about Curricular Activities

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Confidential

e-Education INTERNATIONAL

A Briefing on the Macro Issues about Curricular Activities

CASIO Skill-up Seminar

Wei-Chang Shann 單維彰

Center for Teacher Education and Department of Mathematics National Central University, Taiwan

[email protected] http://shann.idv.tw

2017/07/21

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Macro Issues

• Curriculum Types

• A Classification by John Goodlad

• Evaluation Types

• For Students

• For Teachers

• Teachers Promotion System

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A Classification of 5 Curriculums

To help us getting organized.

Brief descriptions and stakeholders.

Ideological Curriculum

Stakeholder: MOE, educator, curriculum maker What the curriculum is meant to be

Issues: the power of curriculum; the order of contents;

subjects, courses, and learning hours

Formal Curriculum

Stakeholder: publisher and teacher Materials approved and adopted

Issues: the freedom of publishing environment and teaching contents

Perceived Curriculum

Stakeholder: Teacher, parents, school managers How teachers etc think of the curriculum

Issues: Can the “operators” of the curriculum fully understand the concept?

Operational Curriculum

Stakeholder: exam-composer; teachers; cram school teachers What teachers actually teach

Issues: what teachers taught are not always same as what they perceived

Experiential Curriculum

Stakeholder: students

What students receive and perform

Issues: Is it same as what curriculum composer expect?

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We Focus Mainly on the Upper 3

However, each aspect is correlated with others. This framework helps with reviewing issues from main stakeholders’ perspectives.

Ideological Curriculum

Formal Curriculum Perceived Curriculum

Operational Curriculum Experiential Curriculum

Math Topics’ Order Lessons’ Regulation

Authority To Publishers Channels To Obtain Supporting

Tools

Supporting Tools

Students’ Performance and Interest

Teaching Methods Media

University Entrance Teachers’ Guide

Practice Bank

Teacher Certification On-job training

Test-teaching

Class Preparation Committee

Syllabus Review And Advice

Lesson Plan

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A Flow Chart of the Implementation of Curriculum

Most countries should have most of the components. Participants are invited to analyze the system in your own location.

Curriculum Flow Chart – Chung-Yi Chang

Supporting material Textbook

Teacher’s Guide Spirit Of the

⑥

Curriculum

Objective Of Curriculum

Curriculum Elaboration

Or Illustration

Teaching Guide Review what

kind of talent the nation

needs

①

②

③ ④

⑤ ⑦

Teacher Training

Evaluation

⑧

Source: Teacher Training Seminar held by Department of Curriculum Developing(国家教育研究院課程及教學研究中心）on 2017/06/03 Interview with professors as following: C.Y. Fang, Hui-chuan Chen, Wei-Chang Shann, and My tears and blood

Teachers Evaluation

and Promotion

Teachers Students

Ideological Curriculum

Experiential Curriculum Formal Curriculum

Course Inspection

Perceived Curriculum

Operational Curriculum

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Ideological Curriculum. A Legal Document?

National Curriculum for All and for Subjects. Philosophy and Mission.

Contents, expected performance, elaboration and illustration on disciplines and issues.

Ideological Curriculum

Formal Curriculum

Stakeholder: Teacher, parents, school managers How teachers understand the curriculum

Philosophy and Mission Contents and Standards

Strict/ loose Detail / abstract

Mandatory Activities Teaching Hours

By Subjects

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Ideological Curriculum. Parts and Levels.

Strict

Power ReceiverDetailsOfContentDevice / CalculatorObjective

None Loosely Arranged

Follow the guideline of exams

Overall goals for 3-4 years

Public schools only All

• A list of contents

• (and/ or) a list of description of performance

School ElectivesElabora tes

Type1: General Math

Type2: Math In Topics

• Specify topics shall be covered

• Materials and Devices

• Specify topics in a sequence (like a table of contents in textbook)

• A do’s-and-don’ts list

none

none Within Curriculum Document Appendix or Supplements

• Supervised by school

• In-school peer-to-peer Ideologically encouraged

ToolGuide

• Supervised by external authority • Consulted by colleges Specifically recommended Required By Topics Regulated clearly about in-class

and in-exam functionality

Suggestions Only Partially mandatory Who provide the budgets?

