Developing conceptual frameworks for effective school – based planning and curriculum development

1. Developing conceptual frameworks for effective school – based planning and curriculum development Jia Xu and Colin Marsh Curtin University

2. Is it necessary and possible to have SBCD at schools in Australia? • Is it necessary and possible to use conceptual frameworks to help us understand and develop more effective SBCD?

3. SBCD in China • SBCD has been a highlight of China’s new curriculum reform since 1999. • A curriculum policy change towards devolving partial power in curriculum decision-making to teachers. • 10% of curriculum is decided by local regions and individual schools. • Transforming teachers’ role from “book-knowledge transmitters” to curriculum developers.

4. Defining school-based curriculum development (SBCD) as: • a slogan, • a democratic philosophy, • a practical series of steps.

5. Caveats • SBCD is a constantly evolving term. It is very difficult to come up with a perfect form of SBCD. • Although it is a desirable process for teachers to become involved in SBCD yet the hard realities of systems and governments necessitate limitations.

6. What is a conceptual framework? • It provides a structure for curriculum planning. • It provides a coherent grouping of terms or values. • It provides ideal goals.

7. Some preliminary questions • Is school-based curriculum development alive and well in 2011 in Australia? • Is there a perfect type of school-based curriculum development and has it ever existed in a pure form? • Do ideas about school-based planning change over the decades, for better or worse?

8. Some different priorities of SBCD • A democratic vision to have more teacher involvement • A way of supplementing student resource materials • A way of addressing critical problems in an education system • A way to support systemic reforms and to enhance the professional skills of teachers

9. How successful are current efforts to do SBCD in Asian countries ? • An example from Hong Kong • An example from Singapore

10. SBCD in action in Hong Kong • Innovative teachers are selected to be seed teachers and given special training at head office. • Creation of new promotional positions of curriculum leader in each primary school • Setting up of school-based support team in each education district • Celebration of exemplary efforts

11. SBCD in Singapore • Intensive workshops on SBCD provided for all primary schools • Research activists appointed for each school to support a specific SBCD project • Learning journeys to other schools locally & overseas • Celebration of successes through public presentations/workshops

12. The Australian scene in 2011 • Teaching has always been a complicated process. • Teachers need to be able to do a number of things almost simultaneously, including • unpacking knowledge and ideas, • making this accessible to others within a caring productive environment.

13. New pressures for teachers • New external pressures & ongoing internal, school level pressures. • New external pressures: • Australian Curriculum, • NAPLAN, • MY SCHOOL website, • Professional standards for teachers. • School-based planning and central planning working towards educational reform.

14. General problems for doing SBCD • Lack of time • Lack of expertise • Lack of finance • Externally imposed restrictions • Threatening school climate (resistors or lack of effective leadership) (Marsh,1992).

15. The arrival of the National Curriculum • Materials produced so far for the first four subjects indicate that what ACARA is requiring is more than just general principles and outcomes for each subject area. • There will be a major emphasis upon content and specifying of what is taught at each grade level. • This will be reinforced through NAPLAN results in terms of literacy and numeracy. This will flow over into other subjects.

16. Likely impacts OR

17. Curriculum planning models • These models are typically general and apply across various subjects and teaching levels. • Models provide simple procedures for teachers to go about planning of lessons. • prescriptive models (Tyler, 1949; Taba, 1962). • Naturalistic Model (Walker, 1970). • Understanding by Design model (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).

18. SBCD planning models • In situations where teachers want to get involved in school-based planning SBCD models need to be considered. • It is important to remember that each school situation is very different and so it makes the task of developing SBCD planning models all the more difficult.

19. Major categories of school-based models

20. Models that create typologies of different variations of SBCD Figure 1: Brady's matrix for analysis of SBCD in practice (Brady, 1987)

21. Figure 1: Brady's matrix for analysis of SBCD in practice (Brady, 1987)

22. Models that create typologies of different variations of SBCD Figure 2: A three-dimensional model of SBCD (Marsh, 1990)

23. Figure 2: A three-dimensional model of SBCD (Marsh, 1990)

24. Models that develop interlinked explanatory factors Figure 3: School-Based Curriculum Project Scheme, Hong Kong (Lo, 1999)

25. Figure 3: School-Based Curriculum Project Scheme, Hong Kong (Lo, 1999)

26. Models that develop interlinked explanatory factors Figure 4: Lee’s model of SBCD (2008)

27. Figure 4: Lee’s model of SBCD (2008)

28. Models that develop interlinked explanatory factors Figure 5: A model of implementing school-based curriculum in a subject (Wong, 2008)

29. Figure 5: A model of implementing school-based curriculum in a subject (Wong, 2008)

30. Models that develop interlinked explanatory factors Figure 6: A Conceptual Model of SBCD (Marsh, 2009)

31. Figure 6: A Conceptual Model of SBCD (Marsh, 2009)

32. Concluding comment • Making curriculum space available for SBCD is a major issue and it depends upon levels of cooperation between centralised and decentralised forms of curriculum development. • There are a variety of SBCD approaches. The conceptual models outlined here provide just some of the possibilities. • Because SBCD is closely related to local needs and priorities it is not possible to come up with one conceptual model which fits all.