The
Education Watchdog |
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EXAMPLES
OF CURRICULUM EXCELLENCE
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Review of US Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs
Calling for Clear, Specific Content: American Educator magazine: Spring 2008
Australian Council of Deans of Science: Maths and Science Teaching
Federal Statements of Learning
Links to ALL Australian state and territory curriculum frameworks / syllabi
New South Wales example: Standards-Based Education
Ministry of Education, Singapore
Mastery Learning in Practice: Brewster Academy
State of Minnesota (USA) "Academic Standards - Curriculum and Instruction"
What accounts for the variance in student achievement? An excellent research paper by Prof John Hattie.
In particular, see Sections D (Identifying what matters), E (It’s the teachers not the schools !), F (Three directions for enhancing teachers and teaching) and the Conclusions.
Review of the US Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs [by Fordham Foundation]
Calling for Clear, Specific Content
"The AFT has been calling for standards with clear, specific content for more than a decade. But by and large, state standards are still vague and repetitive. For this issue, we called on education and subject-matter experts, as well as new and veteran teachers, to explain why strong standards are necessary for a well-aligned education system-one in which teachers, curriculum writers, textbook and assessment developers, and professional development providers have a shared understanding of what students must learn in each grade. In addition to pointing out the major weaknesses of most state standards and their deleterious effects, this issue also presents examples of clear, specific standards—some from states, others from the International Baccalaureate and Core Knowledge."
There are seven articles of interest.
Relevant to WA and well worth a look!
Australian Council of Deans of Science
Federal Statements of Learning [MCEETYA]
As a means of achieving greater national consistency in curriculum outcomes across the eight States and Territories, Ministers at the July 2003 meeting of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs [MCEETYA] requested that Statements of Learning be developed in English, mathematics, science and civics and citizenship. It was agreed that Statements of Learning would describe essential skills, knowledge, understandings and capacities that all young Australians should have the opportunity to learn by the end of Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.
It was proposed that, once completed, Statements and their Professional Elaborations should be used by State and Territory departments or curriculum authorities (their primary audience) to guide the future development of relevant curriculum documents.
Ministers requested that the Statements of Learning for English be developed first, with other domains to follow, depending on the success of the work on English. AESOC has overseen the development of this work, and the work has been project-managed by Curriculum Corporation.
In February 2005, Ministers gave in principle support for the Statements of Learning for English and noted the associated Professional Elaborations.
Link to the Statements of Learning where you can download them for English, Mathematics, Science, Civics and Citizenship, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
Links to ALL Australian state and territory curriculum frameworks / syllabi are available at the Curriculum Corporation website. They are also available sorted by learning areas. A very handy reference.
New South Wales example: Standards-Based Education
There is a huge contrast between Western Australian's syllabus-free-OBE and the NSW standards-based approach.
For example, NSW provides, for each course of study:
in contrast to the WA no syllabus, no resources, no assessment guidance approach.
Detailed descriptions of each of these features is available on their website http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/
It is worth a close look ! I particularly recommend their 150 page "New HSC Course Description files ", available from the website.
Greg Williams notes:
It is also worth noting that the final examinations are marked, have marks on them, and school marks and exam marks are combined to produce a scaled, moderated combined mark that is finally used to calculate a TER. The levels awarded are done by the bureaucrats and independently of schools, and levels are based on the same marks used to calculate the TER.
On Sunday 11 June 2006, the WA Minister for Education and Premier have stated that the assessment of the CoS will be similar to what is done in NSW.
Ministry of Education, Singapore
Complete list of subject syllabi, and more [list of approved textbooks, supplementary materials, examination syllabi] at: http://www.moe.gov.sg/cpdd/syllabuses.htm
Example syllabus, pre-university English, includes details on:
That syllabus notes study of:
I didn't see any mention of studying movie posters or graffiti.
Feedback on the Singapore courses of study:
Greg Schofield comments:
I want to work in Singapore.
This is what English should be as a course of studies. I like the H1, H2 and especially the H3 divisions from a basic Literature course (H1) to a University level course (H3).
Personally I would need to do a few more English Literature courses myself to get close to being able to competently teach H3 - I believe this is a good thing. This is what we should be producing and there should be in the highest levels a need for teachers who really do know their stuff, only in this way could really top students be provided with what they need.
I also like the clear plain English approach - a readable, understandable, well structured, concise and clear exposition of what is required. Curriculum documents are the opposite.
Plus the Curriculum seems to give a lot of freedom (the number of set texts etc., would have to be taken into account) yet clear direction.
What I like is if this were our curriculum the whole English course of studies in high school would have to be pulled back into coherent shape, in order to lead to this.
Wonderful, I only have the smallest of disagreements, as I would have with practically any document, unlike the current Curriculum where I find it hard to find anything I could agree with.
This is what we need - but it would take years to get it up and running.
Singapore thank you.
Walt
comments:
A clear and detailed syllabus, tested by extended
writing and exam essays. Plain language, subject specific outcomes (objectives)
describing what students should be able to do. Emphasis on critical literacy
and reading for pleasure. Mixture of old and new literature. A course based
on books.
