Essay Sample on Strengthening Curricular Programs

Principles or leaders are important as they guide the schools in different directions. When principals are providing instructional design for the school, they have to make sure that it aligns with the mission as well as the values of the school. Therefore, when all the activities of a school are aligned towards the vision as well as the mission, there is a high possibility that the goals and objectives will be met.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

One of the functions of the curriculum is to develop individuals. The curriculum helps in teaching individuals various aspects and helps them to gain insight into what is important. In this case, people will be able to understand themselves better. The second function of the curriculum is to produce responsible citizens. The curriculum helps the citizens to understand what is good and bad and be able to differentiate. Therefore, citizens will be able to choose what is good (Handelzalts & Nieveen, 2019). Another function of curriculum development and design is to develop basic skills. There are various basic skills which are essential, and everybody should have them. However, these skills cannot be attained unless it is through using a curriculum. Lastly, curriculum development and design help in preservation as well as the transmission of cultural heritage. Through the curriculum, learners can gain information on various aspects. As the learners learn these aspects, they will be able to preserve as well as transmit certain forms of cultural heritage.

A school Continuous Improvement Program (CIP) is an ongoing effort by the school to improve the curriculum as well as the learning process. The CIP may have a certain effect on curricular decisions in the sense that it may result in the addition of new elements into the curriculum (Yang & Tian, 2017). On the other hand, the CIP may affect curricular decisions by resulting in the elimination of certain components of the curriculum that were not important.

The development of the curriculum requires the input of different stakeholders. Teachers are the first example of the stakeholders who are involved in the development of the curriculum as they provide information on what learners have to learn in various stages. Secondly, the school boards can be involved in the development of the school curriculum in the sense that they understand the needs of their various schools and whether a certain type of curriculum will be vital to the learners. Thirdly, district administrators should be involved in the development of a new curriculum because they are responsible for overseeing all the educational activities. Therefore, they have to be involved in the development of the new curriculum so that they can understand various concepts. The collaborations that will have to be done in this case is that teachers, as well as the school boards, will have to interact so that the teachers can help the school board understand better what they have to focus on in the development of the new curriculum.

Curricular decisions are always made regarding the intervention strategies aimed at promoting the success of all the students. Therefore, a lot of decisions will be made towards the direction whereby the new curriculum will ensure that all the components that will lead to the success of the students are incorporated.

The selection of textbooks to be used in a district or school has to follow certain steps. In this case, the first step of the selection of textbooks is the identification of the needs. After the needs have been identified, the next step is to look for vendors with favorable prices. The next step that follows is to select the textbooks that suit the need of the students (Shaffer, Cao & Cobb, 2019). This process should be regulated yearly for evaluation to ensure that the right textbooks are selected to meet the needs of the students. The best method that can be used to evaluate the process of selecting textbooks is to identify whether the needs of the students have been met through their performance. If the students are performing well, that is an indication that the process is effective.

If I were to change how curricular decisions are to be made, the main approach that I would do is to involve the students. Involving the student will help to understand their needs better. Therefore, when the new curriculum is introduced, all aspects that will be incorporated will help them in dealing with their areas of weakness.

Part Two

Curriculum Implementation Philosophy

The implementation of the curriculum has to be guided by certain philosophies so that it can be effective. In most cases, these philosophies guide the leaders on how they will implement various elements related to the curriculum. In this case, certain philosophies can be observed when implementing the curriculum at a future school.

The case of the future school represents a grade range from grades one to eight. The curriculum that will be incorporated in this school will meet the needs of the students from different cultural groups. Moreover, the curriculum will embrace cultural inclusiveness so that students from other cultural groups, especially those from the minority groups, will feel accepted and that they can be able to pursue their education effectively.

The second element of the philosophy that will be incorporated into the curriculum for the future school is differentiating for learners' needs. In every learning institution, learners always have different needs that should be met for them to be able to learn well. In this scenario, I will ensure that the needs of various learners have been differentiated. Therefore, the curriculum will develop a plan on how each of these individuals will be able to learn (Alsubaie, 2016). In the end, individuals with different needs will be attended to differently so that they can gain knowledge on various issues. For instance, there are students who are slow learners. The curriculum will be able to come up with a program to identify slow learners. After that, these learners will be treated in a special manner so that they can be able to keep up with other students.

The third philosophy that will be used in the curriculum for the future school is the tiered intervention. In this case, the tired intervention involved dividing the students into different tiers. Dividing the students into different tiers is important in the sense that it will help them to learn according to various groups (Alsubaie, 2016). Therefore, the main tiers that this curriculum will be divided into include the whole class, intensive interventions, as well as the small group intervention. Through these groups, it will be easy to deal with the students who have different needs.

The next philosophy that will be used in the development of the curriculum for the new schools is the incorporation of technology to enhance instruction. Recently, technology has grown, and it has been adopted in various areas, with education being one of them. As a result, I will ensure that the curriculum for the new schools focuses on employs technology so that it can be easy to teach. Also, technology can help learners to understand certain concepts, especially through simulation (Johar, Suhadi & Idris, 2017). Moreover, technology will enhance communication between the learners, teachers, as well as other education stakeholders, and this ensures that their needs are met effectively.

Lastly, every school has a vision as well as the mission statement that is used to propel it in the right direction to achieve its goals and objectives (Burgh, 2018). In this case, the curriculum that will be developed for the new school will be in line with the school mission as well as the vision. This approach will ensure that the curriculum will be vital in making sure the objectives of the school are attained.

References

Handelzalts, A., Nieveen, N., & Van den Akker, J. (2019). Teacher Design Teams for School-Wide Curriculum Development: Reflections on an Early Study. In CollaborativeCurriculum Design for Sustainable Innovation and Teacher Learning (pp. 55-82).Springer, Cham.http://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/22872/1007289.pdf?sequence=1#page=65

Shaffer, B., Cao, H., Cobb, K., Dickson, M. A., & Jelenewicz, S. (2019, December). Textile andApparel Curriculum Development for Sustainability Education. In the InternationalTextile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings (Vol. 76, No. 1). IowaState University Digital Press. https://www.iastatedigitalpress.com/itaa/article/id/8375/

Alsubaie, M. A. (2016). Curriculum Development: Teacher Involvement in CurriculumDevelopment. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(9), 106-107.https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1095725

Johar, S. H., Suhadi, N., & Idris, M. S. (2017). The importance of curriculum in education atsecondary school. Educational Technology, 47781-47783.http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/id/eprint/9191

Burgh, G. (2018). The need for philosophy in promoting democracy: A case for philosophy inthe curriculum. https://philarchive.org/rec/BURTNF

Yang, Y., & Tian, D. (2017, December). The research of multimedia curriculum design andcurriculum development in modern distance education. In the 2017 3rd IEEEInternational Conference on Computer and Communications (ICCC) (pp. 1545-1548).IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8322799/