CourseAuthority

• Learning hours only

• Learning hours by topics

Minimum regulation from MOE

• National Required / Elective Courses

• School Required / Elective Courses

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Formal Curriculum: Materials Approved and Adopted

Textbooks. Peripheral Devices. Syllabus vs Lesson Plan.

Tutorial Guides. Lecture Notes.

Formal Curriculum

Stakeholder: students Detail / general

Widely available / limited availability

Approval

Supporting Materials

Learning hours and Contents

Training And Review

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Formal Curriculum

Regarding Publishers.

Textbook

Publisher Tutorial Guides

Regulation imposed Strict

Devices editingdevelopingdelivering

• Folio size

• font size, color

• Price Regulations

• Number of page

• Selected by each instructor • By school • By district • One copy in whole nation

• Responsibility of parents

• Responsibility of schools >>Can textbook publishers provide them without extra charge?

• Regulated by National Curriculum

editingdevelopingdelivering

• Only Authorized Organizations are Allowed

• Folio size

• font size, color

• Available in the retail channels

(parents can get it)

• Free “gift” to teacherss

• Optionally Acquired by Parents

• Rrequired by Teacher/School • Extra purchase made by schools

• Free to publish

• Only those Pass the Inspection can Publish

• Price Regulations

• Number of page

• Anyone can publish guides

• Only those Pass the Inspection can Publish

• Only Authorized Organizations are Allowed

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Formal Curriculum

Regarding Teachers.

Syllabus

Teachers chingHoursVideo LessonPlanSyllabusNotesClasshours

Regulation imposed Strict

Lesson Plan

No special Request

• By each teacher

• Voluntarily by individual teachers

• Organized by school

• Voluntarily by groups of teachers

• Aligned by the whole district

• By district adminitrator

• Is It a common practice?

• Any training available to the teaching preparation?

• Knowledge about teaching methods? (ie. Step-by-step plan including triggering questions with expectation to the anticipated reactions by students)

• Individual work /Group work

• Encouraged/

discouraged

• Inspected

• Goal/ objective oriented lesson plans

• Including the in-class assessments to evaluate the reactions(Understanding by Design)

No special Request

• Individual work /Group work

• Open/ limited right

• Encouraged/

discouraged • Any credits?

Teachers have right to lower/

increase the learning hours

• Certain rules

applicable to increase the class hours

• Can teachers get extra pay?

• Paid by whom?

• Celling?

Remedial Teaching

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Teaching Preparation. Syllabus and Lesson Plan.

Syllabus: course plan for a semester/term.

• Required or not.

• Provided by each teacher or Organized by school.

• Aligned in the whole district (concerned parents and cram schools).

Lesson Plan: teaching plan for a period (for instance 50 minutes).

• Required or not.

• Voluntarily prepared by teachers or by groups of teachers.

• Is it a common practice at all?

• Are teachers trained for this?

• Come with different details:

• a step-by-step lecture/activity plan,

• a minute-by-minute plan,

• a triggering question or inquiry with students’ anticipated reactions and the teacher’s responses,

• come with an analysis of prerequisites and initial conditions,

• come with a list of lesson goals with an intension to achieve it,

• designed with assessments to evaluate the achievements (UbyD: Understanding by Design)?

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Perceived Curriculum. Teachers, parents, administrators

Materials and Activities to Help Teachers fully Understand the Philosophy, Mission, and Techniques of the Curriculum, such as On-job Training and Teachers Guides.

Formal Curriculum

Perceived Curriculum

Re-training

Detail / general

Supporting Materials

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Perceived Curriculum.

Teachers Guide. Workshops and Short-Courses. Lesson-Study Groups.

