Mandated Curriculum Research Articles

Reframing design in education: Proposing a framework to support pre-service teachers in adopting designerly stances

ABSTRACT Background K12 teachers need a wider range of design approaches to foster feasible qualitative improvements in all students’ schooling experiences. We propose a framework for conceptualizing pre-service teachers’ stances toward designerly thinking. Methods We developed the framework following Crismond and Adams’ scholarship of integration approach combined with an inductive content analysis of 43 pre-service teachers’ conceptualizations of design across two versions of a design course. Results The resulting framework focuses on six dimensions including: (a) co-evolution of problem frames and possible solutions, (b) problem complexity and structure, (c) idea fluency and scope, (d) inquiry and stakeholder engagement, (e) conceptualization of the design process, and (f) attitude toward ambiguity. Each dimension articulates anchor points and examples based on the literature and grounded content analysis of the data. The analysis and discussion consider the conceptual accessibility of the framework’s goals for pre-service teachers and whether they considered the goals feasible to implement in the context of curricular mandates. Contribution The proposed framework provides the foundation for a hypothetical learning trajectory that can be elaborated and validated through future research to support K12 teachers in their development as informed designers who might better serve the needs of all their students.

Laying train tracks en route: How institutional education leaders navigate complexity during mandated curriculum change.

Institutional education leaders serve key roles in leading major curricular change within residency education, yet little is known about how they accomplish these goals on the ground. Change management principles have predominantly been developed and described in the hierarchical context of management science and corporate settings. However, the non-hierarchical, complex and adaptive features of health professions education may render these traditional change management models inadequate. We explored how institutional educational leaders navigate the complex residency education system in implementing a major curricular change. Using constructivist grounded theory, we conducted and iteratively analysed semi-structured interviews with 11 institutional education leaders from across Canada who were responsible for leading the nationally mandated curricular change to competency-based residency education. Thematic analysis was performed iteratively using constant comparison. Leaders managing the change process focused on two priorities: steering the direction of the change process as it evolved and maintaining the momentum amongst stakeholders to move forward steadily. Four common threats and opportunities impacted the focus on direction and momentum: multiplicity of contexts, innovation, resistance and distractions. In response, leaders utilised various tactics and harnessed diverse leadership styles to manage these challenges accordingly. We identified a change framework that offers a more contextually nuanced understanding of curricular change in residency education that has not been described in the change management literature generated by the management sector. Institutional education leaders focused on maintaining the direction and momentum, while constantly assessing and adapting to evolving, uncertain and complex conditions. Our findings provide a simple and practical foundation to support leadership education in curricular change as well as researchers in developing further change theories in complex adaptive health professions education systems.

Curriculum in conflict: influences of Australian teacher’s decision-making for students with complex disabilities

ABSTRACT This paper is an exploratory study of the personal and systematic influences over the curriculum decision-making process of teachers of students with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties in Australia. The way in which these influences impact teacher perceptions of the mandated curriculum and its day-to-day operationalization are discussed. The paper draws from both a national survey (n = 46) and in-depth case studies (n = 5) of teachers who work in government-funded specialist educational settings. Findings show that teachers have prominent levels of emotionality, a drive for creativity and dedication to inclusive practice, but ultimately work within a context perceived through conflict and dilemma. Previous related decision-making models are used to compare results, with some distinct differences emerging. Findings indicate that rather than enabling inclusion, standardized curriculums create an environment of professional (self)exclusion and reduce access to professional support. Increases in responsibility burden and negative emotional effects are explored. Although teachers view access to standardized curriculum programs as vital to educational inclusion and the enhancement of their professional expertise, the utilization of the current offering in Australia is makeshift at best and fraught with internal conflict. The implications of these findings are discussed, and future recommendations for research are prioritized.

Critically Conscious Early and Elementary Educators: Towards Abolitionist Education in Teacher Preparation

How do teacher preparation programs re-culture themselves so that we can supply educational settings with teachers who work toward liberation from racism and other systems of oppression? Abolitionist education is one strategic framework that can be utilized to support this systemic re-culturing. I share my experiences in re-designing and facilitating a diversity course in an early childhood education (ECE) teacher preparation program toward abolitionist education through culturally and historically responsive learning, social justice teaching frameworks, Chicana/Latina feminist philosophy, and abolitionist pedagogy. The course explored four units: Identity, Justice and Anti-Bias, Intergenerational Genius, and Freedom Dreaming and Abolition. In-class and at-home projects included positionality statements, analyzing characteristics of white supremacy culture operating in ECE, studying abolitionist movement organizers, and transforming mandated curriculum based on social justice for young children. In this article, I share the context of the course redesign, my facilitation, and reflexive ideas for moving toward abolitionist education as a field of teacher preparation.

