Teacher involvement in curriculum design and development

Teacher involvement in curriculum design and development

Your enlightened superintendent recognizes the necessity of intensive and continuous teacher involvement in curriculum design and development. He must request additional resources from the school board in order to make his plan a reality. You have come to your superintendents attention as a teacher who has a deep interest in and significant knowledge of curriculum matters. Before the superintendent makes his presentation and request to the board, he has asked you to prepare a brief paper entitled The Necessary Role of the Teacher in Curriculum Design and Development to be distributed at the board meeting prior to the one at which he will make his presentation and funding request so that board members will be well informed. Since he is the superintendent and you are not, you agree with great enthusiasm.

One of the board members is a faculty member at a local university and is very attentive to the written word, so your superintendent requires that your paper meet the following requirements:

1. Your paper must follow the APA format in all ways with the exception of an abstract, which is not required.
2. Your paper must be well documented and contain reference citations to works in addition those encountered in your curriculum class, but some from there can be used as well.
3. Your paper must contain between five and six pages of text (excluding the cover sheet and reference list), since board members are busy and some may have short attention spans.
4. Your paper must be double spaced and prepared using a 12 point Times New Roman Font.
5. Your paper must follow any other criteria found in the syllabus for your curriculum class (your superintendent saw this document and found it impressive).
Textbook: Ornstein, A. C., & Hunkins, F. P. (2017). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson

6. Questions that were asked in the discussions this semester (Below). Not that you have to use them because we have already answered them, just wanted to give a scope of the class.
a. To what extent should teachers be involved in curriculum development? How many teachers do you know who would want to be involved in substantive and ongoing curriculum work outside of their normal teaching hours?
b. Choose the method of curriculum development, the technical-scientific approach or the nontechnical-nonscientific approach, that you find superior and explain why it is preferable to the other.
c. Distinguish between the deliberation Schwab suggested as a means of addressing practical problems and winging it or making it up as we go. What are the implications of Schwab’s proposal for teachers, students, administrators, and society?
d. Select and describe in your own words the curriculum design subject-centered, learner-centered, or problem-centered that would exist in your ideal school. Why did you choose this design?
e. Suppose you could change one element of the culture of your classroom and/or school. What would you change and why? What might you do to help bring about and institutionalize this change?
f. Should social issues and problems be addressed more in schools? Why or why not?
g. Ornstein and Hunkins described how a phenomenologist might approach school reform. We must reform schools not by changing the length of the school day or year, changing the amount of homework, or beefing up the curriculum but by making school more satisfying to students and more consistent with their interests so that they gain a sense of power, fulfillment, and importance in the classroom (p. 120). Do you agree or disagree with this approach? Why? What are three changes that could be made in schools to move toward these goals?