Qualities of instructional-learning episodes in different domains: The subjects Care and Technology

This paper focuses on the question, 'What kind of learning processes are intended in the subjects Care and Technology in the Dutch common curriculum?' Arguments for the introduction of the subjects in the common curriculum pointed out their practical nature. However, the concept 'practical' was used to refer to different dimensions: to 'learning domains' (cognitive, psychomotor, social-affective), and to 'learning outcomes' (knowledge-skills). We analyse these subjects in relation to these dimensions as well as the dimensions 'productive-reproductive learning', 'extent of metacognition', and 'near- or far-transfer'. The findings show that Care and Technology are not 'practical' subjects in either the learning-domain dimension or in the learningoutcome dimension. Like other subjects in secondary education, relatively little attention is paid to metacognition and far-transfer.     

Gender in Dutch General Education. The Case of 'Taking Care'

This article deals with theoretical problems connected with notions on gender, 'being an educated person', rationality and caring, and the Dutch curriculum for general education. The introduction of the subject 'taking care' as part of the curriculum for secondary education in the Netherlands, can be understood as a step towards a more gender-egalitarian curriculum. Discussions on the meaning of 'an educated person' and on the meaning of rationality within philosophy of education are described and used to analyse the aims of 'taking care'. The way 'gender' is at stake within this subject, and the implicit notion of an educated person are discussed, in order to find out if and how a gender-egalitarian curriculum, based upon a gender-egalitarian notion of an 'educated person', is possible.     

Hans Freudenthal: A mathematician on didactics and curriculum theory

The main ideas in the work of Hans Freudenthal (1905-1990), the Dutch mathematician and mathematics educator, related to curriculum theory and didactics are described. Freudenthal's educational credo, 'mathematics as a human activity', is explored. From this pedagogical point of departure, Freudenthal's criticism of educational research and educational theories is sketched and fleshed out. Freudenthal's approaches to mathematics education, developmental research and curriculum development can be seen as alternatives to the mainstream 'Anglo-Saxon' approaches to curriculum theory.     

The educational situation: As concerns the elementary school

In 1894, when John Dewey came to Chicago, US educational leaders were reshaping the elementary school, high school, and college, institutions initially aimed at different social groups, into three 'levels' of a more integrated K-16 system. At the same time, Dewey's fellow reformers were furthering the 'new education' by advocating activity-based, cooperative subjects, including nature study and manual arts for the elementary school curriculum. In The School and Society (1899), Dewey addressed the two problems of how to integrate practical co-operative activities with academic subject matters and how to connect the subject matters and learning methods of the three educational 'levels' to provide continuity throughout the curriculum and between it and out-of-school experience. The School and Society, one of the best known of Dewey's early educational writings, argued that the success of 'new education' was 'inevitable', because it was 'part and parcel of the whole social evolution'. Dewey noted that the opportunities children previously possessed for practical learning in home and neighbourhood production had been eliminated once production moved to urban factories. The earlier common schools had merely added a layer of literacy and numeracy to the base of practical thinking abilities formed outside of school. Schools in the industrial city, however, simply had to provide these opportunities themselves. Dewey's conception of experience-based practical learning to form habits of inquiry and co-operation securing democratic life was a masterful synthesis of the 'new education', and The School and Society became an educational classic inspiring educators for a century. The Educational Situation (1902), by contrast, has received little attention. The tone is decidedly less upbeat. Far from proving 'inevitable', Dewey says, the 'new education' has come up against unanticipated obstacles because it is not an 'organic part' of the 'educational whole'. The institution, he says, remains structured by mechanical features of school organization and administration that determine educational experience 'even on its distinctively educational side'. The new education will fail unless educators can put in place a new organizational and administrative structure that both conforms with the external realities of industrial society and supports new experienced-based learning activities. The three chapters of The Educational Situation analyse the difficulties inherent in fundamental structural change, and propose structural reforms for the elementary school, high school, and college. In chapter 1, which originally appeared in 1901 as a separate essay and is reprinted here, Dewey carefully delineates the interplay between organizational and administrative structures and curriculum. His analysis of the problem of curriculum change anticipates the contemporary work of such scholars as John W. Meyer, Robert Dreeben, and 388 j. dewey Larry Cuban-and defines an issue which, arguably, has not been explored as systematically in the 100 years that have followed the publication of The Educational Situatio. Leonard J. Waks     