Interrogating an implementation filter: what constrains changes in teacher practice in response to professional development

ABSTRACT It is well known that teacher professional development may not result in meaningful change to classroom instruction. A recent theoretical model by McChesney and Aldridge (2021) posited that this phenomenon may be explained on account of ‘implementation barriers’ to professional development delivery. The present study thus investigated the nature, structure, and distribution of such barriers to the impact of teacher professional development on classroom practice. Using survey data collected from three Illinois school districts (N = 274), we identified six distinct but non-orthogonal barriers (e.g. school culture, relevance, teacher resistance) and found that the most commonly perceived specific implementation barriers were time constraints and pressures, other curricular mandates or demands, and stress or burnout. Repeated-measures analysis of variance also showed some differences in the profiles of the six barriers across the school districts.

Barriers to Teaching English to Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers in Indonesian Secondary Schools: Policy Recommendations

<p style="text-align:justify">In the Indonesian context, English is considered a local subject and there is no mandated curriculum for English in elementary schools. Meanwhile, English has been a compulsory subject taught at the secondary school level. The present study aims to explore barriers to teaching English experienced by non-native English teachers in Indonesian secondary schools and policy recommendations. The study employed a qualitative case study method. Concerning the data collection, the authors garnered the data through semi-structured interviews with six non-native English teachers teaching at private and public secondary schools in Indonesia. The findings of the study reveal that several barriers experienced by non-native English teachers include lack of training in English teaching and learning, academic literacy among non-native English teachers, school facilities, English-relevant materials, student motivation, and English exposure outside of school. Drawing on these results, some policy recommendations to improve English language teaching in the Indonesian context are discussed in this study.</p>

Seven design principles for teaching complex socioscientific issues: the design of a complex systems agent-based disease epidemic model and the application of epistemic practices in high school biology

Historic challenges in the biological sciences, such as the spread of disease and climate change, have created an unprecedented need for humans to engage with scientific information to address societal problems. However, understanding these socioscientific issues (SSI) can be hard due to the difficulty of comprehending their complex structures and behaviors, the intentional propagation of misinformation, and an insufficient understanding of the epistemic practices that scientists use to develop relevant knowledge. Education researchers have highlighted additional problems in the way science is taught with a focus mainly on concepts rather than practices, competing curricular mandates, and professional development activities that do not provide usable knowledge. The research reported here follows more than a decade of work using agent-based computational models to support the comprehension and analysis of complex biological systems. Our recent work has aimed to build tools and strategies to support students in decision making about complex SSIs. In this paper, we discuss 7 design challenges and principles that underpin this recent focus. Specifically, we combine agent-based modeling with strategies to develop students’ epistemic performance in high school biology curricula. We then provide a detailed case study of how the 7 design principles were used to create a disease epidemic model and unit anchored in the biology topic of the nature of science. Our goal is to offer a comprehensive set of research-derived design principles that can bridge classroom experiences in biology to applications of SSIs.

Gen Z Attitudes Towards American Democracy and Reform

Political scientists have expressed concern about the current state of democracy in the United States, which is widely regarded as a pioneer in the modern democratic world. This study focuses on three institutional practices and systems—gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and Misinformation/hate speech—that are deemed detrimental to democracy/undemocratic and in need of reform. While Gen Zers (born between 1997-2012) are projected to become a significant voting bloc in future elections, there is limited research on their political opinions. To gauge the attitudes and preferences of Gen Zers regarding American democracy and potential institutional/practice reforms, a survey of 215 participants was conducted. The findings indicate that the majority of Gen Zers express concern about the state of democracy and are open to the idea of reform, although they do not strongly support any specific reform. Respondents displayed significant support for reforming gerrymandering, while opinions on reforming the Electoral College and addressing Misinformation/hate speech were divided along partisan lines. A subsequent focus group highlighted the participants' emphasis on the importance of civic engagement and media literacy education in high schools, as well as the need for more comprehensive local and federal curricular mandates.

Developing Teacher Competencies for Teaching Evolution across the Primary School Curriculum: A Design Study of a Pre-Service Teacher Education Module

Numerous studies indicate that evolutionary concepts can and should be taught at the primary school level. However, teaching evolution in primary school is presumably not yet the norm globally. At the same time, the educational potential of evolutionary concepts lies in their applicability to many curriculum topics in the natural and social sciences. Capitalizing on this potential requires broad teacher content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about the teaching of evolutionary concepts. However, not much is known regarding ways to develop primary teacher CK and PCK during pre-service training. In this article, we present the iterative design, implementation, and mixed methods formative evaluation (based on a design-based research framework) of a pre-service teacher education module. Its aim was to promote the development of pre-service primary school teacher CK, PCK, as well as motivation and confidence for teaching evolution across the primary school curriculum. Results indicate that pre-service teachers can be supported and motivated to teach evolutionary concepts across various themes in the primary school curriculum through a semester long course. Participants were able to develop core aspects of CK and PCK regarding the teaching of evolutionary concepts in primary school. The resulting module design integrates existing collective PCK on teaching evolution at the primary level as well as novel design considerations and teaching approaches that can be integrated into pre-service teacher education programs. However, challenges remain, particularly regarding the integration of evolutionary concepts in mandated curriculum standards such that the educational potential of evolution can be fully capitalized on by teachers.

