( Curriculum Analysis )
..............................................................................................................Definition:
It is is an “academic plan,” which should include: the purpose of the curriculum (i.e., goals for student learning), content, sequence ( the order of the learning experience), instructional methods, instructional resources, evaluation approaches, and how adjustments to the plan will be made based on experience or assessment data.
The curriculum analysis is a kind of a map. It is a plan with regard to the objectives, content, learning materials, assessment as well as the methods employed as a guidelines in conducting learning activities in order to achieve the goal of a certain education as a learning outcome.
The intended curriculum: is the documented, official plan -- or what faculty hope students will learn.
The achieved curriculum includes knowledge, skills and attitudes that are truly learned and remembered.
Significance:
The Curriculum takes content (from external standards and local goals) and shapes it into a plan for how to conduct effective teaching and learning. It is thus more than a list of topics and lists of key facts and skills (the “input” ). It is a map of how to achieve the “outputs” of desired student performance, in which appropriate learning activities and assessments are suggested to make it more likely that students achieve the desired results.
Tendencies of a curriculum:
1-Reconstructivist tendency (product -oriented) tendency.
It includes the aims and objectives of learning.
It is skills -based.
2-Progressivist tendency (Process- oriented) tendency.
It includes the way of achieving the aims.
It is tasks -based or procedure-based.
Points to consider:
Curriculum leaders should consider the role of technology, academic studies, cognitive processes, societal needs, student self-actualization, and subject content for future generations. A curriculum should focus on "learners' needs, talents and abilities, the subject matter, and the society.
Leaders should:
(a) set goals and rational for instruction.
(b) define the objectives.
(c) decide on means of assessment.
(d) construct a breakdown of units of study for the course.
(e) create lesson plans using various models and activities.
Requirements:
Curriculum developers require information on:
(a) The needs, interests and abilities of the students.
(b) The societal purpose [of the learning institution].
(c) The subject matter .
The idea of the curriculum analysis:
I can base the ideas on a previous curriculum designed to incorporate cognitive and constructivist approaches to learning while I cater to the needs, abilities and interests of the learner, society, the universities, and teachers, and set the standards for writing course books, course syllabi, lesson plans, and teaching material.
The Aims:
The aim is to "create an effective and efficient language learning environment that fosters learner's development and achievement.The underlying principles view language learning as a process that engages students in meaningful communication while empowering teachers as curriculum developers.
The importance:
The curriculum analysis provides a detailed list of principles underlying language learning and teaching, the choice of material and content, and classroom assessment that incorporate constructivist, motivational, and brain-based learning theories.
The Curriculum elements:
The education curriculum analysis includes the following elements for the whole content of the set-book that should be taught and applied all the year round.
1- General Aims:
By the end of the course, the following aims will have been achieved:
1-Achieving
policy making. Learning languages and culture creates understanding,
friendship and cooperation among peoples and countries all over the
world.
2-Developing language Listening and speaking skills to be used as a means of communication with others.
3-Developing the skills of reading and writing.
4-Practising Knowledge, attitudes, culture, social values, competences, fun and performance.
5-Achieving relevance and learners' needs, interests and abilities.
6-Acquiring skills and experiences to solve real life problems.
2-The objectives:
1. They describe the aims of a course in terms of units of learning.
2. They provide the basis for the organization of teaching activities.
3. They describe learning in terms of observable performance.
4-The teacher mentions the cognitive aims, the behavioural aims and the emotional aims of teaching each unit.
5-The objectives are often seen to depend upon a systematic analysis of the learners’ communicative needs. Needs analysis is part of the process by which aims and objectives are determined.
3- The course Content and the syllabus (Input stage):
In language teaching, Input refers to the linguistic content of a course. It seems logical to assume that before we can teach a language, we need to decide what linguistic content to teach. Once content has been selected, it then, needs to be organized into teachable and learnable units as well as arranged in a rational sequence. The result is a syllabus.
Once input has been determined, issues concerning teaching methods and the design of classroom activities and materials can be addressed. These belong to the domain of process.
Process refers to how teaching is carried out and constitutes the domain of methodology in language teaching. Methodology encompasses the types of learning activities, procedures and techniques that are employed by teachers when they teach and the principles that underlie the design of the activities and exercises in their textbooks and teaching resources. The teacher mentions the method or the methods of teaching he is going to apply in that teaching unit and that match the content and the standard of the learners.
The activity-based learning method includes project-based teaching, teaching through solving problems, feed-back, mind-mapping, brainstorming, playing the roles, acting, miming, elicitation, inductive method. deductive method, singing, playing games, using gestures, practical education, guessing, thinking, innovating, creation, imagination, interviewing, dialoguing, pair work, group work, collaborative work, using realia, real situations, and doing exercises.
The teacher can use audio and visual aids that include pictures, cards, flash cards, flip charts, school magazines, wall charts, drawings, letter building cards, designs, paintings, sentence building cards and grids. The teacher himself is an audio-visual learning aid through his gestures and facial expressions.
