In-house curriculum document for educational quality

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In-house curriculum document for educational quality

Dr. Lalit kishore, merinews.com Sun, Sep 13, 2009 15:49:58 IST

CURRICULUM IS the sum total of all those academic activities that are done so that envisaged human potentials are accomplished through its transaction. Consequently, a curriculum document contains the following aspects. • Describing what kind of education is being envisaged or the outcomes or aims of education or kind of individuals and society are being envisaged to be built. • Assumptions about children and learning• Approaches to learning and its assessment to be followed• A review and support system to improve classroom practices and periodic renewal of curriculum • Syllabi of different courses of study and their sequence and interrelationships

Thus, curriculum is age-grade appropriate course of studies and learning activities with their systematic organisation, through which larger aim of education is realised.

Generally, a curriculum has a philosophical perspective in terms of development of human potentials of thinking, discerning, creativity, socialisation, reflection and codification of experience.

Now, most educators believe that human learning comes through an experience or activity when it is analysed and codified with practice leading to its internalisation.

The curriculum also, specifies the physical and psycho-social environment of learning and expects it to be safe and protective of the self-esteem of learners. For the proper transaction of the curriculum, it is envisaged that the cognitive or thinking tools like identifying attributes, comparing, classifying, problem solving, decision making, planning, analysing, synthesising, finding out, verifying, evaluating, applying etc be used along with the content of the subject matter.

The smallest unit of curriculum transaction is a learning episode of a chosen part of content to be finished in a limited time of 30 t0 60 minutes. Teaching and assessing a small portion of curriculum on a particular day is called classroom instruction or lesson transaction.

Classroom instruction consists of the following aspects on a particular day for a particular limited period of time: What to teach, how to teach, and with what material to teach? In many institutions, lesson plans are made so that the classroom instruction becomes effective.

When a school prepares its own curriculum document, the real insights are built into its transaction and it provides a sense of ownership for school functionaries for it leading to commitment for its effective transaction and educational quality