Reflection 1

Reflection on curriculum and its characteristics:

My prior knowledge about curriculum and its characteristics is leaning towards Managerial/Administrative approach- Curriculum comes from Latin word race track that horses ran around.Today, we might call it a racecourse, and so we see that the words curriculum and course are closely related.It serves as a guideline on which a training or teaching organisation plans and guides learning. It could be in a formal or non-formal setting.Managerial approach considers the school as a social system, reminiscent of organizational theory, whereby groups of people such as students, teachers, curriculum specialists, and administrators interact according to certain norms and behaviors (Ornstein and Hunkins, 2004).

Inasmuch as the curriculum is the planned learning  outcome  for which the school is responsible, then the curriculum must be  carefully made to really reach the desired consequences of instruction.  The sets of learning opportunities for persons to be  educated   should include actual day-to-day interactions of students, teachers as they discuss  what is needed to be taught. In effect, the curriculum  must not merely  be in terms of how things ought to be , but how things are in real classrooms. Moreover, since education is lifelong learning, then the curriculum should  prepare students for changing needs and interest  in the present and future time.  Thus the  relationship between the curriculum and learning, teaching, instructional materials,  and  education should be taken into consideration.

I think I will adopt the  Humanistic approach which  focuses on learning by doing In as much as the purpose of the curriculum is to make students learn, then the best way of making them learn is to allow them to have a hands-on experience .

This is also student-centered  which focuses on the main object of the learning process. In the preparation of the curriculum the emphasis is on the  learners not the teacher who should establish the optimal conditions whereby learning can come about through the learners’ own efforts. This does not mean that the teacher should abandon the classroom to learners. Instead the teacher should allow students to learn independently.

Another important article of faith in the humanism approach is the consideration of the learners’ emotional attitude towards the teacher, the fellow learners and the  content of the lesson taught. It is crucial to give this a central place in the preparation of the curriculum, in the selection of the content, materials and learning activities. If learners can be encouraged to adopt the right attitudes, interests and motivation then successful learning will occur. 

Besides it has the  holistic approach  which touches on all the aspects of student learning  Knowing that students have individual differences a curriculum should include the varied intelligences that  a students may possess  such as the  verbal, logical, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal ,kinesthetic, and musical intelligences. One student may be good in linguistics, another in music, still some in other fields of learning. So a complete curriculum should cater to all these intelligences.

However it should be noted that all approaches have their own definite advantages and disadvantages. What is important is who is involved in the curriculum development to ensure that all the groups and individuals who have a real interest or stake in the training are able to contribute to the curriculum development.

Reflection 2

Teacher Commitment

As a teacher it is my objective to make my students learn. I am committed to imparting them what I know to enable them to develop their skills which can help them acquire more knowledge. With my commitment comes my understanding of their behavior, their attitude, their needs and their abilities so that I can align learning goals. With this comes the accuracy of the activities I introduce in the classroom to make learning feasible.Moreover, I should also be able to select the appropriate assessment or evaluation strategies to meet short and long term curricular goals. I should always be open to the variety of knowledge and experience my students bring to class.

My commitment should not be limited to academic development. I believe that I should also be concerned with their physical, emotional and spiritual welfare inasmuch as learning cannot happen if one of the previously mentioned aspects is not suitable or ready for learning.

Teacher and the curriculum

The Curriculum provides a coherent program for students developed from the best thinking available in the field, and material that supports teachers in making better, more thoughtful, more informed decisions about their students learning. Curriculum  should support  teachers in teaching students, and teachers, on the other hand should not simply use it as a guide for sequencing student work.

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.

Reflection 4: Curriculum Planning and Models of Curriculum

In conceptualizing and arranging the elements of a curriculum, several questions need to be answered: (1)What is to be done?(2) What topics are to be included? (3) What are the instructional strategies, resources, and activities to be included? and (4) What instruments will be used to appraise the outcome of the curriculum?

Foremost, I feel that I have to consider the sources of ideas that will surely affect the curriculum design. I have to take a look at the current needs of society inasmuch as the school is an agent of society.I need to collaborate with different groups and determine their interests. Furthermore,the importance of people’s values should also be given weight.Another consideration would be the scientific procedure that dictates “how to learn things” or how should students be made to process the knowledge.

