Name of presentation

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Keynote Address Curriculum Symposium November
14, 2006 John Tait
Name of presentation
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This presentation

• What is curriculum?
• Stages of curriculum development a model
• Who leads the curriculum?

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Definitions

• The teaching requirements (contents, standards)
  set by a central education body
• The set of courses offered by a school
• The collective teaching, learning and assessment
  materials that are available for a course

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Definitions

• The requirements of a course setting standards,
  levels, learning outcomes and assessment
  strategies. These are grouped into units or
  modules and the curriculum is therefore seen as a
  collection of units of modules
• What the school and teachers plan to teach

Exercise Which definition would you choose as
the best and why?
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• What do teachers plan to teach to students as
  well as new skills in Science, Mathematics,
  Arabic, English, Islamic Studies, Social Studies?

• Are these therefore part of the curriculum?

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• Exercise Imagine a KG childs first day at
  school. He doesnt really know much about school
  and comes with an open mind, wondering what will
  happen. He doesnt even know about learning
  although he is very capable of it
• Who will he learn from that day?
• Where will he learn that day
• What will his mother ask him when he gets home?

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Influences on Learning

• Students
• Teachers
• Environment
• Parents
• Systems

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• During kindergarten and grades 1 2 pupils
  learn about themselves as developing individuals
  and as members of their communities, building on
  their own experiences and on the early learning
  goals for personal, social and emotional
  development. They learn the basic rules and
  skills for keeping themselves healthy and safe
  and for behaving well. They have opportunities to
  show they can take some responsibility for
  themselves and their environment. They begin to
  learn about their own and other people's feelings
  and become aware of the views, needs and rights
  of other children and older people. As members of
  a class and school community, they learn social
  skills such as how to share, take turns, play,
  help others, resolve simple arguments and resist
  bullying. They begin to take an active part in
  the life of their school and its neighbourhood.
• Extract from key stage 1 of the UK
  Curriculum

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• So now we can see that there are things that
  children learn just by being at school with other
  children by talking with their peers about any
  and every topic which is relevant to their lives,
  by observing the behavior and overhearing the
  conversations of teachers, other students and
  visitors to the school, by noticing what is given
  importance and what isnt and by learning to
  react appropriately to new situations. These
  lessons will stay with them for the rest of their
  lives because they are about learning how to be a
  successful member of society.
• This is sometimes called The Hidden
  Curriculum

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• In answer to our starting question What is
  Curriculum? we can now understand two simple
  definitions which encompass a very broad view of
  the curriculum.
• FORMAL CURRICULUM What the school and
  teachers plan to teachINFORMAL CURRICULUM What
  is taught or learned incidentally

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Stages of Curriculum Development
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Environment

• How does the environment (physical and social)
  affect the design of a school curriculum
• Focus question How does your school
  curriculum reflect Qatar and your local
  environment?

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Purpose

• What is the purpose of your curriculum?
• To do the basics well?
• To create leaders?
• To create problem solvers and creative thinkers?
• To - - - - - - - ?
• Where is your school purpose expressed?
• How does your school curriculum (planning,
  teaching and assessment) reflect your purpose?

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Selecting Your Team

• What are the key characteristics that the people
  in your team will need for you to successfully
  implement your curriculum goals?
• Imagine that there are no barriers
• What would be the characteristics of the ideal
  Principal, Academic VP, Curriculum Co-ordinator?

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Design

• Think of the curriculum as like a house where
  the Curriculum Standards are the foundations and
  the superstructure.
• Who decides the design of the walls and where the
  windows and doors are and which way the house
  will face?
• Who decides the colours of the rooms, the
  furnishings the things that make the house
  comfortable and relevant for the occupants?

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Design (continued)

• Who are the occupants?
• Teachers and students?
• What do the occupants do in the house?
• Teach and Learn?

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Learning

• Successful learning is the key purpose of the
  design of the curriculum
• If 30 hours per week are taken up with the
  teaching of specific subjects, where do you teach
  values, leadership, citizenship etc?

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Construction

• People Selecting the right people, sharing the
  plan, training them
• Tools A great plan with poor tools will never
  be effective e.g. A learning resource centre
  without books
• Supervision The leaders role is to oversee
  the big picture. Knowing the small details will
  also improve the overall quality.
• Exercise You have twenty strips of paper
  outlining different curriculum tasks and a three
  sheets with a different curriculum management
  role on each. Stick them on the sheet that you
  think is the most appropriate and rank them in
  order of importance. You should aim for a fairly
  even spread of tasks across the three roles.

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Refinement

• Once designed a curriculum should be reviewed and
  improved
• Environments change over time
• Repairs need to be made
• Who would carry out these tasks?
• How do you know where you are now?

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• The six stages of curriculum development can be
  applied in micro form to individual teachers and
  departments

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Who Leads the Curriculum?

• You have a series of statements about curriculum
  from a number of countries that are undergoing
  curriculum development. Please read them through.
  

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Focus Questions

• Which one comes from Qatar?
• What similarities do you notice?
• Think about what all these documents say about
  tasks and role and the exercises that we did
  about the house and the five key curriculum
  tasks. As a group write two sentences about who
  leads the curriculum.

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• Teachers bring the curriculum to life and make
  it real and exciting for your child NZ
  Ministry of Education
• How will you as school leaders assist them to do
  that?

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Challenge and Enjoyment

• Young people should find their learning
  challenging, engaging and motivating. The
  curriculum should encourage high aspirations and
  ambitions for all. At all stages, learners of all
  aptitudes and abilities should experience an
  appropriate level of challenge, to enable each
  individual to achieve his or her potential. They
  should be active in their learning and have
  opportunities to develop and demonstrate their
  creativity. There should be support to enable
  young people to sustain their effort.
• Scottish Curriculum for Excellence