Novice teachers in Chile: ELT teaching capability development and social (in)justice awareness in educational marginalization

ABSTRACT The Chilean system is known worldwide for the detrimental effect of neoliberal policies on public education and school segregation (Bellei et al. 2022). Drawing on Sen’s Capability Approach (1999), this paper examines how novice teachers of English balance the tension between the constraints of the social and educational systems (unfreedoms) to develop agency and transform challenges into English-language teaching opportunities (capabilities), and how they develop social (in)justice awareness to become helpful, caring, and committed ELT practitioners in their school communities. Data collected through open-ended surveys and semi-structured interviews reveal that novice teachers understand and question systemic unfreedoms (social, institutional, market-driven educational constraints) and social (in)justice in Chilean education and ELT. Such reflections allow them to distance themselves from curricular mandates, to develop ELT capabilities based on the academic and emotional needs of their learners, and intertwine English teaching with affective care and commitment to their schools’ educational projects and the wellbeing of marginalized students.

Exploring Teachers’ Awareness Level Concerning Classroom-Based Assessment (PBD) in Rural Primary Schools located in Julau, Sarawak

Classroom-Based Assessment (PBD) is a continuous assessment of the Teaching and Facilitating (PdPc) rocess to gather details on the students’ development, progress, competence, and achievement in the goals of the mandated curriculum. The students’ performance are evaluated and measured holistically in the Classroom-Based Assessment (PBD). Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore teachers’ awareness level about implementing Classroom-Based Assessment (PBD) in low enrollment schools in rural areas based in Julau, Sarawak. The respondents of the study are 38 primary school teachers from three rural schools in Julau, Sarawak. A set of digital questionnaires was used as a data collection instrument. The descriptive data were analysed using The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 26.0) involving frequency, percentage, and mean score. The study's findings showed that the teachers’ awareness level of implementing Classroom-Based Assessment (PBD) from the rural primary schools in Julau, Sarawak is at a very high level.

Opportunities and barriers: social studies in the absence of mandated curriculum

PurposeThis study sought to identify teachers' overall experiences in teaching social studies, the considerations they make in planning and implementing social studies lessons in the absence of mandated curriculum, approaches to social studies instruction and the role of legislation on social studies instruction.Design/methodology/approachTwo practicing teachers at different grade levels participated in this study to allow for comparative case study analysis. Teachers were observed teaching social studies lessons and then were interviewed to gain an understanding of their perspectives on teaching social studies at the elementary level and the role that administrative and legislative messaging played in their decision-making.FindingsThe lack of a scripted and formal program for social studies created opportunities for teacher autonomy and content integration in lessons. This is especially true for teachers that place a high value on social studies content and skills. Persistent issues, such as limited time and mandated testing pressures, continue to create barriers that teachers must work to overcome.Originality/valueSince teachers play a critical role in the enactment of policy and curriculum, when a formal curriculum program is absent, opportunities arise. Control of the classroom and inherent messaging therein continues to create a high value battleground. When teachers are given the autonomy to set lesson outcomes, opportunities for quality instruction, such as project based learning and content integration, are possible.

‘I think it depends on who you have, I was lucky I had a teacher who felt comfortable telling all this stuff’. Teacher comfortability: key to high-quality sexuality education?

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a research project that heard the perspectives on and experiences of the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme of a range of stakeholders in post-primary schools. The researchers listened to students aged from 13 to 18 years, to teachers of RSE, to principals and to parents/guardians in six post-primary schools across the Republic of Ireland. We found that teacher comfortability is one of the key components in the delivery of high-quality and effective RSE. By ‘comfortability’ we mean knowledge, expertise, confidence and appropriate pedagogical skills to teach this particular material. This view was shared by students, teachers, principals as well as some parents who commented on this aspect of RSE. We found that there are several factors that impede teacher comfortability, namely lack of qualification in Social Personal and Health Education/RSE, lack of initial teacher education input in this area, limited access to continuing professional development, an absence of mandated curriculum content and fear of external criticism especially by parents. Our findings are very similar to those of the NCCA [2019. Report on the Review of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in Primary and Post-Primary Schools. December. Dublin: NCCA] evaluation that took place in a similar time-frame and included a similar range of participants.

