Management Of Curriculum Change Research Articles

Leadership for Technology Integration in Teaching Mathematics: A Comparative Study Between Two Private Institutions

The calling for technology integration in teaching mathematics has become louder as mathematics enables advanced understanding of concepts in other STEM subjects. However, technology integration in teaching mathematics has posed challenges for curriculum leaders and teachers. Hence, this study intended to investigate the curriculum change process involving technology integration from the principals' perspectives and their leadership approach to effective curriculum change management. The study adopted a qualitative research method. Data were collected via email interviews with two principals managing private institutions that offer the same math program for primary school students. The findings showed that Rogers’ diffusion of innovation model supported the curriculum change process involving technology adoption in teaching mathematics. In addition, the principals were found to have distinct perspectives on curriculum change implementation and, hence, had adopted different leadership approaches in managing curriculum change. The findings of this study imply that future leadership development programs should focus on developing transformational leadership qualities that enhance curriculum change processes.

Curriculum Change Management Amidst Pandemic Crisis: Comparative Study of Academic Leadership in Quantity Surveying Program

The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly led to unprecedented curriculum change in the higher education institutions in Malaysia. For institutions that were not used to applying online teaching and learning by its nature, the pandemic crisis has imposed a forceful demand for all to shift the existing curricula to online mode overnight, which created a huge challenge for the academic leaders. Hence, this study intended to study and contrast the curriculum change management by academic leaders resulting from the pandemic crisis, as well as the successful leadership styles in handling the crisis-driven change. The study adopted a qualitative research method via a one-to-one semi-structured online interview. Two academic leaders who managed the quantity surveying program in the higher education institutions in Sarawak and Selangor were purposely selected by the researcher to participate in this study, aided by some predefined criteria in the respondent selection. The qualitative data were analysed and deduced using thematic coding through ATLAS.ti software. The findings showed that Kotter’s 8-step framework was useful and supported curriculum change management well in the academic context during the pandemic crisis. In addition, the academic leaders were discovered to adopt a transformational leadership style in successfully handling disruptions and managing the curriculum change due to the pandemic crisis.

Change models and strategies in the context of managing curriculum change: A case study of managing curriculum Year Four History Curriculum in the district of Kuala Selangor, Malaysia

This article is based on a case study of the management of curriculum change in primary schools. This was done by analyzing the management of curriculum change brought about by the introduction the History curriculum for the Year Four Primary Schools Standard-Based Curriculum. This instrumental case study employed a descriptive- interpretative approach grounded in the qualitative research tradition. Data was collected through analysis of documents, in-depth semi-structured interviews and the direct observations of teaching and learning of History lessons. It was located within the context of eight selected schools. A total of twenty eight participants (8 History teachers, 8 senior curriculum assistants, 8 headmasters, 1 National Trainer and 3 officers from Curriculum Development Division, State Education Department and District Education were interviewed. The process and procedures in managing curriculum change were analyzed in the context of characteristic of Havelock’s model, Schon’s models and Bennis, Benne and Chin’s innovation strategy. The findings showed that the central agency did predominantly use Havelock’s (1971) Research, Development & Diffusion model coupled with Schon’s (1971) Centre Periphery Model and Bennis et al.(1969) power-coercive strategy. However, the overall analysis showed that empirical rational and normative re-educative strategies were less practiced in managing the curriculum change.

Issues and challenges in managing curriculum change in primary schools: A case study of managing Year Four History Curriculum in the District of Kuala Selangor, Malaysia

The case study aimed to explore and explain the issues and challenges experienced in the management of curriculum change in primary schools. This was done by analysing the management of curriculum change brought about by the introduction the History curriculum for the Year Four Primary Schools Standard based Curriculum. This case study used a descriptive- interpretative approach grounded in the qualitative research tradition. Precisely, it is an instrumental case study. Data was collected through analysis of documents, in-depth interviewing (based on semi-structured interviews) and the direct observations of learning and teaching of History lessons. It was located within the context of eight selected schools (four National Primary Schools and four Tamil Type National Primary schools). A total of twenty eight respondents were interviewed. The findings show that the respondents did face issues and challenges in managing the Year Four History curriculum. They were pertaining to curriculum content, teaching and learning process, assessment, availability and utilization of time, training and staff development, physical facilities. The findings of this study can assist curriculum developers, curriculum administrators, school management team and teachers in managing the Year Four History curriculum. They were pertaining to curriculum content, teaching and learning process, assessment, availability and utilization of time, training and staff development, physical facilities. The findings of this study can assist curriculum developers, curriculum administrators, school management team and teachers in improving quality of primary school curriculum change management.

