Week 3 (Educational Goals and Purposes: Developing a Curricular Vision for Teaching)

Educational Goals and Purposes: Developing a Curricular Vision for Teaching



This particular article mainly talks about the importance and necessity for teachers to learn about curriculum planning. First, I think, the selection of the materials is a vitally important step in the whole process of curriculum planning. Today, teaching materials are increasingly diverse. Teachers have different understandings of each text and topic, which may lead to different teaching methods and consequences. It just like us, we all have our own thoughts and comments after reading each article. However, the content of our published blogs will be largely different so that if someday we analyze this article as a teacher to our own students, our teaching methods will also be different. Therefore, it should be emphasized that when teachers using teaching materials, they should pay attention to the interests of students and strive to create an equitable classroom that supports all students.

What’s more, I was deeply impressed by the examples of the teaching experiences of the two teachers. The first teacher, Selena, manages to create a “sense of community” in the classroom and always gives her students full and undivided attention. (p.178) She communicates her knowledge and love of literature in order to inspire her students to learn to appreciate literature. I think it is sensible to use her own actions to subtly influence her students and establish their attitude towards literature rather than using blunt rules to ask students to make changes. I really appreciate this teaching method. While Selena focuses on competence and community, Berhina pays attention to individual children and their need and focuses more on purposeful teaching. (p.180) They both devote themselves to creating a warm classroom environment. Comparing the teaching strategies of the two teachers, I think that the first teacher's teaching is more flexible, while the second teacher's teaching has clearly articulated expectations, which may produce stronger outcomes.

It is true that the study of the curriculum and its development is essential for all teachers. From my point of view, curriculum planning is more important than teaching to some extent. We can imagine planning and teaching as a tied relationship. If planning is rigorous and clear, then teaching will be more successful, and vice versa. While some teachers are lack of long-term vision in curricular planning and they never really thought about “What is that I want them to know?” well-prepared teachers have developed a sense of “where they are going” and how they and their students are going to get there. Our society is developing rapidly. The students today need more diverse skills and abilities to adapt to society. As educators, our duty is enabling students to achieve some overarching instructional goals and not just focus on the textbooks.

Prospective teachers need to focus more on “What knowledge is worth knowing?” when they are planning a curriculum. In addition, they must understand how they should organize and implement teaching to enhance learning interests for individual students, underperforming student groups, entire classes or schools. (p.200) In addition, they should also know about educational goals and purposes, learning experiences and evaluation. When teachers have these tools, students can benefit from the curricula.

All in all, I think it is the teacher who decides the identification and utilization of the curriculum resources. Thus, the quality of the teacher determines the degree of utilization and the level of effectiveness. Only by combining the curriculum planning with the book knowledge that students want to obtain can teachers truly promote the healthy growth and development of students, and continuously improve the professional development level of teachers.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 31, 2019 at 12:50 PM

    Hi, Thanks for sharing. Gorstly, I was impressed by your deep understanding towards the two teachers. I thinks the methods that the two teachers choose are just like the educational system in China and America. In China, teachers are more focusing on the community more that individuals. But in America, it’s more independent here based on what I have read. What I think is each student is different. You can’t teach everyone just by one method. I like the latter teacher more.
    I also was impressed by your opinion that curriculum planning isles important that teaching. I totally agree with you. I think teachers should do more work before actual teaching in classroom.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 31, 2019 at 2:25 PM

    Sydnie, I'm struggling with these same questions! This adaptation teachers need to constantly do is sometimes daunting; but I keep trying to see it as the part of the adventure of teaching that's the most fun, because it's so challenging and the finish line keeps moving (or the bar keeps raising?). How do we continue to connect to students living in an ever-changing world? For me, on my best days, it's a really exciting puzzle to solve. On my not-so-best days, it's exhausting. But I think the trying always makes us better.

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  3. SteveFebruary 3, 2019 at 5:40 PM

    Thank you for the blog! I was very impressed by the two example teachers as well. The article did a good job of showing how much work goes into making a lesson successful. I very much agree with your paragraph that planning is almost more important than the actual teaching itself, and that the two reinforce each other. It's been my experience that while I've always had discretion over how I present things in my classroom, the curriculum itself has mostly been predetermined for me in some cases by the school district and in other cases by the other teachers teaching the same subjects in the schools I've taught in. So while I've gotten to decide to include some texts and activities, most of my teaching experience has been about finding creative ways to present predetermined sets of information, how to organize it to make it manageable for students, and how to hold them accountable for knowing the information. While the teacher ultimately gets to choose what happens in the classroom, it's important to keep in mind that all teaching happens in the context of what other teachers are doing at the school, what administration is telling everyone to do, what the district is telling the administration to do, and what local, state and national governments are prescribing school districts to do. Thank you again for the blog!

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  4. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2019 at 6:45 PM

    Thank you for the blog! I love that you brought up providing an equitable classroom to all students! This is something that I constantly fight for, having my students of color and different ethnicities being represented in my classroom! Not only does this help students feel welcomed in my room, but also gives them a sense of purpose and belonging. I also agree with you that curriculum planning and design is almost more important than teaching itself. If a teacher is not prepared to teach a meaningful, and purposeful lesson, students will not be engaged. One reason I love teaching science is because I am so passionate about it and my students can feel that. I make every science lesson meaningful for them and try to give them something they can connect with or take away. Building the curriculum for my units are the hardest part. Deciding how to incorporate different standards in a meaningful way while keeping the students engaged can be tricky. Once again, thanks for sharing!

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