"The vision of Inspiring Education is transformation. All students are inspired to achieve success and fulfillment as the “Three Es”: engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit."
Other than Competencies for the 21st Century Learner, Curriculum Redesign was one of the first aspects of Inspiring Education that I heard about. At the time, I thought it would be a philosophy that would be implemented into each "timeline-staggered" course when each new curriculum came about -a "wading" into the shallow end, of sorts. I was mistaken. We are looking at 2016 as a potential entrance into the deep end of the pool.
[UPDATE: 2016 is not a fixed date of implementation. 2020 was mentioned as even possible, depending upon how "learning" goes.]
The key wording that I find explains the breadth of impacts of curriculum redesign is:
"Alberta Education is revising provincial curriculum, which includes programs of study, assessments, and learning and teaching resources, as well as the processes for developing these components of curriculum."Alberta Education's tagline "everything is changing" appears to be present, once again. The following graphic below shows up on many of the websites, and is fairly clear on the overall shifts that they are looking for:
I see things like a shift to digitally based resources, which makes sense considering the LRC's recent "shift". For a lengthy time, we have always had a single authorized resource - does this parallel encyclopedias in the classroom? I understand the logic in moving away from that, though it is very comforting having and "all-knowing" textbook.
The other idea that stands out above, is "more student focused". In a previous post, I even eluded to references of "student-lead" parent-teacher interviews. It's putting more responsibility on the student. (It's hard right now to not see it all as putting more responsibility on the teacher, but I'll ty to be open-minded in my quest.) I get a very STRONG impression that education should be tailored to each individual student. How that will be feasible, will be interesting. I know that Outreach programs have been doing that for years.
The key theme, though, that stares back at me is the continued idea of a decentralized education (as I have eluded to before) - more local decision-making in regards to curriculum and structure. It feels like teachers won't be expected to come up with their own curricula - more likely, school boards (in partnership with the province). More information to come later on this topic under the "prototyping" heading.
As a math teacher, I see difficulty in assessing things like creativity and communication and entrepreneurial spirit when I have been grading students on specific outcomes for so long. I understand that our curriculum is going to shift in many ways, so I anticipate the results of anyone willing to "test" curriculum redesign.
What I was surprised to find, was this is "testing" is underway and is called Curriculum Development Prototyping.
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROTOTYPING
This prototyping (field testing and curriculum creation) begins early in 2014 and is slated for completion in December 2014. After that, the curriculum development work will continue in the ministry with a target of having competency-focused and digitally based curriculum developed by March 2016.
[update: again, 2020 has been a date also mentioned. There is no fixed timeline for implementation.]
[update: again, 2020 has been a date also mentioned. There is no fixed timeline for implementation.]
Take a moment and reread that last paragraph. It implies many things and begs many more questions from me. What things stand out for you?
(update Feb 28/14: The Department of Education has now announced the results of its curriculum prototyping project and is contracting out the development of most of Alberta’s program of studies to the Calgary Board of Education, in conjunction with about 22 other partners, including business and industry. )
In curriculum redesign, Alberta Education sees six subject/discipline areas (Arts Education, Language Arts [English, French Language Arts, Français], Mathematics, Social Studies, Sciences, Wellness) that will are differentiated. Prototyping (partners), for each discipline area, will:
− Develop draft K–12 Scope and Sequences;
− Identify classroom-based assessments and/or develop draft classroom-based assessments;
− Identify learning and teaching resources and/or develop draft learning and teaching resources; and
− Develop a draft graphic organizer to illustrate the relationship among literacy, numeracy, the cross-curricular competencies and the subject/discipline areas
The Alberta Education has released is their Prototyping guide which is intending to explain how their current prototyping works. (Q and A about protyping - not a bad document)
IN SUMMARY
It appears that there will a K-12 shift in curriculum. David Staples is a writer for the Edmonton Journal and has been very opinionated on the Math "issues" as of late and has a story in regards to the curriculum redesign. He's not impressed.
It will be very interesting to see how things go this year for schools prototyping because it's not JUST curriculum testing - it sounds like curriculum creation. Everything from assessments to outcomes to competencies is examines. Even after researching as much as I could, I still have many questions.
- Why isn't curriculum redesign more clear?
- Is curriculum still in the hand of gov't ? (just getting input from local stakeholders?) [update: yes]
- How will curriculum/assessments look if it is competency-based?
- Will diplomas be affected if we are testing outcomes as a "means to an end"? [update: it is very possible they will be affected.]
- (many more)
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