reflecting on your journey with the nz curriculum "mapping future directions" breakfast...

Reflecting on your journey with the NZ Curriculum mapping future directions

Dr Julia AtkinEducation & Learning Consultant

“Bumgum”Harden-Murrumburrah NSW [email protected]

http://www.learning-by-design.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.learning-by-design.com/

• What is the spirit of intent of the NZ Curriculum?

In my school, is curriculum review and development true to this spirit?

• What is the essence of the NZ Curriculum?

Is the curriculum in my school an expression of this essence?

• Where does pedagogy fit into the picture?

Have we considered the nature of the learning and teaching required to translate the intended curriculum into the lived curriculum?

Key Questions

Education at the crossroads

. . . education is at the cross roads.

Choosing one direction will lead efforts to lift performance within traditional educational models.

Choosing the other will see radical changes in education that will shift the way we think about learning…

Steve Maharey

What metaphors underpin your school’s curriculum redevelopment process?

How is your curriculum review process like or not like:

a trip a journey• •• •• •• •

What metaphors underpin your school’s curriculum redevelopment process?

How is the curriculum leader’s role like or not like:

a project manager for a an architect construction firm

• •• •• •• •• •

Between the ideaAnd the realityBetween the motionAnd the actFalls the shadow

T.S. Eliot The Hollow Men

From rhetoric to reality

‘Hollow’ or ‘whole’







Key Questions

The New Zealand Curriculum provides a coherent macro framework for a 21C curriculum.

Working with this curriculum framework requires considerable curriculum design work in your school.

Key questions are:• WHY are we educating the young people in our care?

• For our students, what is essential for them to learn? What is desirable?

• How do we ensure powerful learning?

• How do we map our curriculum in a way that ensures depth and breadth?

Key Questions

What is powerful learning?What is it powerful to learn?

Education Design & DevelopmentKey elements & Shapers

WHY school?What is your educative

purpose?

WHAT shouldstudents learn?What is essential?What is desirable?

HOW do students learn?Principles of Effective

Learning

CONTEXT

values&

beliefsshapes &informs

LEARNING

THEORY

informs

© Julia Atkin, 2009

When we have determined what we believe it is essential and desirable to learn, how do we ensure that it is learned powerfully??

CoreLatin

GreekMathematics

1870

KLAsEnglishMaths

ScienceSocial StudiesPE/Health/PDDesign & Tech

Visual & Perf Arts1990’s

CoreEnglishMathsLatin

ScienceHistory

1962

Arts

Geography

CommercialStudies

French

PE

Craft

Key Competencies

Essential Skills/LearningsNew Basics

Essential Learning

Development of self & self for society

2007+

Learning Areas

SECONDARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM EVOLUTION

Values

Key Competencies

The NZ Curriculum represents an ‘inversion’ of curriculum in which the ‘core’ task of education is the development of self and self for society.

The key challenge is to design curriculum so that the ways of knowing of the Key Learning Areas, the Key Competencies and Values contribute to the development of the whole self.








Key Questions


What perspective do you bring to the NZ Curriculum?

What lens are you looking through?

What do you perceive to be the ‘essence’ of NZC?

Perspective and Pedagogy the powerful agents

Before considering pedagogy, let’s first view curriculum for

21C in light of our past and get to the essence of NZC.

The origin of the term ‘curriculumCur•ri•cle noun historical

a light, open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses side by side.

ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: from Latin curriculum ‘course, racing chariot,’ from currere ‘to run.’

Reconceptualising ‘curriculum’

Are we still advocating curriculum as a ‘narrow track to

be run as a competition’ pulled along by teachers?


The ‘Essence’ of the NZ Curriculum

‘confident, connected,

actively involved and lifelong

learners’

VALUESKEY

COMPETENCIES

LEARNINGAREAS

The Vision of the NZ unequivocally states

your educative purpose.







Key Questions

21st century education is increasingly driven by a desire to develop young people who are:adaptable, creative, collaborative, responsive, self directed andcapable of being self managing in networks and less hierarchical settings and communities than experienced by their parents at the same age.

Educative Purpose for 21C


How do the nature & challenges of 21C

inform the design of learning experiences?

Reconceptualising 21C curriculum: From segregated subjects, ad hoc themes, and ‘covering content’ to

holistic, integrated learning.

Learning and curriculum for 21C



WHAT is the ‘essence’ of powerful learning?

What are the implications for pedagogy?

What are the implications for curriculum design?

Perspective and Pedagogy the powerful agents

Cur•ri•cle noun historical

a light, open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses side by side.

ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: from Latin curriculum ‘course, racing chariot,’ from currere ‘to run.’

How do we reconceptualise ‘curriculum’

Our challenge is to move from…a narrow path to be run as a race

to…a rich field to explore with treasures to discover

Educators of Primary age children have always leant towards a holistic,

personalised pedagogy. Your challenge now is to uphold that

approach and strengthen it – not to succumb to the potentially minimising effects of external pressures and past patterns.


Educators of Secondary age children have generally leant towards

a subject driven pedagogy. Your challenge now is to become a

teacher of the person using your subject expertise to enrich the learning of colleagues and young

learners.