Course: Curriculum and Instruction(6503) Semester: Autumn, 2022 Level: MA/M.Ed
Assignment No.1
Q.1 Explain model of teaching by focusing in functions. Highlight the need of model of teaching.
Models of teaching relate to several models that assist teachers in honing their communication skills. The models enable teachers to assist the overall learning curves of students. Various approaches may create a successful course curriculum for both long-term and short-term courses.
Teaching models provide direction to instructors and planners while also speeding up the educational process. It helps them to assess and improve on their strengths and weaknesses. When developing such models, teachers consider elements such as social, personal, information processing, and behavior.
Basis of Models of Teaching
The models are based on the following criteria:
· Environment Specification: It outlines in precise terms the state of the atmosphere in which the teacher should examine a child’s reaction.
· Specification of operation outlines the system that allows learners to respond and engage with their surroundings.
Q.2 Compare Bruner’s ‘Concept attainment model’ and Piaget’s ‘Cognitive growth model’?
Cognitive development refers to a person’s thought processes and the developemnt of mental traits.. It looks at how a person thinks, perceives, gains understanding and together with information processing, reasoning, imagination and memory it is how a person interacts with the world from childhood through to adulthood.
This development has been measured and studied in a variety of ways over many years. The widely used Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests were introduced early in the 20th century and are based on the concept of a mental age obtained from the results of a test the subject undertakes. However, IQ tests have come under increasing criticism as they only measre a limited range of intellectial capabilities and definine intelligence too narrowly, they can also be biased with regard to culture, race and gender. In contrast researchers such as Watson and Skinner developed their learned theory which focused on the role of environmental factors in shaping the intelligence of the child and they argues that a child is malleable with the ability to learn by having behaviour’s rewarded while others discouraged.
Piaget and Bruner were two influential theorists of cognitive development and both agreed that cognitive development took place in stages. However, their theories are fundamentally different.
Q.3 Differentiate between individualized instruction and group instruction and also explain the instructional methods use for each style of instruction
As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, increasingly more schools have adopted a blended learning strategy to prevent lapses in instruction when students cannot attend school in-person. Last week, we published an article explaining how a blended learning strategy supports instructional approaches like differentiation, individualized instruction, and personalized learning. But what do these terms actually mean, and how do these instructional approaches benefit students?
Definitions of Differentiation, Individualized Instruction, and Personalized Learning
In 2018, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) published an article explaining the subtle differences and similarities between differentiation, individualized instruction, and personalized learning. Let us take a look at the definitions for each term, plus some examples of how each approach to learning can be incorporated into a blended learning strategy.
Differentiated Instruction
ISTE defines differentiation as “a type of learning where instruction is tailored to meet the learning needs, preferences and goals of individual students.”
Most schools and districts follow prescribed learning standards or objectives that all general education students must meet by the end of each grade level. However, teachers do not need to teach all students with the exact same lectures, classroom activities, or assignments in order to reach these standards. In fact, evidence suggests that differentiated instruction can promote a deeper understanding of the curriculum and higher student achievement.
Q.4 Enlist the phases of curriculum and elaborate the process of curriculum development
Process of Curriculum Development
Curriculum development is a process in which different components such as formulation of curriculum policy, curriculum research, curriculum planning, its implementation and then its evaluation play an important role. The curricular framework generates creative thinking at various levels of decision making such as the national, state regional and district levels. It provides a great deal of flexibility to provide space for local specificity and contextual realities.
International experiences have shown that neither the completely centralised approach nor the totally decentralised approach to curriculum development has really been successful.
The impact of the school curriculum is so crucial for national and state policies that in most of the countries of the world this responsibility is shouldered by various government and national level organizations and agencies. In fact, no country can afford to ignore the curriculum development process.
Stages in The Process of Curriculum Development
There are basically four stages of curriculum development –
1. Formulation of Objectives
2. Selection and Organization of appropriate learning-material.
3. Selection of Suitable Learning Experiences
4. Selection of Suitable Material for evaluation of curriculum
Formulation of Objectives-
The objectives of teaching mathematics formulated and determined in behavioural terms. While formulating and determining objectives following points should be kept in mind-
Q.5 Discuss in detail the three main foundations of curriculum.
Foundations of curriculum are the considerations of educational programs and policies in the light of an interdisciplinary endeavor involving philosophical, psychological, sociological, and historical, understandings.
The foundations of curriculum set the external boundaries of the knowledge of curriculum and define what constitutes valid sources from which to derive the field’s theories, principles, and ideas. Curriculum’s commonly accepted foundations are philosophical, psychological, social and historical areas that are explained as under;
Philosophical Foundations of Curriculum
Curriculum decisions involve a wide range of considerations that anchor on several issues in education. These issues include the purpose of learning, sources of the subject matter, the nature of teaching/learning process, characteristics of the leaner, among others (Ekanem, & Ekefre, 2014). These decisions are based or anchored on certain fundamental beliefs that spring from one’s philosophy of education. This is what made it possible for philosophy to be viewed or taken as one of the foundations of curriculum. The various philosophical thoughts that influence curriculum are Idealism, Realism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Essentialism, perennialism and Deconstructionism.