Technology
The role of methodology is to determine which teaching methods are most effective in attaining the objectives and a criterion-referenced approach would be used for assessment. There is no place for individually-determined learning outcomes: the outcomes are determined by the curriculum designer.
The role of technology is very important in active learning. The teacher mentions the type of technology he sees suitable and he is going to use like: the cassette, video, the computer, the internet, the data show, the overhead projector, the power point computer program, computer logo program, computer excel program, the adding machine, TV programs, The SAT Education Channels programs, Slides, CDs, Tapes, and school broadcast.
Technology offers us electronic teaching. I mean that the teacher must have an electronic lesson plan which must be previously prepared on a CD before. The teacher can enable the learners to use electronic program like MS picture management, Movie-maker, Lingoes program, Jing program, Free-mind program, Celestia program, Anki program and Yanks program. Hot Potatoes program can be used in assessment exercises as it includes j.match, j.mix. J.cross, J.puzzle and J.close programs.
Resources / materials:
1-The Set-Book.
2-The Work Book.
3-The teacher's guide.
4-My experiences.
5-Maps, magazines and authentic situations.
6-Authentic material.
7-Electronic programs and IQ Board.
8-The Environment.
9-Video films.
10-The internet .
5-The Activities:
The learners' activities and acquired skills include:
1-Co-Curriculum activities.
They are the classroom activities which include learners' share in discussion, pair work, group work, learning projects, interviewing, playing the roles, singing, drawing, painting, designing, songs, games, written work, oral discussion, workbook exercises, group work projects and all forms of participation and interaction. They are graded.
2-Extra-Curriculum activities.
A-There are outside classroom activities which include sharing in school parties , school congregations, doing researches, school broadcast, bulletin board, English club and school magazines.
They are not graded.
B-There are outside school activities which include school trips, visiting life sites to face real situations. They are not graded.
6-Assessment:
It is based on listening, speaking, knowledge, attitudes and performance.
It includes:
1-Self assessment.
2-Peer assessment.
3-Tutor assessment.
Interaction, participation, practice and communication.
Assessment Tools:
1-Discussion and interviews.
2-learners' portfolio.
3-Check lists.(Formative and summative)
4-Homework.
5-Embedded Assessments.
6-Standards register.
7-Formative feedback.
8-The summative
monthly oral test
9- Electronic Portfolios can be used to directly assess student work.
7- Evidence / Learning outcomes / The desired results:
It is the Output stage which refers to learning outcomes, that is, what learners are able to do as the result of a period of instruction. This might be a targeted level of achievement on a proficiency scale (such as the ACTFL Proficiency Scale) or on a standardized test such as TOEFL, the ability to engage in specific uses of language at a certain level of skill (such as being able to read texts of a certain kind with a specified level of comprehension), familiarity with the differences between two different grammatical items (such as the simple past and the present perfect), or the ability to participate effectively in certain communicative activities (such as using the telephone, taking part in a business meeting, or engaging in casual conversation).
The learning outcomes refer to the achievement of the desired purposes or results. The evidence means the extent of progress or the indicators or the learning outcomes that can be seen and illustrated through observing the learners' performance in their pair work, group work, researches, sharing, interaction, participation, dialoguing, evaluating, exploration, visiting the libraries and using technology in learning. learners' written exercises, grades, projects and portfolio are evidences for the learner's progress too.
Implementation:
There must be a kind of review to know the following points:
- Evaluating the curriculum effectively.
- Addressing barriers and challenges to implementation.
- Finding solutions for the barriers.
- Example to show the relation between objectives and outcomes:
- If the objective is:
- The learner can participate in casual conversation
- Learners:
• Can use strategies to open and close conversations.
• Can initiate a topic in casual conversation.
• Can select vocabulary appropriate to the topic.
• Can give appropriate feedback responses.
• Can provide relevant evaluative comments through back channeling.
• Can take turns at appropriate points in the conversation.
• Can ask for clarification and repetition.
• Can use strategies for repairing misunderstanding.
• Can use appropriate intonation and stress patterns to express meaning intelligibly.
Curriculum Map / Matrix / Curriculum full evaluation:
1-The general aims or the desired purposes have been achieved.
2-Learners are prepared for future reading and writing skills.
3-As for the basic principles of my curriculum, coherence, permanent change, innovation and competences are considered and different approaches are integrated in my curriculum design.
4-The cultures have been learnt and practiced.
5-The 4 language skills have been acquired efficiently.
6-The curriculum design has perfect sequencing.
7-The curriculum was suitable in level and age for teaching Arabic to foreign learners as beginners. The time and the climate were suitable.
8-Learners liked learning the foreign language, listened to and spoke it, read it and wrote it perfectly and proficiently.
9-Learners can adapt themselves with other people and cultures
10-The bench marking involves making comparisons of educational experiences at peer institutions or programs.
The stages of evaluation:
View other Resources:
1-Click here to go to : active Learning.