Arabic Language Teachers’ Perceptions of a Standards-based Educational Reform in the UAE

Arabic language curriculum has been undergoing reforms across the Arab world to improve Arab students’ acquisition of their mother tongue. Reform initiatives including internationally funded projects have been aimed recently at reforming and modernizing the teaching and learning of the Arabic language. Many Arab countries have adopted a standards-based instruction model. However, there is a lack of vision regarding how this model can be successfully implemented at a national level. This article examines how standards-based curricular mandates have been translated into practice and how teachers perceive implementing the standards-based Arabic curriculum in public schools in Abu Dhabi. The study employs qualitative purposeful sampling and an exploratory methodology to collect experiences of Arabic teachers who implemented the curriculum from 2010 to 2017. The findings of the study uncover the main characteristics, successes, and challenges of the standards-based teaching model as perceived by teachers. The findings also display a consensus for implementing the standards-based Arabic curriculum among teachers. Additionally, the findings show that the educational model requires intense professional development that is rigorous, continuous and collaborative, mentorship and coaching in the classroom, integrated reformative efforts to change ineffective pedagogical practices and capacity building in the UAE.

Reconceptualizing citizenship beyond national civic citizenship models: A discussion of British Columbia’s curricula

This article begins by reviewing different conceptions of citizenship, particularly ethnic and civic citizenship, and then focuses on the one primarily found in government curriculum guides – national civic citizenship – through a discussion of mandated curriculum, texts and related documents released over the twentieth century in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). This review illustrates how, over the twentieth century, government curricula in BC have aimed to create good, national citizens. After this review, the author discusses the shortcomings of this conception of citizenship in relation to current events and concludes with recommendations to develop a new conception of citizenship. This new conception aims to address issues that arise from the national civic conception of citizenship, tackle today’s challenges and develop well-being in both individuals and the collective community.

Language demands of textbooks for learning English in Hong Kong: A multi-stratal analysis

Understanding the language demands made on students can help teachers provide pedagogical support during critical transition periods, in turn helping English learners make a smooth transition to the next stage in their education. Through multi-stratal analysis of English textbooks in Hong Kong, this paper elucidated the differences in language demands made of students in different grades, particularly in terms of scope and complexity of choices in register and lexico-grammar. The analysis revealed two critical transition periods: the move from primary to junior secondary school and from junior secondary to senior secondary school. Different linguistic demands during these two transition periods require additional pedagogical support. Furthermore, this paper found a close correlation between the registerial progression indicated by the analysed texts and the learning targets for grades in the mandated English language curriculum. The lexico-grammatical progression revealed contributes to understanding the meaning of “more complex” stressed in the mandated curriculum

Feature: Questioning the Ethics of Legislated Literacy Curricula: What about the Pedagogical Rights of Postsecondary Readers?

In this current era of policy and legislation driving curriculum and instruction in higher education, the field of college reading is grappling with how recent curricular mandates affect learners, particularly mandates that reduce or eliminate college reading instruction by assuming a one-size-fits-all approach. Questioning the ethical implications of this current reality led us to a key question: What are the pedagogical rights of undergraduate students with respect to literacy instruction? We argue here that college readers should have access to individually and culturally relevant literacy pedagogy that is intended to support their coursework and, ultimately, their lives. We therefore propose an initial draft of a bill of rights for college readers.

Guidelines for Developing an Appropriate General English Material for Higher Students: A Perspective

English lesson is one of compulsory subject in the first semester of higher students that only two credits for sixteen meetings including midterm and final test.In the other hand most of the teacher are bound by a mandated curriculum defining the content, skills and values to be taught. Whether expected at school or state level, a curriculum outlines the goals and objectives for the students and the course of study.
 The study is expected to give a valuable contribution and improvement of the English teaching at the research site in designing an appropriate materials for higher students.

Lincoln and Education

The current norm of compulsory formal schooling includes a system in which schools teach state mandated curriculum, parents are held legally responsible to assure their children attend school until they reach a certain age, and students are confined within set class meeting times and set locations during their schooling years. The two terms, education and schooling, have been increasingly used synonymously. Our assertion here is that education is a more inclusive term than schooling. More importantly, using Abraham Lincoln as a biographical model, we argue that a good education can be achieved in different ways.

“Counterstory Mapping Our City”: Teachers Reckoning with Latinx Students’ Knowledges, Cultures, and Communities

The study focuses on a two-week unit with 90 students at an urban, Latinx-serving charter middle and high school in the south midwestern U.S. to create digital counterstory maps. The maps then served as the organizing content for a subsequent week-long summer professional development the authors led for their teachers. Analysis suggests the significance of engaging the students’ counterstories and cultural knowledge for designing teacher education committed to culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP). Further, it articulates the challenges for engaging CSP with students and teachers in a charter school context in which disciplinary and curricular mandates conflate cultural assimilation with academic achievement.