Resuming for Unit 5: 21 November

(Sorry about the date error in the heading, earlier)

Welcome back to the blog, which I have re-activated for Unit 5.

It was a useful conversation last Wednesday, which threw up various ideas, and arising out of which I have come up with a provisional schedule (which I have amended to get the dates right [I think], following this afternoon's discussions);

We'll assume that outcome 5.1--Understand the range of contexts in which education and training are offered in the lifelong learning sector has already been addressed.

21 November

2—4     What is “curriculum”?

• 5.2—Understand theories, principles and models of curriculum design and implementation and their impact on teaching and learning
• 5.6—Critically evaluate the rhetoric of curriculum discussion.

4.30—6.30    Models of curriculum: Academic/vocational, Mastery/developmental,

(28 November) Wind up Unit 6

5 December

2—4     Situated learning, Critical pedagogy, top-down/bottom-up etc. Devising curricula; values, stakeholders, influences, stages

4.30—6.30    Devising curricula exercise;  Evaluating curricula—Brookfield’s lenses; Gibbs

• 5.4—Understand and demonstrate how to apply theories, principles and models to curriculum development and practice.

16 January

2—4     Current issues and debates about curriculum

4.30—6.30    Set up Group working

• 5.3--Understand the significance of equality and diversity for curriculum design, and take opportunities to promote equality within practice.
• 5.5—Understand  how to evaluate and improve own practice in inclusive curriculum design and development
• 5.8—Further develop skills in collaborative working…
• 5.9—… and contributing to the learning of colleagues

23 January

2—4     The social experience of the learning group; helping and hindering; group processes and development; roles and labelling

4.30—6.30    Group working

30 January

2—4     Loose ends/assessment guidance

4.30—6.30    Group working

6 February

2—4     Presentations 1

4.30—6.30    Presentations 2

Note  5.7—Further develop skills in addressing outcomes at the appropriate academic level  will follow from the preparation of the submission.

Some of you couldn't make the session today so I'll try to fill in some of the points from the discussion.

We started with the critical question: What is the "curriculum"? Some of you raised the question of whether it makes sense to talk about "curriculum" in general terms. Indeed, the term is used in so many ways that it is confusing to list the possible definitions. (See Neary, 2002 if you want to know more.)

We tried to get at some of the issues by looking at the concrete elements which may or many not be components of the curriculum; items were scored as 1: definitely not, to 5 definitely is part of the curriculum; the results have been re-ordered to reflect the scores from the group:

		Score	Order
1.	Syllabus	26	1
14.	Assessment strategy	23	2
3.	Marking scheme	21	3
5.	Educational technology	19	=4
11.	Scheduling of sessions	19	=4
10.	Lesson plans	17	6
7.	Late submission policy	16	=7
12.	Behaviour policy	16	=7
2.	Calendar	15	9
6.	Comfort breaks	12	=10
9.	Uniform	12	=10
13.	Library facilities	11	12
8.	Sports team mascot	10	13
4.	Seating plan	8	14
15.	Car parking	7	15

As we discussed the specifics it became apparent that the boundary of the "curriculum" is fuzzy and contestable. (Of course it also contestable how useful the term itself is, if it can mean so many things...)

Elements such as the syllabus (content), the assessment regime, and possibly practice (either on placement or in ordinary work) are clearly central. Many other elements are often left to administrative convenience, such as scheduling/timetabling, room layout and available technology, but they do impact on the learning experience, and so they may be brought into the designed curriculum.

• Some practical sessions need to be scheduled for solid blocks, so that skills can be developed,

• whereas other more academic sessions work best on a "drip, drip" basis, allowing for reading or research between classes

• The seating plan says a lot about the expectations of how students will participate and interact,

• and the available technology changes the manner of teaching.

The curriculum then becomes anything which affects the students' learning. Sometimes it is hidden, and sometimes unintentional, even to the extent of being counter-productive.

So the in vocational education curriculum sits between the real-world requirements of a job, and the detailed implementation of training, we'll probably look at how all this gets negotiated, later;

(Note that when we next meet we'll explore some of the complications and limitations of this model.)

There is an overview of some of the things we talked about in the second half on my site:

• There are a couple of clips from the "Simple Minds" video here (we'll look at threshold concepts again later)

• The distinctions of approaches to curriculum can be found here.

Pupils tailoring their responses to what they think the teacher wants to hear are discussed in Holt J (1969) How Chidren Fail London; Penguin.

I gave out copies of the Saber-tooth Curriculum, which we may look at next time (or not).

And you might find it helpful to read "School is a lousy place to learn anything in" for our next meeting.

The Ken Robinson talk on changing educational paradigms is here:

Here is the source of my objective, that you would be "confused at a higher level than before".

Incidentally, given that we may well be looking at some forms of neurodiversity later on, you might be interested in this and this on what it is like to have Asperger's.

See you on 5 December.