There are also varied dimensions to be considered in the design of the curriculum. One is scope.If I have to put myself in the position of a curriculist. I think I have to know which domain of learning should be given emphasis and to what extent should each be covered. Moreover, I have to decide on the sequencing of the content and the experiences to make the learners connect to the ideas being presented.This further leads me to  tackle the dimension of continuity. What specific skills should be made to reappear in the curriculum to foster mastery among the learner? And this is followed by the idea of integration.What other types of knowledge and experiences will be added   to ensure that the knowledge presented will not be disjointed and meaningless.Still another important dimension is articulation. Questions like “Are students assured of prerequisite learnings which would prepare them to the next level of learning”;and “Are there interrelationships between one subject course and another, like Social studies  and English courses?”And lastly, balance is considered. With this comes the non stop fine- tuning  of the curriculum to create a balance between one’s view of philosophy  and psychology of learning, and between the needs and interests of learners  and the standard knowledge that  students of a particular level should know.

Reading the different curriculum models shows that there is no one-curriculum development model that is better than the other.What should be taken into consideration is the specific situation where a model can be most effective. Thus a curriculum that takes on a continuous process of adjustment to suit the situation of the learners will perhaps guarantee learning which is the goal of every curriculum. A curriculum design  should be  dependent  on emerging information and practice , fashioned by the beliefs, experiences, theories and philosophies held by those planning the learning environment.A teacher, for example, can modify the  specified curriculum elements  but still taking into consideration the objectives stated. The teacher can choose the activities to follow depending on the ability or level of the students.

I strongly feel that curriculists should focus on teaching and learning and developing curriculum through practice. This then calls for the teachers to be vigilant. Through their keen observation, which can be translated into action research and reflective practice changes or improvisations can be made along the way. With this method, education will be a meaningful experience for both teachers and students.

Reflection 5

As I  am contemplating on the different  types of curriculum  designs I can’t help but  wonder which type  can make my students learn the best way. And at the end of the day, I am left with the notion that an integration of the different types appears to be the best suited option. But then again on second thought, I realize that what I am doing in school is a combination of the different curriculum types. The difference now lies in the fact that my adopted methods came from well- established   and tested types, and that I have the names of each type. For example, as I teach a particular topic, I  introduce the subject matter through a  lecture (Subject-centered model),then as I further discuss  the topic, I initiate student participation  as I parallel the topic with real-life situations (Problem-centered model), and then I assign a group activity  where the students interactively participate  (Learner-centered designs ).

There are several topics to cover for the school year, but I am bound by time. This is why I have the tendency to allot a specific time for a topic (Curriculum-centered).This then determines my schedule and a pattern seems to orderly  appear   in my teaching.  However, there are times when I organize and relate subjects together (Core-centered) to make my teaching more meaningful. Still there are times when I allow my students to think of ways or to organize activities that can make the accomplishment of an assigned topic easier. There are also times when they design activities to simplify some procedures in an experiment in science or to think of activities that can explain a lesson in Values education (Activity-centered).

Each design has its own advantages.In a subject-centered curriculum, the learner acquires meaningful  and relevant knowledge base; in a problem-centered model, the student is placed in a social setting where he develops  skills in solving real-life problems; in the learner-centered design,  the learner becomes an active participant in the entire educational process inasmuch as the  focus is on the needs and interests of learner; in the project-centered method, discovery method, activity-based learning where students  learn by doing.

Whether Iplace the subject-matter, the learners, or problems at the center, in my final analysis,the success  in making students learn still lies on the teacher’s interesting, meaningful, purposeful, and sequential experiences for her students. . The teacher has to be very resourceful, and innovative. He or she must have a broad-based knowledge.

Regardless of the type of curriculum design adopted, learning can occur .Each design has something to offer and each is in fact used in practice.  Furthermore the success of teaching is determined through the depth and breadth of the students’ learning. Thus, an integrated, well-balanced design model is ideal.

Having studied and reflected on the different types made me realize the importance of initiating a collaboration with my fellow teachers and superiors who are educational professionals themselves. We can share notes and experiences on the curriculum design that we are currently using  with our respective students and evaluate them in the light of its positive and negative effects on student learning. We can also discuss the  problems we encounter in the implementation of the  varied types and perhaps come up with an integrated design bearing the marks of  all the types.What is important is the learning outcome for students.

Reflection 6: Situational Analysis

A curriculum that is most efficient today in causing students to learn may not be effective two or three years from now. This is so because curriculum changes with the needs of the times.Thus there are situational factors that influence the curriculum itself.  If I have to be involved in the making of a curriculum, then I have to consider societal factors that affect curriculum development.