Management of Curriculum Change: A Mechanism for Ensuring Continuous Academic Improvement in Ghanaian Universities

Effective collaboration in the curriculum change effort remains a challenge in higher education, in particular, with comprehensive curriculum reform or change. Curriculum modification to existing courses or content will not always lead to the desired reform even though a collaborative approach has been the foundation of the process. Comprehensive and collaborative curriculum change requires a full examination of how academics conceive their role and how the curriculum itself is defined, analyzed, and changed.Through a systematic review of literature, the researchers were able to create a contextualized emergent model for curriculum change management for Ghanaian universities derived from experience and educational policies.It emerged from the review of literature that a collectively shared guiding vision for an effective curriculum change provided a strong foundation for the comprehensive curriculum review process; Embracing curriculum as a shared responsibility among faculty and administration led to widespread participation; The collaboration of various groups within the institution in the process promoted organizational change; Cultural issues regarding people and organizational structure served as barriers to the collaboration process, simultaneously the curriculum team’s sense of community strengthened the curriculum review process. This position paper therefore recommends that the Ministry of Education in conjunction with the Ghana Education Service should ensure that the practice of curriculum change is highly decentralized to reflect local concerns. Thus, the decentralization of the process would be tailored towards the local needs of the area. This would make education more meaningful and relevant to students.

Curriculum change management and workload

This study examines the ways in which Saudi teachers have responded or are responding to the challenges posed by a new curriculum. It also deals with issues relating to workload demands which affect teachers’ performance when they apply a new curriculum in a Saudi Arabian secondary school. In addition, problems such as scheduling and sharing space require committee negotiations between head teachers, teachers, and higher level management in the project. The results show the importance of open communication, and a bottom-up as well as a top-down flow of decision-making. Communication and decisions flow down to the middle managers, and the reactions and opinions of those at the bottom may or may not flow back up to the decision-makers at the top.

Situated Task-based Language Teaching in Chinese Colleges: Teacher Education

<p>This study investigated college EFL teachers’ attitudes toward task-based language teaching (TBLT), regarding their familiarity with the idea of TBLT, their actual use of TBLT, and contextual factors that impede the implementation of TBLT in the higher education context in China. The study described here is a questionnaire survey with 26 valid responses. Results of this study are derived from discussion concerned with qualitative and quantitative data. The findings in the study show that though there are constraints from various aspects (including, the teaching materials, large class size etc.) for the successful implementation of TBLT, TBLT as a communicative teaching approach received very positive feedback from teachers. The majority of the teachers in this study hold positive views towards TBLT even though they have a low-level understanding of principles and practices of TBLT. The results addressed the issues existed in the pre-service and in-service training of Chinese EFL teachers. This study also highlighted the need for the Chinese ELT teachers to further develop their professional skills in terms of their competence to deal with large class size teaching, material development and English proficiency. Based on the findings, suggestions for teacher education and further development were made. This research is intended to yield informative insights regarding sustainable curriculum change management, policy implementation and professional development of English teachers in the Chinese EFL context.</p>

Exploring Principals’ Role in Providing Instructional Leadership in Rural High Schools in South Africa

Effective leadership is the cornerstone of any education system. It can ensure the effective implementation and management of curriculum changes. Leadership by principals plays a critical role in motivating teachers and creating a culture of learning in the school. This article investigates the capacity of principals to provide instructional leadership at school level and the challenges they encounter in managing and implementing curriculum changes. The study employed qualitative design using interviews. The participants were principals from the Brits district of the North West province, who were identified through purposive sampling. The results showed that principals view themselves as managers and not as instructional leaders. Lack of training in curriculum change management and implementation remains a challenge to most of the principals. The study also revealed that workload, daily disruptions, lack of support from subject specialists, and parents are some of the barriers that constrain principals from executing their duties as instructional leaders with diligence. For principals to perform their instructional leadership tasks, they need to free themselves from their managerial tasks and delegate these tasks to other members of the management team. Then they can focus their efforts on teaching and learning. Principals can achieve this with the necessary support from all stakeholders.

Application of a generic curriculum change management process to motivate and excite students

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast is committed to enhancing the quality of student learning. A plan to implement curriculum change around this goal has been formulated and is already several years underway. A specific part of the plan involved instigating a first year introductory module to engage the students in the practice of their engineering discipline. The complicated nature of devising this type of module with regard to objectives, resources, timeframe and the number of students involved meant that a very systematic approach had to be adopted. This paper presents the simple but definitive change management process that facilitated the creation of a first year

Instructional Leadership for Quality Learning

A descriptive study using questionnaires was conducted in 2004 to assess the effectiveness of instructional leadership displayed by primary school management teams following the implementation of the Primary School Management Project in Botswana. Leadership skills, Coordination of instructional activities, management of curriculum and quality of learners were key variables that guided the study. Respondents were 240 primary school teachers including school heads and 575 learners. Data were analyzed descriptively through the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program using frequencies and percentages. The results reveal school management teams' lack of interpersonal skills necessary for classroom supervision, inability to mobilize parents to participate in school instructional improvement activities, teachers' unauthorized use of corporal punishment and lack of creativeness and innovativeness for management of curriculum change. Regarding quality of learning, the study identifies learners' inability and lack of freedom for self-expression and inadequate acquisition of basic literacy skill at varying degrees between rural and urban schools.

