Design a Curriculum of Educational Program which is relevant to your community?
To view other related topics. Click Here.
Answer:
The process of designing a curriculum program that includes components that meet the criteria described in the preceding section requires considerable time and commitment. Fortunately, the process does not have to be considered completely implemented for improvements in mathematics and science teaching and learning to be realized. Each stage of the process makes a contribution to these goals.
This report assumes that a curriculum program design committee, with representatives of various stakeholders in the school system or district, will be responsible for the design process. This process — described in this section — will be a major professional development experience for the committee members.
The process described in this section and illustrated by Figure 6 is not intended to be prescriptive but, rather, to suggest how to design a curriculum program. The boxes in Figure 6 represent key steps in the process. Factors that influence the process are represented by ovals.
Early in the process of developing or revising a curriculum program, the committee should study the
mathematics and science education context of the
local community, community priorities, state mandates and assessments, local and state educational system structures, and local history of educational practices and programs. It is important for the committee to become familiar with this context, particularly with local, state, and national standards. Other policy documents, such as goals, mission statements, course requirements, and curriculum guides, should be considered carefully in the initial part of the design process. In addition, the committee should not only study current practices, customs, and beliefs about education in the local schools but should compare these to the educational research literature on best practices in teaching, learning, and curriculum design.
ESTABLISHING GOALS AND STANDARDS
As the starting point in the development of an improved curriculum program, a district needs goals and a set of standards to guide the work of the curriculum program design committee, particularly in the important areas of creating a framework and selecting the core instructional materials.
The previous section of the report, "Components of Coherent Mathematics and Science Education Curriculum Programs," lists criteria for goals and standards and indicates how national standards provide guidance for districts that are writing their own. In recent years, most states have adopted mathematics and science goals or standards (CCSSO, 1997). It is important for the design committee to base its work on state policy since that policy determines the extent to which state goals and standards must be used locally. Some states require local districts to follow the state standards, while others expect the standards to be used as guidelines only. In some cases, state content standards guide a state's assessment program. In these cases, districts — and their curriculum program design committees — will likely choose to focus on those standards so that their students will perform well on the state assessments.
Where local or state-level standards do not exist or where state standards are optional or do not meet the criteria for high-quality standards given in the previous section of this report, design committees may want to use national standards. Many districts and states have used the following national standards as the basis for their own standards:
- The Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for Mathematics (NCTM, 1989);
- The Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991c);
- The Assessment Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 1995);
- The National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996b); and
- The Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993).
BUILDING A COMMON VISION
Even with the availability of goals and a comprehensive set of standards, the curriculum program design committee needs to agree upon and articulate a common vision for the district in its own language. Teachers, administrators, and others on the committee should translate what is called for in national, state, and local standards into administrative and classroom policy and practice for their district. The committee will want to consult research literature and other sources on best practices in teaching and learning science and mathematics. Creating a common vision of what and how students will learn mathematics and science is an important component of the development of the curriculum program, regardless of whether most of the program's components are adopted or adapted from other programs or developed independently. A common vision helps focus all stakeholders on what the school district believes is important. The vision is critical for good communication, as it will help the committee describe what the practices and behaviors of students, teachers, administrators, and parents should be when the curriculum program is in place. In building a common vision, the design committee should describe what would be observable when the curriculum program is fully developed and implemented in terms of
- what students are learning and how they are learning it;
- what teachers are doing to support, encourage, and expect learning;
- the evidence to be used during assessment of student performance; and
- activities parents, administrators, businesses, and colleges and universities are engaged in to support and encourage high levels of student performance.
Many approaches to this part of the design committee's work are possible as long as members engage in intellectual and focused discussion regarding issues of teaching and learning. One such discussion might include tracing the development of a particular concept or strand across several grade levels, and correlating this development with national and state standards documents.
*********************************************************************************
Tags
Education