Posted: May 23rd, 2015

Choose something that you know how to do and teach it to your group members. Assume that your group members do not know how to do it, and come up with a roughly sketched plan on how to teach them.

Week 3

Choose something that you know how to do and teach it to your group members. Assume that your group members do not know how to do it, and come up with a roughly sketched plan on how to teach them.

Details:

Task 1

Choose something that you know how to do and teach it to your group members.  For example, if you know how to play the piano, assume that your group members do not, and come up with a roughly sketched plan on how to teach them.  If you are an encyclopaedia of knowledge when it comes to dinosaurs, outline a way to break the material down so you could teach someone about the topic.

Describe how you would teach; for instance, is it mostly teacher-centered or student centered?  Would you use mainly visual learning, listening, or hands-on?  Write up a three paragraph description of this “course”.   (You can choose any topic, such as any sport, art-making or art form, cooking, language, hobby, story-telling, social etiquette or ritual, technical skill, game and so on.)  Save it on your computer, post it in your group and then discuss.

The way we teach is changing rapidly.  We are only starting to grasp the impact of technology and learning how to use it in the various disciplines of learning.  The nature of the internet tends to blur the strict boundaries of each curricular area which educators often debate for its pros and cons.

Compare the following three ways of learning.  Imagine that you as the teacher want your students to learn about the lives of children in a rural African village:

1. Students go to the library and consult print text (encyclopaedia, textbooks and stories) about African children.  They read:

“If we are to succeed in our efforts to build a more healthy, peaceful and equitable world, the classrooms of the world have to be full of girls as well as boys…Study after study has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as powerful in increasing the chances of education for the next generation.”  Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General, United Nations…

Girls and women are more likely than boys and men to have their education cut short due to adverse circumstances such as poverty, conflict, natural disasters and economic downturns. The proportion of girls among out-of-school children and girls’ enrolment ratios are important indicators for assessing progress towards gender parity. Additionally, early childhood education plays a critical role in determining success in education later in life. Thus, the extent to which young girls are able to access early education is a useful measure of success in achieving education goals.  In the Arab States and sub-Saharan Africa, less than 20 per cent of girls are enrolled in pre-primary education (gross enrolment ration, or GER). A large body of research from around the globe clearly shows that by the time children enter primary school, marked disparities in language skills – attributable largely to parental education, household income, ethnicity and home language – ensure that they will never catch up.  Poor language skills have implications for learning in other subjects. Quality early childhood education can play a critical role in offsetting social, economic and language-based disadvantages.

(excerpt from, Girls Education Initiative, (2010, May) UNICEF (pages 3, 14 & 15)  Retrieved from

http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNGEI_at_10_EN_062110.pdf

2. Students go online and watch a documentary about a village in Africa.

Africa’s children:  Kenyan women in transition. (2000)  (Just watch the first 5 minutes).  This professionally researched and produced film puts a human face on descriptions and statistics.  We see and hear what life is like in an African village school and that the girls are playing just like young girls anywhere.  The injustice of the situation is more palpable than just reading about it.  We feel as well as think about the “adverse circumstances such as poverty, conflict, natural disasters and economic downturns”.

(Source: Africa’s children:  Kenyan women in transition. (2000).  New York: Films Media Group.  Retrieved from: http://digital.films.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/PortalViewVideo.aspx?xtid=12118)

3. Students contact a teacher in an African girls’ school and Skype with the classroom. They become “video buddies”, similar to the way in the past students had pen pals.  Here the students on both sides have names, they can ask each other questions, and feel like they have reached out and touched each others’ lives.

The point here is that these three approaches to creating curriculum each have their value, but being able to jump into a real situation via live video is a much more immediate experience for the students.  There is no distance, it is harder to avoid complacency and thinking that the situation does not concern us.

Having entered the lives of students who live in very different environments, perhaps it is easier now to comprehend UNESCO’s international curriculum goals.  Check them out. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-all/efa-goals/ (Links to an external site.)

Task 2

Jot down in your notes what you now understand about curriculum theory and how we go about clarifying what is important to consider in developing curriculum.  Try to form some ideas about the intersection of what aims should be considered, what philosophies, what should be taught and how it should be taught.  Save these notes on your computer.