Linggo, Oktubre 16, 2011

Reflection 3: Foundation for the Preparation of Curriculum

Philosophical Foundation of Curriculum

As a teacher it is my role to make school interesting and useful by planning lessons that provoke curiosity. Thus the materials I will use in making the curriculum will be focused on the needs, experiences, interests, and abilities of students. It is also my role to make students learn actively. Thus activities used will be those that solve problems in the classroom similar to those they will encounter in their everyday lives. This way I can motivate students to interact with one another and develop social qualities such as cooperation and tolerance
for different points of view. Through group work and discussion as they work on hands-on projects, they will learn more than through memorization. This is Progressivism.

It is also the teacher’s role to further develop students’ deep analytical, flexible, and imaginative thinking. As such I shall borrow from the Perennialists materials that expose students to reading and analyzing the works of history’s finest thinkers and writer. This will be coupled with the Essentialists’ philosophy of exposing students to the people, events, ideas, and institutions that have shaped society. With this it is believed that students
will not only possess basic knowledge and skills, but they will also have disciplined, practical minds, capable of applying lessons learned in school in the real world.

Psychological Foundation of Curriculum

Behaviorists Psychology - Those who make the curriculum should take into consideration that learning should be organized. This way learners can have the chance to master the subject matter .There should be a step by step manner of teaching coupled with proper sequencing of tasks. Cognitive Psychology - Based on this theory, the curriculum should be focused on how learners process information and how they monitor and manage thinking. Inasmuch as it is the belief of cognitive theorists that learning constitutes a logical method for organizing and interpreting learning, then the curriculum should include problem sets or practices that will entail reflective, creative, and intuitive thinking skills.

Humanistic Psychology – Curriculists should concern themselves with how learners can develop their human as well as intellectual and social potential. Another focus is on the process not the product; on the personal needs of the learners not on the subject matter since humanists believe that a child learns because he or she is
inwardly driven, and derives his or her reward from the sense of achievement that having learned something affords.

Sociological Foundation of Curriculum

There exists a mutual and encompassing relationship between curriculum and society. Because of this, the curriculum should mirror and maintain the culture of society and its goals. In the same manner, society should imbibe or absorb the changes brought about by schools.

Those involved in making the curriculum should take into consideration parental involvement, tradition, laws, religion and moral values, research, poverty, changes in family structure, and multicultural issues because through these factors society influences schools. They should have a grasp of the social implications of the mentioned factors and parallel them with the purposes of education inasmuch as they have an important role in shaping and indirectly socializing students.

Curriculists should also be able to adapt to the rapidly changing society. People’s demands, beliefs and attitudes are changing. Technology continuously brings about a wide range of information as science gives birth to incredible discoveries. Philosophical views of the nature of learning are getting diverse and with these come new values and behavior. Therefore, curriculum makers cannot simply ignore the dynamic society. They should come up with activities that allow students to partake in the shaping of society.

Education doesn’t exist independent of time, place and customs. Because of this, makers of the curriculum should be able to review the past and gather what still may be used and eliminate those which are no longer relevant to the present. They too, should be able to discern what improvements must be implemented to be able to cope with the changing times.

Just like we did in one of the culminating projects in Science 4, in line with social awareness, we had a planting activity at IRRI for the children to experience how hard it is to plant rice. This way, they will learn
not to waste food and to appreciate the hard work the farmers give to produce rice. It was also a form of
awareness on our students in the history, morphology, culture and products of rice as we also visited the IRRI
museum. From there, a short video clip about current problems in rice like shortage and importation was

My concept of a curriculum is eclectic, a combination of the various philosophies of education. This is so because as with all teaching methods, success in teaching is gauged by the response of students to the stimulus given inside the classroom and the associations made by the learner, plus of course the learning that takes place. No Philosophy of Education is greater than the other, nor is there a philosophy that is the least among the others. Much more when the most exciting and perceived most advantageous aspects of each philosophy are combined to produce effective learning, then the result is extremely beneficial to the learners. And this is the ultimate role of a teacher, to make learning possible.

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