors and behavioral aspects of content of curriculum should aim at maintaining interest in learning. 2) Constructivist perspective and relationship to purpose and content of curriculum Constructivist perspective focuses on how the learners construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experiences and reflecting on their past experiences. The students are required to compare new knowledge and past ideas in order to change their beliefs and discard the prior beliefs as irrelevant. The learners use real examples in problem-solving tasks in order to gain more knowledge and teachers guide the students in understanding their past conceptions (Moore, 2012). The teacher will listen to student’s ideas and encourage active participation of students in discussions. The students will be capable comparing and contrasting different ideas. 3) Conceptual change approach Conceptual change approach views learning as developmental change that involves accumulation of new ideas and knowledge. Learning involves an interaction between the new and existing conceptions and the outcomes of the interaction are determined by the nature of interaction (Moore, 2012). The approach involves discussion and evaluation of the preconceptions and encouraging conceptual restructuring. The teacher guides the students towards appreciating the scientific perspectives of the theorists. For instance, the teacher will guide the students in understanding their past conceptions about a scientific phenomenon and ensure active engagement of students in deeper understanding of the phenomenon. The approach is useful in learning since students will uncover their preconceptions on a particular topic and avoid misconceptions. Accordingly, teachers are capable of learning various instructional strategies and change their conception about the purpose of teaching (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). 4) Cognitive apprenticeship Cognitive apprenticeship focuses on the cognitive and metacognitive processes and skills and facilitates self-monitoring and correctional skills that are critical in problem-solving. The six teaching methods that are involved include modeling, scaffolding, coaching, reflection, exploration and articulation. The experts who use modeling build a conceptual model of the tasks such as explicit steps of solving a mathematical problem (Moore, 2012). The educators who use coaching provide hints and feedback while scaffolding entails providing support during learning. Articulation entails verbalization or demonstrating knowledge in a process such that learning can be more effective. The students are capable of comparing their own problem-solving processes with those of peers through reflection and make improvements towards the desired behavior of the educators. The exploration method enables the students to research, explore and develop their own hypothesis (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). Some key aspects include situations where students start working on problems so as to enhance their understanding. 5) Reading Recovery Reading recovery is a short-term intervention that is planned for students with low literacy levels (Pinar, 2013). The approach focuses on students who are not incapable of reading or writing their names and is mainly used during the first year in school. 6) Hegemony Hegemony refers to the predominant influence exercised by one nation over the others and includes acts such as expansionism and aggression by large nations that desire to attain dominance (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). The term is used in various political, cultural and social contexts and teachers are expected to deconstruct the prevailing cultural hegemony through ensuring the white and middle-class hegemony does not hinder learning of minorities (Pinar, 2013). CHAPTER 6 1) Curriculum organization Curriculum organization refers to the process of selecting the curriculum elements that form the subject, social life and student experiences and then designing the curriculum elements accordingly so that they can form the structure and type of curriculum. The criteria should consider the continuity, sequence and integration of the elements. The curriculum designers modify the content to suit the learners’ education experiences after the curriculum objectives and content is determined. 2) Macro level of organization The macro level of organization includes government guidelines on educational objectives and content at the national level. This comprises the social-cultural system and educational policies. There are other interest groups that influence curriculum such as religious groups, trade associations, and employers and the main challenge is balancing the different expectations of the various social organizations (McKernan & McKernan, 2013). The government has laws that determine the quality at macro level such as national examinations, assessments, and supervision frameworks that contribute to strengthening the economic competiveness of the country (Moore, 2012). Other activities that may be considered include the community involvement and extracurricular activities in order to contribute to healthier nation. 3) Micro level of organization Micro level of organization considers the classroom-based activities such as lesson materials and resources, qualification structures and examinations. The schools and teachers select their own educational materials and activities that should occur in classrooms (Posner, 2003). 4) Horizontal organization Horizontal organization is concerned with integration or relationships that exist between one part of the curriculum and another (Pinar, 2013). For instance, the horizontal organization factors on how topics in mathematics are related with topics in science. 5) Vertical organization Vertical organization aims at ensuring continuity and sequence in a particular subject area, not only for a certain grade, but also between subsequent grades. The curriculum organization ensures that the same topics are taught in different grades with a increasingly more difficult levels (Moore, 2012). An example is teaching ‘basic mathematics’ in grade 1 and teaching ‘advanced mathematics’ in grade 2. 