Curriculum, Pedagogy and e-assessment

Curriculum is a plan for selecting content, managing learning experiences for students learning experiences. It helps to direct the teacher to meet the outcomes of the students. The purpose of curriculum is to achieve the specific goals and objectives in terms of theory and research. In curriculum, teacher as a planner like; annual plan, unit plan, daily lesson plan. And learner as follower/ co-planner.

The main objectives of curriculum;

●       Curriculum is seen as a means of achieving specific educational goals and objectives.

●       Curriculum is regarded as a checklist of desired outcomes.

●       The focus is on the products or ends.

●       Set by someone superior such as politician, experts and so on.

●       Lacks ownership in stakeholders.

●       Ignores students’ experience based on their day to day life.

●       Tests whether the prescribed objectives are obtained or not.

Curriculum as course of study or content

●       Curriculum is a process of selecting course of study or content to meet the goal.

●       Curriculum is a list of topics or the concepts to be mastered based on the objectives to be met.

●       Textbooks are integral part of teaching learning process (textbook-based instructional practices), as they are written to match the curriculum.

●       Focus on knowledge to be transmit or delivered.

●       Emphasis given in completion of course and rote memorization.

●       Teacher- authority

●       Learner- follower

Albert Oliver (1977): Curriculum is “the educational program of the school” and divided into four basic elements: 1) program of studies, 2) program of experiences, 3) program of service, 4) hidden curriculum.

According to Albert Oliver, there are four basic elements of curriculum, that helps in the educational sector.

Hilda Taba (1962): “All curricula, no matter what their particular design, are composed of certain elements. A curriculum usually contains a statement of aims and of specific objectives; it indicates some selection and organization of content; it either implies or manifests certain patterns of learning and teaching, whether because the objectives demand them or because the content organization requires them. Finally, it includes a program of evaluation of the outcomes.”

Caswell and Campbell (1935): “Curriculum is composed of all of the experiences children have under the guidance of the teacher.”

Curriculum is a written outline of a course program. It is often published by ministries or department of education, local authorities of boards of education.

Pedagogy is the combination of different aspects like; teaching methods, learning activities with learning assessments. We came to knew about conventional pedagogy and STEAM Pedagogy. As we knew that STEAM is an integrated educational approach of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math, through which instructors/facilitators can teach the learners/ students by integrating all subjects or can give instruction in a combined  approach.

Here, Conventional Pedagogy, it focus on subjects and it is teacher centered. It doesn’t focus on the soft skills of the learners. It is more theoretical and book- based rather than experimental. It is more focused on closed ended questions and also it is marks oriented too which has behavioral approach in which there are less activities and may be the punishments are also required too. Teacher are known as knowledge holder those who have all the answers and the students are as recipient, whose responsibility is just to gain or receive the knowledge, ideas that are delivered from the teachers. 

But, in STEAM Pedagogy, it is an integrated educational approach which includes; Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. It is child/ student Centered. It focus the holistic development of the students or learners. Through this pedagogy, it tries to brings the real world into the classroom, from which it would help to develop the skills of each students by fostering their skills, knowledge, ideas. So that they would face the real world problem in their future. So STEAM Pedagogy is learner- centric which helps to be more collaborative in their learning phase. It is cognitive- constructivist approach which focus on student’s interest so that they can develop their skills through collaboration and cooperation with learners and facilitators.

 

It includes the innovative pedagogies such as; Science= Inquiry- based, Technology= Project- based, Engineering= enhanced technology, Arts= Art- based (like; dancing, storytelling, sculpturing, singing). Through which it enhanced the different skills like; collaboration, creativity, communication, critical thinking and also creativity of the learner by increasing their curiosity in any topics or subjects.

In our first semester, we had Pedagogy and there I learned about the eco- pedagogy and culturally responsive pedagogy. In eco- pedagogy, it combines ecology and pedagogy in the education. It is based on an ecological perspective, which was drawn from the ecological science. The main aim of this pedagogy is to build a society of planetary civilization. It helps to critique the oppression with environmental challenges around the society.

Similarly, on Culturally responsive pedagogy I learned to meet the challenges that teacher must employ not only theoretically sound but also culturally responsive pedagogy. We all know that our country is full of multi- language, multi- culture and multi- linguistic background. So we need to address diversity for the better performance of students or learners in their skills. The aim of this pedagogy is to aim the support achievement of students, which helps them to introduce their own culture around the world. Its main focus is on learner’s or students so it is student- centered approach, through which student can identifies their cultural values, assets in the society. And how it bounds the relationship among the society too. We want our students to be exited and motivate to learn and engaged in their work.

There are three dimension that are used to categorize the culturally responsive pedagogy. They are:

1.      Institutional dimensions

2.      Personal dimensions

3.      Instructional dimensions

It helps to develop dynamic teaching practices and multicultural content, with multiple means of assessment by involving the supports and input of parents and community members.

 

On the second semester, I have learned many more new ideas, concept about the e- assessment from this course Designing e- assessment in education. E- assessment refers to the use of technology to assess knowledge and skills in an educational sector. We all know that it is very important in today’s generation, as it can offer more advantages over our traditional assessment methods in which it can allows instant feedback to the learners. I gained knowledge about the different tools such as; slidemania.com ( https://slidesmania.com), www.sllidescarnival.com (https://www.slidescarnival.com/), Google Form and Quiz (https://docs.google.com/forms/), canva.com (https://www.canva.com/) etc. Through canva we can create many templates, edit images, and even able to design a certificates too. Another main thing is that I learned about how to create or design badge through https://badge.design. These apps helps me to design badges and certificates from which it helps in my teaching profession too. For example; as I am working as pre- primary teacher while conducting weekly games in our school, from onwards I can designs badges, certificates to the participants as I wish. Next I learned about the Badge Tracker using Flippity: https://flippity.net/. Next another important thing that we got chance to learn about “Certificate using Issuing  Autocrat Google Sheet extension”, this is one of the confusing tools that most of we had faced but I did it by following the class recording. So this helps me to complete the assignment also. We can design different activities from in classroom so that the students can able to engage and able to work in a collaborative and cooperative way.

 

Conclusion

Throughout the whole semester, I explored and got new experienced relating to tools, apps, techniques from which it helps in my profession. So this course is very much fruitful and insightful for me. Though I am not that much forward on ICT but also due to the support and encouragement of our respected facilitator Mr. Sushil Upreti sir, I am able to learn and use more techniques on it. During Pandemic time then only I was little bit familiar with Zoom meeting and Google meet, before that I was unknown about it. So from there also I got some ideas. We all know that its 21^st century, so it is the time of  tools, techniques and innovations, because of it as being an educator its our responsibilities to introduce and motivate our students on the same way. For that first thing is that, we our-self should be aware and must be updated according to time change and demand. Then only we will be able to move on or carry our profession as being a teacher. The time is passing through stone age to technologies, so it is necessary to update our ideas, knowledge according to the time than only we can enhance to foster our student’s ideas, knowledge, creative thinking and critical thinking.

 But there are some disadvantages of e-assessment like; there may be problem on the places where there is not accessible of internet, tools, device, electricity. So in this type of condition it will have problem to implement.

 

References:

 

Jordan, S. (2013). E-assessment: Past, present and future. New Directions in the Teaching of Natural Sciences, (9), 87-106.