Curriculum Pedagogy in a Childhood Education Centre - Example

Curriculum Pedagogy in a Childhood Education Centre Student’s name: Institution of Learning Instructor’s Name Course Name Curriculum Pedagogy in a Childhood Education Centre SECTION 1 Education curriculum and pedagogy using the scenario of an early childhood centre. In this setting, there are various stakeholders involved in the development of any education curriculum, some of which are outlined below. i) The teacher The teacher’s role in all the spheres of learning cannot be watered down due to the key role they play in its development. In order to encourage diversification, some schools of education has acknowledged the idea of developing an appropriate naturally competent teacher program and fit the necessary programs in their curriculum (Print, 1993).. However it has not gone without resistance. And to overcome this challenge, there has been a need to equip the pre service teachers with the effective knowledge, skills and disposition needed to educate varied learners. A teacher needs to offer many and varied cross-cultural experiences and bear the knowledge to adapt the concept of interaction and teaching styles. He/she should be conscious on social and cultural differences of the students, be committed to act as an agent for change and have a constructivist view on education. ii) The government It is the governments that implement measures to enhance the proficiency of the education system of its people. The establishment of a national language is of key importance in creating the education system, in a number of countries in the Far East and sub Saharan Africa; their governments have imposed English to be the national language to achieve globalization of their education system (Fetherston, 2006). The policy of privatization of education has been adopted by quit a number of countries in order to enhance competence in schools but the issue of regulation is in the domain of the government. Some systems have a separate middle school with transitional infant and junior school at the primary level. The contemporary education have varied names like secondary, high school, middle schools ,vocational schools, etc with varied meanings from each other. Tertiary or third stage education is usually non-compulsory, it’s the level that follows secondary education- colleges and universities are the main ones in this level. iii) The school The basic primary education takes an average of six years in general as it starts mostly at age five or six. The school type highly determines the course of action on the routine practices of teaching. For example, most government schools offer standard education in the set system while in private institutions, in addition to the basics there are varied packages dependent on the learner’s ability to understand and pay for. iv) Foreign education bodies The education programs which are driven by the UNESCO have created a sensitization that has ensured a deeper commitment in achieving universal enrolment and compulsory primary education by the year 2015. The MDGs goal of achieving primary education and eliminate gender disparity in schools has made the education system of most countries revised to accommodate the needs. Section II The essence of every education planning is to promote excellence in the student by providing a framework for the best practice. It’s mostly done on the grounds of research on child development and learning, it is these frameworks that promote optimal learning and development. The professional duty to promote quality in child development, care and development compels the stakeholders to a regular revisit of the validity and currency of their curriculum. i) The teacher This is usually a very important determinant in the success of a child, since whatever the child gains and maintains for the future is as a result of what the teacher has impacted in him/her. There are some of the factors that determine the success of a child and are directly as a result of the teacher’s ability, character and efforts. For example, issues of home language and the teacher’s culture, the second language learning and the school culture that is usually developed by these stakeholder. recognizing the teachers knowledge and decision making techniques has led to the stakeholders spelling out what children should know and have the ability to do at various grade levels. But some teachers usually report relatively lower scope of decision making in class than the past, while in some instances they get little or no say in selection and assessment of the curriculum and the use of the classroom. A good teaching always require experts in decision making and that is what every teachers need in order to have a solid profes­sional preparation together with an ongoing professional development and regular opportunities to work in collaboration (Marland, 2007). ii) The government The government has a crucial role in establishing the required professionalism in the education sector in various ways. The government struggles to always maintain a qualified and competitive teaching force especially on the infant and child care centre which of late has faced greater challenge on the part of losing well prepared staff and administrators. Challenges like the demographic trends more so the expected growth on the number of young children makes the government allow for future changes in the cultural and linguistic capacities. iii) The external forces There has been a major objective with the international bodies like UNESCO to reduce the learning gap in the world amongst various societies. The early childhood education in various schools has therefore changed significantly and a number of emerging issues have increased in importance (Killen, 2009). Importance of good child care especially to the highly vulnerable infants and toddlers has been highly emphasized. There’s great emphasis on the mass of new knowledge to a few areas of research specifi­cally helpful in addressing three critical issues in the field of education; The new findings hold promise that can help reduc­e learning gaps and barriers thereby increasing the achievement of all children. But they are also important in helping those children with high likelihood of beginning school with lower levels of the basic skills needed to succeed There is also an assur­ance that children with learning difficulties or disabilities gets the necessary early intervention ser­vices that are demanded by their special needs to learn and function well in the classroom. The high prominence on mathematics and literacy concepts and skills are taught to infant and children in a manner that are engaging the appropriate development. iv) The parents The family role in the development of the children education cannot be ignored. The families provide their children with a variety of home learning concept that are either school or non-school related. Most of classroom literacy follows children to their homes through assigned homework. The scrutiny of these homework activities creates an opportunity to bring an understanding of the parents’ role in the schooling and nurturing the development of their children. All parents should make an effort to provide their children with a supportive learning environment. They should also assist their children in their academics but students of advanced stages should be left to work without much supervision. Section III In order to have noticeable improvement in the education sector, a country has to put in and appoint quality coordinators in each department, whose duties are to ensure quality management principles in their portfolio and return to their ministry to facilitate faculty in quality improvement. The concept of total quality management (TQM) was developed by and for industry in order to improve on efficiency and profits. Like industries, the education sector is totally different, and takes students as “customers” and has a view to compel the stakeholders to participate as a violation of their academic freedom. In my opinion, some changes need to be made in the sector of education by making some changes in the curriculum. This will accommodate quality management and delivery. In universities and colleges there should be well-formulated instructional objectives which can help instructors to prepare their lectures and assignment schedules together with the ability to facilitate construction of in-class activities, out-of-class assignments, and tests (Stremmel & Fu, 2005). The most important of all is that students should know what is expected of them; the more likely they will be required to meet the expectations. Students’ attention can be maintained all through in a class session by periodically giving them some assignments. The stakeholders should encourage cooperative learning, one that imposes a learning curve on both students and instructors; this motivates group work gradually increasing the amount of class work in subsequent course offerings as the students gain experience and confidence. The groups should be formed by the instructor/teacher as they work well than self- imposed ones, with common blocks of time when they can meet outside class. This helps to reduce the informal relations and students focus more on serious matters. My advice to teachers is never to allow underrepresented populations like the racial minorities or women in traditionally male dominated society to be outnumbered in teams In conclusion, the teacher should therefore impose individual accountability in as different ways as possible and the most common method is to give individual tests. This ensures individual academic development especially on infants and children. References Concha Delgado- Gaitan,(1990). Literacy for empowerment: the role of parents in children education, Hampshire: Bramley Publishers limited. Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2010). Curriculum construction (4th Ed.). French’s Forest, NSW: Pearson. Fetherston, T. (2006). Becoming an effective teacher. South Melbourne: Thomson Hill, L., Stremmel, A., & Fu, V. (2005). Teaching as inquiry: Rethinking curriculum in early childhood education. Boston: Pearson Allyn & Bacon. Killen, R. (2009). Effective teaching strategies: Lessons from research and practice (5th ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage. Marland, P. (2007). Learning to teach: A primer for pre-service teachers. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Print, M. (1993). Curriculum development and design. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Read More