1 SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE CURRICULUM MANAGEMENT PROCESS FINAL REPORT Course Name: Curriculum Development Submitted to: Ma’am Diana L. Ambrose Submitted by: Kiran Zubair & Maria Sahar Khan Dated: December 3, 2022 2 For this report, we had to interview someone who has developed a curriculum for a school and analyze the model of curriculum development used in this case. The term ‘Curriculum’ can encompass the entire plan for a course, including the learning objectives, teaching strategies, materials, and assessments. Curriculum development is the process of creating and improving a course taught at a school or university. (Skyepack, 2020) We interviewed Saima Imran for this project, who has developed the curriculum for Aspire Grammar School from scratch. Saima Imran has been in the education field for 22 years. She has been associated with Beaconhouse School System and The City School in a regional management position. She started her own organization, ‘TEACH LEARNING Dimensions’; this organization caters to Teachers' Training, Language Development, Curriculum Development, working with different schools on projects, designing evaluations, etc. We asked Saima to describe the Curriculum Development process, as she has been developing the entire curriculums for schools in Pakistan. The PROCESS of curriculum development that she follows is as follows: First, it depends upon the stream- e.g., Cambridge, Aga khan board, etc. 32 boards are currently working in Pakistan. 1- We arrange meetings with the school to discover their mission and vision- their belief about education. 2- Selection of books: Next, we find out the targets which are available online, then meet with school authorities to find out what books are available, and align them with targets. Aligning books with educational targets given by the school is important. Many books still don’t have the content which is required to be covered to achieve those targets. In this case, the curriculum developer has to develop the content. Sometimes, we must create booklets on certain topics, including relevant content and activities. 3- Then again, we meet with the school management to see what resources they have. A list of resources is then decided with the school depending upon the financial position of the school, and the school's educational psychology, e.g., do they believe in ICT? 3 4 - Then, we start working on the curriculum. For an appropriate curriculum to be developed, it is crucial to involve teachers and students. Saima’s organization involves students by creating a panel of 10 students, providing them with the content, and collecting their responses or feedback on the content. Around 9-10 documents are involved in the process, aligned with each other. Saima also pointed out that curriculum objectives are broad and different from class objectives. The whole process of converting targets into general objectives and then class-wise objectives takes time. The CD process is a significantly longer process; usually, 6 to 7 efforts are required to develop the curriculum for each subject for each class. Saima then introduced a very important concept to us, i.e., Progression Grid. After converting targets provided by the school to objectives, a progression grid is made through curriculum mapping. This is done from grades 1 to 8 or 9, where we have to plan the child's progressione.g., what he will learn in grade 1, what he will learn in grade 2, and so on. So the entire progression has to be planned altogether. It is a tedious task but one which is essential to the process. Also, Saima said that whenever we do curriculum mapping, we always try to take an Interdisciplinary approach- e.g., if one topic is being taught in Science in grade 1, such as plants- then plant-related topics will be taught in English and Maths. This is especially important when PBL - Project-based learning activities are designed. Figure 1 A Sample Progression Grid 4 DOCUMENTS INVOLVED IN MAKING CURRICULUM are as follows: 1. PROGRESSION GRID - Includes Objectives 2. TARGETS to OBJECTIVE - Includes strands for each subject 3. SCOPE AND SEQUENCE -contains units and objectives covered in each unit 4. OVERVIEW SHEET 5. TERMWISE BREAKUP SHEET 6. ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK - This will be for the whole term and include Formative and Summative, all exams, and the projects - complete breakup. SCOPE: Scope is depth and tells us how much depth are we covering each objective in? We need to ensure that all the strands of a subject are covered in the objectives. SEQUENCE: Sequencing tells us what sequence the topics will be covered in, aligned with objectives. CHALLENGES Faced During the Process: According to Saima, developing a curriculum is itself a challenging task. Curriculum mapping is the most tedious step, so it always requires extra efforts to get developed. Next, curriculum developers need to consult subject experts but sometimes these experts do not have IT skills, so they have to do the whole task of integration themselves. Similarly, aligning the subject experts with the school’s vision is also challenging because of the difference in opinions and vision. SUCCESS of the Curriculum: The success of the developed curriculum depends upon the institution that will implement it. The curriculum does wonders with qualified and skilled staff, but inappropriate implementation can result in failure. LINKING THE PROCESS TO THE THEORY AND MODELS OF CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT: Learner-Centered Curriculum: A learner-centered curriculum design is the one that incorporates learners’ insights into its process of development and design (Cullen et al., 2012). The curriculum designed by Saima’s organization for one of the schools in Karachi was a learner-centered curriculum. All activities were designed keeping students in mind, and students 5 were allowed to direct their own learning. The activities were intended to facilitate active learning and were interactive and catering to holistic students' needs. Hidden Curriculum: Saima said that in many cases where books or material was unavailable to meet some curriculum targets, they had to develop activities mostly through the Hidden Curriculum. If the missing topics could not be covered through the textbooks, they were covered through the activities embedded into the Hidden Curriculum. Philosophy of Curriculum Development: The philosophy used in this case was Pragmatism and Social Reconstructionism. Because these philosophies are based on change and on the assumption that knowledge and reality are constantly changing (In Tac et al., 2006), this means active learning techniques can be used; students are allowed to draw their own conclusions. It also supports critical thinking skills developed in students. So it means that when such a philosophy is used, teaching is student-led/ student-centered. Model of curriculum: The model used to develop the curriculum is based on Tyler’s linera model of curriculum development. Tyler model of curriculum describes how to formulate educational objectives, how to organise them, analyse them and adjust them so that the students are able to meet these objectives. Tyler’s model of curriculum development helps to create engaging and interesting learning opportunities for students (Denham, 2002). This model also facilitates the determination of specific goals rather than general that lead to better planning for learning opportunities. 6 Therefore this curriculum model is effective, and the curriculum developed by using it is very holistic. We asked Saima how we would gauge the success of this curriculum, and she said that the success would only be evident in the future when we can see visible progress in students learning. References Cullen, R., Harris, M., & Hill, R. R. (2012). The learner-centered curriculum: Design and implementation. John Wiley & Sons. Denham, T. J. (2002). Comparison of Two Curriculum/Instructional Design Models: Ralph W. Tyler and Siena College Accounting Class, ACCT205. In Tan, C., Wong, B., Chua, J. S. M., & Kang, T. (2006). Philosophical perspectives on education. Skyepack, (2022). Curriculum Development: Complete Overview & 6 Steps. [Online]. Available. https://www.skyepack.com/post/curriculum-development [Retrieved December 3, 2022].