The difficulties of defining development:A case study

In the current climate of change and expansion within higher education in the UK, there are various drivers for change in the way the curriculum is designed and delivered. In the recent past, within the UK, the QAA has presented a Code of Practice with respect to HE provision for students with disabilities and changes in the legislation relating to access to higher education for students with disabilities. These developments have prompted funding councils to resource major projects relating to accessibility. Such is the complexity of terms such as 'curriculum', 'accessibility' and 'disability', that these funded projects require a multidisciplinary approach. However, questions arise as to whether the key players in these multidisciplinary projects actually fully understand each other and have a shared understanding of the terms of reference. This case study highlights some of the difficulties experienced within a multidisciplinary team that did not ensure a shared conception of the complexities of the change management project in which it was engaged. What comes to the foreground is the problematic concept of academic development and how it is understood outside of its own community.     

'Sin,Sex, and Segregation': Social control and the education of Southern women

This article investigates the paradoxical processes of social control and social change within the institution of public education in the US South, early in the twentieth century. Through historical sociological analysis, it reveals how New South leaders used the 'dividing practices' of 'sin, sex, and segregation' to disenfranchise African-American males, to win support for segregated public schools, to segregate public higher education by race and gender, and to implement a race, class, and gender differentiated curriculum. It also shows that despite built-in limitations, the educational foundation of the new social order contained contradictory and ambiguous processes. This article focuses on the consequences of these processes for Southern women, especially North Carolina women.     

Structural characteristics of university engineering students' conceptions of energy*

This study examined structural characteristics of university engineering students' conceptions of energy elicited through paragraph writing and their relations with categories of their conceptions specific to energy in solution processes identified through interviews. We found that structures of students' conceptions are characterized primarily by characteristic, example‐of/type‐of, and lead‐to types of relations, and these relations correspond with categories of students' conceptions. More specifically, categories of students' conceptions are exclusively related to energy transformation, and students failed to apply the notion of energy conservation demonstrated in structures of their conceptions to explain the temperature change in solution processes. It is concluded that although paragraph writing and interviews solicit different student conceptions, the conceptions identified from the two sources are related and paragraph writing tends to provide a more holistic picture of students' conceptions. This conclusion has clear implications for science curriculum development and instruction. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 423–441, 2002     

Assessing conceptual change of teachers involved in STES education and curriculum devleopment - the STEMS project approach

Science-Technology-Environment-Society (STES) orientation in science education is currently being implemented in Israeli high schools within the framework of 'science for all' reform worldwide. This paper focuses on assessing the conceptual change of teachers who have been involved in the development, implementation, field-testing and evaluation of several modules. These modules constitute a grade 10-11 high school national curriculum titled STEMS - 'Science, Technology, Environment in Modern Society'. STEMS is aimed at developing an autonomous learner, capable of system thinking, decision making and problem solving within the real life STES context. We sensed that the intrinsic nature of STEMS curriculum requires that the teachers, who will teach it, will also be the developers of its modules. Involvement of this kind makes the teachers responsible for their own conceptual change, explanations and interpretations. Our formative evaluation indicates that the conceptual change of STEMS teachers was gradual. Participants differed with respect to what sort of 'treatment' or experience within the project actually affected who and when. It was apparent that the change occurred with respect to both their content knowledge and pedagogical views. A positive response towards teaching beyond the discipline boundaries was followed by teachers' active involvement and participation in the development process and team discussions. Thus, the STEMS project affected their teaching/learning perception towards interdisciplinarity. These findings are in accord with teachers' support of a life cycle approach for curriculum development as being suitable for achieving the STEMS objectives. The teachers emphasized the need to practice together with their students scientific inquiry and experiment design skills which, foster an autonomous learner. At the end of the first year of the curriculum development process, STEMS was finally conceptualized by the project teachers as a novel way of learning, rather than another sophisticated teaching technique. The major conceptual change was, the switch teachers made from the role of knowledge providers into that of learners. The interplay among action, participation and conceptualization turned out to be instrumental in our life cycle approach for developing the STEMS curriculum.     

