Highlighting the key areas of reform for Curriculum

Highlighting the key areas of reform for Curriculum

Author: Santosh Kumar Biswa, Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan

 

As a Senior Teacher and a member of a curriculum committee, if I am asked to put together a document for an English Subject to bring some reform, I would prepare myself to be organized before directly jumping into the task with whatever little knowledge that I have. Firstly, I should get a general understanding of the concept of “Curriculum reform” and what it means after which I would go for the planning process. Before going into the real action, I should be prepared to know about the students based on what they already know and their attitudes and views towards their subject (APASS, 2021). According to Gouëdard and Pont (2020), they stated that curriculum reform is an innovative procedure for what the teachers should teach and what should the students learn in the classroom with complete guidelines. But, here the question is which areas of the content or strategies?

Thus, as a curriculum developer for class XII English subject, I would need ample time to sit back and study the education blueprint, a national curriculum framework for English, an Instructional Guide for English, etc. to get myself acquainted with the knowledge so that I can really compare and contrast some of the things that are really not working in the real field. It would enable me to have a better understanding of the existing curriculum, the types of assessment procedures followed, and how the teacher’s evaluation be held for my own background knowledge to prepare. 

The next thing would be to discuss with the subject department members in the school what I would be involved with and form a committee of at least 5 members to conduct small action research through proper sampling in which parents, teachers, and students would be involved as a part of the sample for the research. Before conducting the research, I strongly believe that submitting the proposal to the school management is necessary for prior approval to conduct the research within the school (McKimm & Jones, 2017).

Small research would be conducted to have the certain perspectives of teachers, students, and parents because they are the best person in action who plays a vital role in identifying the diverse constituencies that would enable the system to achieve required needs, appropriate assessment, and proper instructions with the balanced process (Johnson, n.d.). The next step would carry out the situational analysis with a brief review of the literature by the committee members to get greater insight based on the observations made during the teaching and learning process and the learning outcomes. According to Monson and Monson (l993), involving the educational community leads to better curriculum reformation initiatives as leading edges because it is them who can bring about the real concern about the educational process based on the experience gained during the course.

During the action research in the school, the research would be designed based on the quantitative analysis using at least 20 students, 20 teachers, and 10 parents as a sample. The research would try to find some of the issues that are related to national concerns but limited to the schools as a research point. Basically, the findings will be purely focused on the issues/concerns that are pertinent to the current curriculum. The following areas would be looked into during the findings with the help of questionnaires:

1.       Identification of the problems faced by the teachers and the students,

2.       Analysis of whether the set learning goals and objectives are fostered by current teaching and learning practices,

3.       Evaluate the relationship between the course designs to that of educational goals,

4.       Examination and re-examination of the current syllabus and the objectives

5.       What role the assessment is playing as current practice in the classroom for the targeted learners,

6.       Structure of current teaching and learning strategies or approaches,

7.       Disciplinary roles and their mission statements,

8.       Concerns and expectations of teachers, students, and the parents.

The research would be conducted within my school whereby, it would be designed to formulate and assess some of the possible reform models as stated above. It would enable me to have authentic data for analysis and come up with better curricular questions when I attend the curriculum reformation workshop as a committee. I should ensure that the entire research completely focuses on problem identification, assessment needs, types of strategies followed to teach, types of evaluations, and feedback systems adopted (Reis, 2018).

Mind Mapping for Pre-Curriculum Reformation Plan  

 

The three most important things that are necessary when starting a curriculum reform project

Reform in a general sense means reshaping target actions that were already implemented with the hope of bringing improvement (Schuberi, n.d.). According to Reis (2018), he stated that curriculum reform should not be simply concerned about the technical aspect of education that looks into the pedagogical aspect alone, it should be something more than that.

 The three most important points that I genuinely feel are necessary while starting a curriculum reform project according to my milieu are:

1.   Identification of the problems faced by the teachers and the students while handling the curriculum: Due to the vast contents of the syllabus teachers are often found rushing towards covering the syllabus than opting for quality teaching. Teacher quite often complains about the vastness of the syllabus and students getting more tasks during the course that burden them.  

2.   Examination and the re-examination of the current syllabus structure and its objectives: Quite often, in my milieu, it was observed that all kinds of teachings are curriculum-based teaching whereby teachers are found rushing to complete whatever is there in the text in which students never get an opportunity to think outside the box. According to Bright Hub Education (2008), they stated that they are simply a time-consuming approach because they involve more paperwork than actual learning. They further stated that such an approach may not meet the needs of the learners with that of parental lifestyle or their needs.

3.   The assessment needs for the targeted learners: Mostly, in my milieu, the mode of assessment carried out is a one-sided assessment where it is only the teacher who is involved in assessing students’ work and awarding the marks. There are no rooms for students to go for peer or group assessment and the curriculum does not define it specifically. Although the curriculum is concentrated on the process of learning, the end assessment is all done by the teacher alone. Having the culture of allowing students to go for peer assessment opens the room for the student to boost their achievement at a greater height than being involved alone (Dunn, 2011) because such practices enable the teacher to have a structured learning process in preparing their students for the future usage when they become adult (Centre for Teaching innovation, 2021). Thus, it’s high time that the reform should include intensive peer assessment in the school in order to empower the learners to be responsible people while managing their own tasks. 

Mind Map for My Curriculum Reform Project

 

 

                                                                               Reference

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