Abstract
With current understanding about the teacher’s critical role in the learning process (Barber M, Mourshed M, How the World’s best-performing school systems come out on top. McKinsey & Co, Dubai, 2007; Hattie J, Visible learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge, London, 2009; Mourshed M, et al., How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better. Retrieved from http://ssomckinsey.darbyfilms.com/reports/schools/How-the-Worlds-Most-Improved-School-Systems-Keep-Getting-Better_Download-version_Final.pdf, 2010), educators are now increasingly looking to involve teachers in ensuring greater customisation of learning. Educational systems are exploring more bottom-up approaches to curriculum development, as they seek to ensure that schools are equipping learners for the post-modern economy whilst at the same time deal with persistent achievement gaps and manage greater stakeholder involvement in education (Braslavsky C, The new century’s change: new challenges and curriculum responses. In: Proceedings of COBSE-International Conference, New Delhi, 2002; Darling-Hammond L, Friedlaender D, Educ Leadersh 65(8):14–21, 2008; Garner R, The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html?cmipid=fb, 2015; Kalantzis M, Cope B, Comput Compos 23(4):402–411, 2006). School-based efforts have become test-beds to change instructional practices that have traditionally relied on centrally controlled, linear models of curriculum development (Brady L, Curric Teach 10(1):47–54, 1995; Gopinathan S, Deng Z, Plan Chang 37(3):93–110, 2006; Law E, Nieveen N, Schools as curriculum agencies: Asian and European perspectives on school-based curriculum development. Sense Publishers, Dordrecht, 2010). Teachers’ role in curriculum has become important in leading the bottom-up approach to curriculum, and factors such as teachers’ curricular expertise in selecting and conveying content suited to the learner in particular contexts (Ennis CD, Quest 46(2):164–175. doi:10.1080/00336297.1994.10484118, 1994), professional learning opportunities (Cochran-Smith M, Lytle SL, Rev Res Educ 24:249–305. doi:10.2307/1167272, 1999; Timperley A, et al., Teacher professional learning and development: best evidence synthesis iteration. Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2007) and teacher agency (Campbell E, Curric Inq 42(2):183–190, 2012; Fenwick TJ, Edwards R, Actor-network theory in education. Routledge, Abingdon, 2010; Priestley M, J Educ Chang 12(1):1–23. doi:10.1007/s10833-010-9140-z, 2011; Priestley M et al, Curric Inq 42(2):191–214. doi:10.1111/j.1467-873X.2012.00588.x, 2012) have become significant considerations in school-based curriculum development efforts. Specifically, given that such change depends on the active, reflexive engagement of teachers in their curricular contexts for action, teacher agency has become a critical determinant for the ongoing development and refinement of curriculum.
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Notes
- 1.
Both curriculum development and innovation are used interchangeably in this chapter. Furthermore, the term curriculum development is used in its widest sense and refers to the appropriate selection and use of content as well as instructional strategies to achieve disciplinary learning and meet learners’ needs in specific contexts.
- 2.
Curriculum orientations reflect decisions made about what knowledge is of most worthy in public education and are derived from the original five orientations set out by Eisner and Vallance (1974). Briefly, the four approaches are as follows: (1) academic rationalism approach promotes the ideas and structures within each discipline; (2) experiential approach promotes the development of a student’s ability to think; (3) the technological approach aligns curriculum with how to assess and provide appropriate prescription of instruction and activities to students; (4) the pragmatic orientation focuses on developing students to solve social problems and participate in society.
- 3.
- 4.
It might be useful for teachers to become used to distinctions between two kinds of curricula - one which is prescribed and fixed, and a fluid one, where they have space for deliberation and experimentation of key ideas. This idea is taken up again later in this chapter.
- 5.
Recent theories have made efforts at finding a “middle ground” and to blur the dichotomy between structure and agency as can be seen in arguments made by Archer (2003), Bourdieu (1984) and Giddens (1984) as well as the arguments made about the holistic and individualistic strategies used to explain agency (Hollis, 1994; Levine, 2005).
- 6.
Deleuze and Guattari published together, and so in this chapter the reference to Deleuze is used to refer to their collective work.
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Ponnusamy, L.D. (2017). Concept-Based Curriculum and the Teacher: Galvanising Teacher Agency. In: Tan, L., Ponnusamy, L., Quek, C. (eds) Curriculum for High Ability Learners. Education Innovation Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2697-3_3
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