Societal factors will include questions like:  

1.What society do we want? What are the values, traditions, beliefs of society?Will the curriculum be applicable within the society? What are the experiences and traditions in teaching?

2. If the current curriculum was a failure, questions like: Will the strategy for the next curriculum be changed? If so what strategy will be used this time?

3. What  are the  teachers’ views? The curriculum will be directly implemented by the teachers, so it is but proper to determine teachers’ views on the curriculum. Sometimes teachers complain about the curriculum concept, because they deal with some difficulties in implementing it. Through their experiences in the classroom, they can pinpoint the inappropriateness of the curriculum.

Do the teachers’ have the ability to implement the curriculum? This should be taken into consideration since the success of the curriculum depends on qualified teachers.

Moreover, natural resources and media are also vital to be considered because those support the implementation of the curriculum.

4. What are the concerns by the industrial sector? Employers’ and business community’s views will have to be considered inasmuch as  one of education curriculum’s goals is how to produce educated humans that have industrial prospects.

Project Factors will also be examined. Since a curriculum is produced by a team of experts questions like:

1.      Who constitutes the project group and how are they selected?

2.      How are goals and procedures determined?

3.      Who reviews the progress of the project and the performance of the team?

Learner factors will also be taken into consideration. Because student achievements best indicate the success of a curriculum, then questions like:

1.      What are the learners’ past learning experiences?

2.      How motivated are the learners to learn?

3.      What type of learning approach do they favor?

4.      What learning resources will they typically have access to? If the schools have no computer units in school, then exercises adopted should not be computer based.

Other factors include adoption factors which exist when the curriculum is adopted by teachers. Questions include:

1.Will the changes made in the curriculum be accepted by the teachers?

2. What advantages does the curriculum change offer?

3. How compatible are the changes with the existing beliefs, and organization attitudes which exist in the school or institution?

4. Have the features and benefits of the innovation been clearly communicated to teachers and institution?

Having all these questions in mind, I realize that in a Situational analysis it is  important to identify the factors which have positive and negative impact to the curriculum planning and its implementation. And as I continue to read on situational analysis I was drawn to SWOT analysis; S=Strengths (the factors have positive impact to the curriculum), W=Weakness (the factors have negative impact to the curriculum), O=Opportunities (the factors give opportunities for improvement), and T=Threats (the factors should be reduced). Thus,to do situational analysis is to identify the most probable obstacles that one may meet in the implementation of the curriculum, and the factors that are needed to be considered when planning the parameters of a project.

Since Curriculum development is a process by which teachers meet learners’ needs,then an analysis of the factors that affect student learning should be made. Curriculum developers should gather as much information as possible to determine how students learn.All the relevant information needed to satisfy learning requirements should be collected and studied. 

(K-12 Computer Educational Program in light of the cognitive skills)

  

It is assumed that after formal education, students are able to(a) retain knowledge and skills they acquire in school,and (b) can apply them in situations outside the classroom. However, based on researches made, the low achievement scores of students are attributed to poor quality of basic education to the present school setup.Thus the Government proposed the K 12 education where high school graduates will be able to: acquire mastery of basic competencies, be more emotionally mature; be socially aware, pro-active, involved in public and civic affairs;be adequately prepared for the world of work or entrepreneurship or higher education;be legally employable with potential for better earnings; and be globally competitive.And all these will be met through the development of students’ cognitive skills.

Cognitive skills refer to the brain –based skills needed to carry out any task. They have to do with the mechanisms of how students learn, remem­ber, problem-solve, and pay atten­tion.Problem solving is regarded by cognitive psychologists as fundamental to learning. Today, computers are an integral part of education. With the addition of computer education into the K-12 curriculum, the cognitive abilities of the student will be enhanced since WWW is a cognitive tool in itself. The e-learning environment will further develop students thinking processes, planning ability, vocabulary, and visual-motor coordination, as well as on measures of response style including reflectivity. In a computer-aided learning environment, where the teacher mediates the learning of students, the young learner's curiosity, is aroused. The learner becomes vigilant. The young learner's required functions for temporal, spatial, and cause-effect relationships are enhanced.

Thus with K12 education, the cognitive aspect of student learning is assured. Add to this the additional years which will further  make  the child emotionally prepared for work and  for college life.