Reflect on your sub-area of education (e.g. administration, teaching, consulting, supervision) and how you facilitate the process of curriculum development and implementation.
I think my role as a curriculum consultant facilitates develpment and implementation in two ways, depending on the definition of curriculum.
One of my jobs is to work with teachers to know and understand the provincial curriculum documents. This is a bit of challenge, because of the perception by teachers that they are unrealistic and out of touch with the students. I know that I have had the same thought many times, especially when I was in the classroom. I now look at curricula through a different lens and with more time to think about them and I do believe that the province is creating better documents than in the past. That said, I try to help teachers know the curriculum well enough to sythesize it and simplify it so that it does become a helpful document rather than a cumbersome burden.
Another way of facilitating the curriculum is to challenge teachers to think about what and why they are teaching. Sometimes we get so focused on the what of teaching that we forget about the why.
Learning from the Energy of Our Differences
10 years ago
2 comments:
I am very glad that you share your perspective on curriculum! I look forward to having consultants in our school division, someday.
I completely agree that sometimes we forget why we are teaching what we teach and in the daily rush and grind, we don't often have a chance to just think. Learning to take more time to reflect on my practice has been beneficial to me but I know I still do things without good reason. I recently visited another grade one teacher's classroom and I was impressed at how she completely thought out every aspect of her planning and teaching. With that being said, sometimes some of my best lessons have been on the fly without any thinking at all (what does that mean)!
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