Now what's so difficult about that? I'll buy it!
Here is a rather different example, showing "mastery learning" in practice.
The school is Brewster Academy, an independent secondary school in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire USA.
School profile:
http://www.brewsteracademy.org/
Here is an introduction to their mastery
learning program a la the "School Design Model", written
by its designer and former Associate Headmaster, Dr Alan Bain. [Originally developed
for postgraduate Learning Technologies students, Science and Mathematics Education
Centre, Curtin University, and used with permission].
Steve Kessell notes: The Brewster model is not being proposed for implementation here -- the costs are enormous (A$ 29,000 for a day student!) ! I suggested its inclusion here to show just how difficult, time-consuming and expensive it is to implement mastery learning properly.
Complete list of detailed subject syllabi, and more at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/
Alberta combines general outcomes with detailed syllabi and explicit statements of attitudes, skills and knowledge expectations.
Once you enter the site, details are located at the Programs of Study and Learning and Teaching Resources link.
Their Handbooks for Parents are also worth a look; they include both general and subject-specific outcomes within the "attitudes, skills and knowledge expectations" framework.
Their one-page Curriculum
Summaries also appear to be reasonably informative.
State of Minnesota (USA) "Academic Standards - Curriculum and Instruction"
The Minnesota Department of Education is responsible for ensuring that Minnesota students receive instruction in the K-12 Minnesota Academic Standards. The state legislature enacts these standards, which the governor signs into law.
Using the links on the above-referenced website, users can access copies of the standards for each required subject area as well as resources such as curriculum alignment assistance, training opportunities, and links to related web sites for all subject areas.
Well worth a look !
The "Core Knowledge" movement is an educational reform based on the premise that a grade-by-grade core of common learning is necessary to ensure a sound and fair elementary education.
The movement was started by Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., author of Cultural Literacy and The Schools We Need, and is based on a large body of research in cognitive psychology, as well as a careful examination of several of the world's fairest and most effective school systems.
Professor Hirsch has argued that, for the sake of academic excellence, greater fairness, and higher literacy, early schooling should provide a solid, specific, shared core curriculum in order to help children establish strong foundations of knowledge. After wide consultation, the content of this core curriculum has been outlined in two books — the Core Knowledge Preschool Sequence and the Core Knowledge Sequence, K–8 — that state explicitly what students should learn at each grade level. Currently, hundreds of schools and thousands of educators are participating in this school reform movement in the United States.
It is promoted by the Core Knowledge Foundation, an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization founded in 1986 by Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr. [Their website notes that Prof Hirsch receives no remuneration from the Foundation or from the book royalties it generates.]
The Foundation sells a range of print materials and conducts professional devlopment workshops in the US: a fair range of sample leson plans is available, free, on their website.
It is decidedly anti-OBE. According to the Foundation, "Learning how to learn" is an admirable aim but a misleading slogan. If learning is to proceed on any principle besides random chance, then schools need to follow a carefully sequenced body of knowledge. The Core Knowledge program was rated highly in a (supposedly) independent evaluation by researchers at John Hopkins University's Center for Social Organization of Schools [John Hopkins is a highly reputable and elite Ivy League uni]. There ar a number of evaluation reports available online.
An overview of the K-8 curriculum is available here (realise it is a US curriculum).
Example: Maths
Year 6
1. Numbers
and Number Sense
2. Ratio and Percent
3. Computation
4. Measurement
5. Geometry
6. Probability and Statistics
7. Pre-Algebra
Year 7
1. Pre-Algebra
(Properties of the Real Numbers; Polynomial Arithmetic; Equivalent Equations
and Inequalities; Integer Exponents)
2. Geometry (Three-Dimensional Objects; Angle Pairs; Triangles; Measurement)
3. Probability and Statistics
Year 8
1. Algebra
(Properties of the Real Numbers; Relations, Functions, and Graphs; Linear Equations
and Functions; Arithmetic of Rational Expression; Quadratic Equations and Functions)
2. Geometry (Analytic Geometry; Introduction to Trigonometry; Triangles and
Proofs)
Example: Music
Year 6
1. Elements
of Music
2. Classical Music: From Baroque to Romantic (Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
Schubert, Chopin, Schumann)
Year 7
1. Elements
of Music
2. Classical Music (Romantics and Nationalists (Brahms, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner,
Dvorak, Grieg, Tchaikovsky)
3. American Musical Traditions (Blues and Jazz)
Year 8
1. Elements
of Music
2. Non-Western Music
3. Classical Music: Nationalists and Moderns (Sibelius, Bartok, Rodrigo, Copland,
Debussy, Stravinsky)
4. Vocal Music (Opera; American Musical Theater)
The curriculum appears is restricted to K-8.
A range of lesson plants is available online at http://coreknowledge.org/CK/resrcs/lessons/index.htm Well worth a look !
Full information at http://coreknowledge.org/
This page last updated 11 August, 2008 9:13 PM