Dewey and Video Games: From Education through Occupations to Education through Simulations

Critics like Leonard Waks argue that video games are, at best, a dubious substitute for the rich classroom experiences that John Dewey wished to create and that, at worst, they are profoundly miseducative. Using the example of Fate of the World, a climate change simulation game, David Waddington addresses these concerns through a careful demonstration of how video games can recapture some of the lost potential of Dewey's original program of education through occupations. Not only do simulation games realize most of the original goals of education through occupations, but they also solve some of the serious practical problems that Dewey's curriculum generated. Waddington concludes the essay with an analysis of Waks's critiques and some cautionary notes about why it is important to be temperate in our endorsement of educational video gaming.     

Time for curriculum reform: the case of mathematics

Mathematics education is rarely out of the policy spotlight in England. Over the last 10 years, considerable attention has been given to improving 14–19 mathematics curriculum pathways. In this paper we consider some of the challenges of enacting curriculum change by drawing upon evidence from our evaluation of the Mathematics Pathways Project (MPP). From 2004 to 2010 this project, which was directed by England's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, aimed to improve the engagement, attainment and participation rates of 14- to 19-year-old learners of mathematics. Our particular focus is upon the temporal problems of piloting new curriculum and assessment and we draw on Lemke's discussion of timescales, heterochrony and the adiabatic principle to consider the interlocking and interference of various change processes.     

Processes of 'Change' and 'Continuity' in Educational Psychology--Part I

The present paper is concerned with processes of 'change' and 'continuity' and their application to educational psychology. It argues that educational psychologists (EPs) need to be aware of and reflect regularly about 'change' and 'continuity' in their profession as a means of evaluating their own short- and long-term development. Such examination includes assessing the impact of external changes on EP practice. In identifying conceptual features of 'change' and 'continuity', the paper claims that 'change' is 'learning', and suggests a list of prerequisites if change is considered. The paper also provides the foundation for the presentation of an exploratory research project into 'change' and 'continuity' in educational psychology, discussed in Part II.     

Stability and change as reflected in teachers' educational fantasies

The article aims to reveal teachers' dispositions concerning stability and change in the field of schooling and to suggest some possible connection to the social space. Forty teachers who attended a principals' training course were asked to write educational fantasies regarding their 'dream school'. A content analysis of the fantasies showed similarities, such as: respecting student diversity, core curriculum and subjects of choice, a variety of teaching methods and a rich physical environment, and differences regarding: time and space configuration, classroom size and the schoolyard and recreation area. Most (75%) of the desired models view the school as preparing the student for society, while 25% perceive it as a place for the fulfilment of students' potential. The conclusion is that educational reforms are likely to succeed if they follow the trend toward more diversity, choice and pluralism, but at the same time respect the areas of difference. Further research is needed to elaborate on the educational fantasy as a research tool.     