6) Discrete content configuration Discrete content configuration is whereby the content is either independent or unrelated to any other content. The subjects are presented separately since there is no need of integration with other subjects and content is usually different and unrelated. 7) Linear content configuration The content configuration requires the learner to understand and master the previous concepts and skills before advancing to more difficult concepts or skills (Pinar, 2013). The phrases in the content follows a straight line as the subjects and content are related and learners need to understand the basic concepts before understanding the subsequent content. 8) Hierarchical content configuration Hierarchical content configuration occurs where there are multiple unrelated concepts or skills that are critical for understanding subsequent concepts and skills (Pinar, 2013). This includes classes that represent entities such as files and servers and learners need to understand multiple concepts that are unrelated before understanding the current concepts. 9) Spiral content configuration This is a curriculum whereby the content and skills are taught in different grades or levels using different ways due to differing levels of difficulty (Pinar, 2013). 10) Parallel media structure Parallel media structure means that the words and ideas flow better since the items on the list are grammatically equivalent (Posner, 2003). An example: Every Friday, John wears white shirt, blue shoes and black trousers. 11) Role of technology in curriculum organization Technology in curriculum is very critical since it facilitates delivery of the curriculum. Technology facilitates implementation of curriculum since models, visuals and audio materials are essential in preparing the content. Technology facilitates data collection that is useful in alignment of the curriculum with standards. Technology facilitates content development and offers personalized learning to students thus improving the learning outcomes (Moore, 2012). CHAPTER 7 1) Epistemology Epistemology refers to the theory of philosophical knowledge, its methods, validity and scope (Posner, 2003). Epistemology aims at investigating the difference between justified belief from opinion through examining the nature of knowledge, presuppositions, the extent and validity. It is the nature of human knowledge and understanding that is likely to the acquired using different inquiry methods. 2) Epistemological assumptions Epistemological assumptions refers to the assumptions about the grounds of knowledge such as what forms of knowledge can be obtained and how one can differentiate what is regarded as ‘true’ from what is to be regarded as ‘false’ (Pinar, 2013). Some examples of assumptions include the specialization or narrowing down to a limited field of study or scope of knowledge. Another assumption is the stratified curricula whereby learners can monitor their progress and determine the courses to complete. 3) Top-down/hypothetical-deduction approach This refers to working from more general information to more specific information. The researcher will develop inferences based on the existing empirical knowledge and formulate a research hypothesis. The researcher will then collect data and conduct empirical tests that are used to confirm or refute the assumptions, if the assumptions are confirmed, the research will communicate the findings and build on the theory (Posner, 2003). 4) Substantive structure Substantive structure is a body of concept-commitments about the nature of subject matters that guides the inquiry. Substantive structure examines the entire framework of guidelines, webpages and papers whether its detailed company reviews or performance summaries (Pinar, 2013). It is a conceptual structure of a discipline and aims at verifying the reasoning behind the text. 5) Syntactical structure Syntactical structure is a pattern of the disciplines procedures, the methods and how it uses conceptions to attain its goals. This is theory of general languages and the focus is not on the description of individual language or constructing the theory. The students will utilize terminology and syntactic components appropriately according to the purpose (Moore, 2012). Syntactic structure constitutes the acceptable evidence and relates to how to attain the ‘truth’ in the academic discipline. 6) Overarching themes Overarching themes are very important and influence many things in the design of curriculum. Examples of overarching themes include systems, cause and effects that may integrated through various courses. The overarching themes usually integrate content from various subjects such as literature, history, and sciences. 7) Bottom-up/inductivist approach Bottom-up (inductivist approach) is whereby scientific laws are inferred from facts or observable evidence. The approach is mainly useful in social sciences theories since knowledge is inferred by reasoning using general principles. The use of case studies in learning mainly takes the inductivist approach (Pinar, 2013). 8) Prerequisites Prerequisites are the basics or formalities that are critical before the development of the curriculum. The national curriculum policies in prerequisite in curriculum development. The understanding of the cognitive capabilities of targeted learners is also important as well as understanding of the educational goals (Pinar, 2013). 9) Project approach This refers to teaching strategies that enables the teachers to guide the learners through an in-depth study of real world topics. The projects are selected depending on the child’s passion and interest and may entail telling stories to others. The projects are complex, but have a flexible structure that allows for teaching-learning interaction. The learners are motivated and feel involved in their learning thus enhancing the learning outcomes. References: McKernan, J., &McKernan, J.(2013). Curriculum action research: A handbook of methods and resources for the reflective practitioner. New York: Routledge. Moore, A. (2012). Teaching and Learning: Pedagogy, Curriculum and Culture. New York: Routledge. Pinar, W. F. (Ed.). (2013). International handbook of curriculum research. New York: Routledge. Posner, G. (2003). Analyzing the Curriculum. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; . Read More