Resources Supportive

TeachersGuideTeacher WorkshopsRe-training

Materials Credibility

Activities LessonStudy Groups

Peer Works

Not available

initiativeFrequencyinitiative

• Call-by-mission

• School- or District-Wide Class-Free Hours

• Regularly

• Availability of Post-training mutual supporting groups by peers?

• By teacher • 3^rdparty Facilities

(Like publishers, makers)

• By administrator (MOE)

• By supporting center (Teacher Association)

• By School

• 3^rdparty Facilities (Like publishers, makers)

• By administrator (MOE)

• By supporting center (Teacher Association)

• By School

Not available

• By teachers • By regions/ administrators

• A system to prepare, experiment, mutually evaluate lesson plans

>> providing another perspectives

• A platform to publish and exchange idea

• Selling respectively from textbook as an optional tool

• As a compulsory tool for teacher and taking extra inspects by authorities

• Free gift coming together with the textbook

SourceContent • Footnotes including

stories and essays related to the topics

• Extra practices

• Instruction to help teachers understand the curriculum

• Solutions to exercise problems

• Low (i.e. copy-paste information)

• High

How teacher evaluate and why? Does it really help teachers to understand the curriculum?

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Evaluation Types – For Students

Tests taken in school.

• Quizzes.

• Supposed to be the formative assessments which help teachers to diagnose the learning obstacles. But in reality they are

seldom so.

• Usually the authority of individual teachers, but sometimes given by segments or by cohorts.

• Textbook publishers may provide the quiz questions.

• May or may not contribute to final grades.

• Mandatory to allow calculators or not.

• Comprehensive Exams.

• Usually 2—4 times for a term/semester.

• Usually summary assessments to determine the final grades and to rank the students.

• The school/class rank may or may not be consulted by colleges for admission.

• Textbook publishers may provide the exam items.

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Evaluation Types – For Students

Assessments taken outside of school (conceptually).

• National Statistical Evaluations.

• For the policy making and checking purposes, should not be relevant to students’ grades. For instance Taiwan Assessment of Student Achievement (TASA) given to 5^th, 8^th, and 11^th graders every three years.

• Sort of an evaluation of the Experiential Curriculum.

• Students’ performance may or may not affect teachers or administrative staffs on schools, districts, or provinces.

• Calculators allowed or not.

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Evaluation Types – For Students

Assessments taken outside of school (conceptually).

• High-School Leaving Exams vs College Entrance Exams, and/or Advanced Disciplinary Exams

• Obey the curriculum or not.

• Required or Optional.

• Given by a board or by individual (or allied) colleges.

• One common sheet of items or several available choices.

• Made from a standardized item bank or composed by a committee.

• Norm-referenced (ranking students by grades) or criterion- referenced (labelling students by levels).

• Distributed by a third-party agency or admitted by individual colleges.

• Mandatory to allow calculators (on all or certain sheets) or not.

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Evaluation Types – For Teachers

Before job.

• Normal university or university/college with teacher training majors/programs.

• Educational vs disciplinary courses.

• Mandatory courses for current or up-coming issues.

• Internship or prentice: for how long and who are the mentors.

• Degree and/or certificate oriented.

• The process of job-matching.

In-job.

• A certificate that is life-long or subject to expire after a given period of time.

• A tenured position or a fixed-term contract.

• Participation of lectures, workshops, re-training camps: mandatory or collecting points.

• Any kind of honorary/disgrace or award/punishment.

• An observation or investigation of the Operational Curriculum.

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Teachers Promotion System

• Is there a hierarchy of the positions (like assistant, associate, and full professors)?

• Is salary determined by performance or seniority?

• How can a teacher loss the job?

• How can a teacher change schools?

• Are school teachers allowed to be a private tutor or to have part-time jobs (specifically for cram schools)?

• Are there school- or district- or nation-wide awards for distinguished teachers, and how they matter?

• Are administrative posts separated from or concurrent with the teachers?

• Are administrative works considered privileges or burdens?

• Are there forms of promotion other than the salary, for instance the right to select teaching hours or students?

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End of Briefing

Questions and Comments?

Please participate the discussion and practice.