Studying,taming, and exploiting the micro

The chequered history of the development of the primary English syllabus in the Australian state of New South Wales, which was released to schools in 1994, suggests that current theoretical assumptions about curriculum change may need further interrogation. Throughout its long period of gestation every 'rule' for successful curriculum development and implementation was either ignored, broken or rendered unattainable due to particular circumstances. T he syllabus gained a degree of notoriety in the Australian context in that it acknowledged a controversial theoretical underpinning- a functional view of language- and was the first syllabus to incorporate national outcomes. T his paper argues that many of the conditions advocated in current educational theory relating to curriculum change are unrealistic in the present political and economic climate and that the politicization of education, the role of the media, as well as subject-specific factors, deserve more attention as significant forces in curriculum change. Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. Richard Hooker (1594)     

An investigation into the role that school-based interactive science centres may play in the education of primary-aged children

The recent development of interactive science centres throughout Britain has provided schools with a potential resource to help provide the science curriculum. This paper explores the role that a schoolbased 'mini-museum', designed to mimic an interactive science centre, may play in young children's science education. The research investigates children's interactions with exhibits and each other in such a 'centre', and suggests that although children did appear to make some gains in their learning of scientific knowledge and scientific skills and processes, the largest gains were made in the development of positive attitudes towards science. This positive attitude towards science provides the classroom teacher with opportunities to build upon the children's new-found enthusiasm and to ensure that they make lasting gains from their interactive experience.     

An Expert System Approach to Curriculum Development in Engineering Education

RÉSUMÉ

This paper focuses on demonstrating the feasibility of applying expert system methodology as a new approach for assisting the development of engineering degree curricula particularly in developing countries. A number of subdomains in which a rule-based system can be applied have been identified in the field of curriculum development. The subdomain developed and presented in this paper concerns methods of identifying curriculum content, and the major subgoal of developing a profile of ‘staff experience’ in this context is investigated in depth. Knowledge in this subdomain has been encapsulated in an expert system which has been refined to the satisfaction of a curriculum expert and tested by potential end-users of the system.

RÉSUMÉ On s'est concentré dans cet article sur une démonstration de la possibilité d'appliquer ks méthodes d'Intelligence Artificelle, au développement des programmes d' études pour la formation des ingénieurs au niveau de licence (surtout dans les pays en voie de developpement). On a identifié, dans le domaine du developpement des programmes d' études, plusieurs sous-domaines auxquels s'appliquerait un systeme d'Intelligence Artificielle à base de régies. Le sous-domaine qu'on presente ici concerne les methodes qu'on se sen pour déterminer le contenu des programmes d' études; en meme temps, un autre but majeur de nos recherches a été d'examiner à fond le profit d'experience du personnel enseignant en ce qui s'agit du développement des programmes d' études. On a encapsulé le savoir dans ce sous-domaine au moyen d'un système d'Intelligence Artificielle qui a ete mis au point à la satisfaction d'un expert en matières de programmes d' études et, qui a été, de plus, vérifié par des représentants de ceux qui, en toute probabilité, se serviront d'un tel système.     

Education Reform in Taiwan: A search for a 'national' identity through democratisation and Taiwanisation

Recent studies on globalisation and the literature of democratisation of society and education cannot explain the complicated interplay between democratisation, localisation and the pursuit of 'national' identity in both education and the broader society of Taiwan between the late 1980s and 2000. The paper argues that these three processes are indivisible in Taiwan. They involve not only the reallocation of power between the state, society and education, but also the redefinition of the territorial and social components of Taiwanese 'national' identity in relation to the Chinese mainland. In particular, social pressure groups, teachers and parents are empowered in policymaking processes at various levels, whilst the power of school principals and education officials to respond to these pressure groups is limited. The role of the school curriculum is now reversed from suppressing to promoting ethnic cultures and identities as points of a new collective identity: 'Taiwan people' with Taiwan as their ultimate homeland.     