Factors that impede curriculum change: a preliminary report

The management of curriculum change in religious education is of interest to all who are concerned with a continuing pursuit of excellence in this curriculum area. Utilising a grounded theory approach, this paper describes some findings concerning the management of curriculum change in the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia. It reports the perspective of religious education coordinators, who were responsible for managing a major change in the religious education curriculum in Catholic secondary schools. Emanating from a broader on‐going study, the report focuses on factors that the religious education coordinators felt impeded curriculum change.

Knowledge Use and the Dynamics of Managing Curriculum Change

This article explores the relationships between knowledge use (KU) and curriculum change management. Managing or coping with curriculum change has been conceptualized as consisting of a technical dynamic, a political dynamic, and a cultural dynamic. A parallel line of thinking can be detected in the KU literature in that the functions which KU serves may be for instrumental, capacity-building, or enlightenment purposes. This study investigates the relation-ship between KU and change management with respect to these three dynamics. The political dynamics of the implementation process stand out as being a particularly important correlate of KU.

Curriculum change: the importance of team role.

This paper describes a study examining aspects of team role in the management of curriculum change. The Belbin Team Role Self-Perception Inventory was completed by 25 members (83%) of a faculty curriculum development team. Overall the group showed a preference for the implementer and shaper roles, whilst the completer-finisher role was relatively weakly represented, ranking fifth out of eight possible roles. Older and more senior team members favoured the co-ordinator role, whilst younger and more junior members favoured the team-worker and completer-finisher roles. Some implications of these findings are discussed in the light of the current trend for widespread change in undergraduate medical curricula and the challenges faced by medical schools in a resource constrained environment.

The Technical and Vocational Education Initiative and school autonomy in the management of curriculum change

Abstract This paper arises out of wider, ESRC‐funded research on the legacy of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) in a national sample of original pilot schools. The paper draws on two periods of fieldwork in the schools, the first in 1985 and 1986, the second in 1991 and 1992. This methodology allows the adoption of a longitudinal perspective in studying TVEI. The paper focuses on attempts to manage curriculum change through TVEI. This was to be achieved through the novel means of providing funds in return for contractual commitments by local education authorities to implement programmes which met the national TVEI aims and criteria specified by the Manpower Services Commission (this method of allocating resources became known as categorical funding). The paper begins with a brief description of TVEI and draws important distinctions between the pilot and extension phases of the Initiative. This is followed by a review of the claims for, and critiques of, the categorical funding mechanism. The rationale and rhetoric of TVEI management is then compared with the practice in the schools. The data reveal a considerable gap between rhetoric and reality. The boundaries of TVEI are shown to have become increasingly blurred and to have allowed considerable scope for local variations. Arrangements for monitoring and reviewing are revealed as something of a facade. The procedures and criteria through which TVEI resources were distributed within the schools are shown to have been subject to a whole range of contextual factors, rather than being governed by identifiable TVEI aims and criteria. TVEI management was pervaded by complicity between participants at various levels and strong pressures to proclaim ‘successes’ and highlight ‘good practice’. A picture of the domestication and subversion of TVEI emerges from the data. Explanations are offered for this state of affairs and the paper concludes by summarizing the reasons for the comparative failure of categorical funding to bring about the changes sought by the political originators of TVEI.

The Management of Educational Change: a case study

ABSTRACT This report examines the issues inherent in the management of curriculum change. The change in question was initiated through one of five national Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) projects in modern foreign languages for post‐16 students. In the light of the expanding opportunities in Europe post‐1992, and the place of a modern foreign language as a foundation subject in the National Curriculum, the main purpose of the project was to find ways of generating a place for modern foreign languages in the post‐16 core curriculum. A brief background to developments in TVEI is given, and the identification of required changes against this background and that of a new European awareness is described. A description of the project itself highlights the processes by which change was established and the management issues inherent in the initiation of change. Following the monitoring and evaluation of the project, the author concludes that change at a local level was very effective. Viewed...

Rationality and the Management of Curriculum Change

Rationality and the Management of Curriculum Change