Participatory curriculum development: Lessons drawn from teaching environmental education to industry in Zimbabwe

My experience of teaching the Rhodes University/Speciss College Environmental Education Course in Zimbabwe alerted me to a tension between the industry course participants who largely (although not entirely) wanted a skills/vocational training orientation and the course curriculum developers, who wanted a critical/theoretical/praxis-based orientation to the course. This paper is an attempt to offer some resolution of the dilemma this provided the course developers. I begin by briefly describing the tension historically and internationally and giving an outline of Fairclough's (1999) position in its regard. I then suggest that a conventionalist interpretation of the participatory/contextualist method of curriculum development should be avoided, arguing that conventionalism is covertly anti-epistemological in that it leads to the thesis that epistemic standards do not rest on truth/validity claims but on convention (Haack, 1993, p. 20). Thus contextualisation, interpreted as conventionalism, becomes inherently conservative. Instead I suggest an approach to curriculum development based on Haack's (1993, p. 73) explicandum of epistemic justification: 'A is more/less justified, at time t, in believing that p, depending on …'. Thus, if there is good enough (note: not absolute) evidence to disagree with the community's construction of what the best curriculum should be, provided we can demonstrate our disagreement with intellectual integrity, then it is appropriate to go against the grain of the majority of the community's construction of its curriculum needs (in this case, the call for skills-based training), and instead attend to the requirements of a minority of the community.     

Creativity,Curricula and Paradigms

What are the relations between creativity, curricula and paradigms? In this paper the historical development of major curriculum theories are interpreted in terms of their relation to creativity as a goal of organised learning. Further, the development is analysed by discussing the organising of learning for creativity from the viewpoints of different sociological paradigms. These represent mutually exclusive ways of understanding knowledge production and societal change. A synthesis of how schools try to reach creativity as a goal for organised learning, seen through the 'dark glasses' of curriculum traditions and paradigms, is presented. The paper ends with some concluding remarks regarding how creativity fits into a curriculum profile needed under the present level of economic globalisation.     

Back to the Future: The higher education curriculum in the 21st century

This paper begins by reviewing some of the dramatic changes which have been taking place in higher education in recent years and which are disrupting the traditional identities of place, of time and of the scholarly and student communities. These are producing for the 21st century a higher education system which operates under a greater variety of conditions than ever before (part-time/full-time, work-based/institution-based, face-to-face/ delivered at a distance, etc.) and which brings with it a student experience and an informal curriculum, which are both changed and increasingly diverse. The paper then looks more specifically at the competing epistemologies which are struggling to shape the formal undergraduate curriculum of the 21st century: the deconstruction of the subject, as reflected in, for example, the modularisation of the curriculum; the cross-curricular 'key' skills movement; the learning through experience movement and the shift of the seat of learning outside the academy; the profoundly disruptive potential of web-based learning. It observes too, however, the continuing power of the subject as a form of academic and organisational identity and the way in which the current dynamics of the research assessment exercise, the Quality Assurance Agency subject review process and even the Higher Education Funding Council's strategy for teaching and learning are working to reinforce the subject as the unit of organisation in higher education. It is this that prompts the hint in the title that the future may contain elements of familiarity as well as radical change.     

The 'Gender Dimension' of both the 'Narrow' and 'Broad' Curriculum in UK Higher Education: Do women lose out in both?

This article draws on data from a qualitative research study undertaken in an old UK university. The main aim of the study was to measure the impact of gender issues on the university campus, an important part of which was the issue of the curriculum. Individuals were found to operate either a 'narrow' or 'broad' definition of the term 'curriculum'. In either case, there was found to be a 'gender dimension' involved. In male-dominated disciplines a 'narrow' definition of the term 'curriculum' was predominantly in use-appropriate discipline content and an unproblematic body of knowledge, which is to be transferred to students largely by lecturing. The difficulties to be overcome in order to undertake a gender-sensitive evaluation of the curriculum in these departments stemmed from the evaluations of the staff of what the problem was and where it was located. In disciplines that accepted a broader definition, which included the 'informal' curriculum, the gendered division of labour in the domestic sphere was repeated in the university, with the result that the division 'rational/emotional' became an aspect of the masculine/feminine divide. Men as well as women felt that men were less inclined to undertake the emotion work involved in supporting student learning. In this male-dominated society, 'emotion work' such as the pastoral support of students remained virtually invisible, and went largely unrewarded.