Curriculum, Pedagogy and e-Assessment

A curriculum is a master plan for selecting the instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of intended learning outcomes. According to Johnson (1967), a curriculum is a structural series of intended learning outcomes. Curriculum prescribes (or at least anticipates) the results of instruction. It does not prescribe the means... to be used in achieving the results.  The curriculum is the content or knowledge that the learners are expected to know through various instructions given by the facilitators using an array of activities and teaching techniques. It also includes different skills that will be acquired by the learners enabling them to apply their learning in their real-life situations. The different assessment measures are also included in the curriculum to assure the achievement of knowledge and to update the curriculum as required too. As the present, school curriculum effectively delineates the educational philosophies, goals, objectives, learning experiences, instructional resources and assessments, I believe it not only manufactures a learned individual or manpower for a nation but also aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring individuals who would help to derive solutions to the global problems.

“The curriculum in which children broadly explore knowledge in various subjects related to certain aspects of their environment.” (Humphrey. Et.al 1981.P.11) “...education that is organized in such a way that it cuts across subject-matter lines, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into the meaningful association to focus upon broad areas of study. It views learning and teaching in a holistic way and reflects the real world, which is interactive.” (Shoemaker, 1989, p.5) “Integration is making connections across disciplines, to real-life situations, and between knowledge, skills and attitudes.” (Drake & Burns, 2004) An integrated curriculum enables the learners to integrate ideas and experiences and apply them to formulate new learning situations. It provides students with ample opportunities for critical and creative thinking. It focuses on learning experiences to develop children’s attitudes, skills and knowledge and to help them make connections across the curriculum and beyond. It promotes the integration of knowledge, skills and attitudes in the teaching and learning process

 The STEAM curriculum integrates disciplines such as Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics in order to promote students’ creativity, innovation, engagement, problem-solving skills and other cognitive benefits. Designing a lesson plan using the STEAM curriculum during this first semester has been worthwhile as I got to relate all the learning experiences with my work, of which I was unaware before enrolling in the PGD STEAM Education program. Our interactive classes enhanced my knowledge about the proper use of curriculum, which I had been practicing in my classes at school, but learning to relate it through the lesson planning activity has made me more confident. I feel working in a school following the transdisciplinary approach has even given me more opportunities to apply STEAM since it’s more skill-based and has less-to-no disciplinary boundaries.

Pedagogy generally refers to the methods and practices of teaching. It includes all the strategies and ways that are used by the facilitator to help the learning of the students and also encourage effective instruction. STEAM Pedagogy is an approach that aims to prepare children with 21st century skills, who are thoughtful and empathetic. The STEAM curriculum is designed to make the learners investigators who can plan or design innovative ideas utilizing modern and ancient tools/technologies to express in beautiful and artistic ways with logical and rational thinking. It builds the learning attitude for the jobs of the future, including the ability to think smart and creatively, solve problems, persist and take risks, have strong digital skills and know how to collaborate effectively. Overall, the STEAM pedagogy justifies the need for the present curriculum as it promotes all affective, psychomotor and cognitive learning skills for the attainment of the intended learning outcomes, irrespective of any disciplinary approach or any facilitation method. It is an educational framework that brings reality into the classroom. It connects the different subjects/disciplines together in the way that they would relate to each other and help to emphasize integrated learning. It ensures meaningful engagement of the students and teachers in activities. It promotes more understanding, innovation and cohesive education in the classroom (All Education Schools.com, 2019). The term STEAM and its meaning itself has been a discovery for me. Learning that STEAM is not an integration of different subjects but an integration of different skills has been an eye-opener for me. Learning about the different instructional models like 5E and Design Thinking and being able to convert a different model that you’re using into them feels like an achievement to me.

Technology is all about using tools, techniques, and science to create more effective ways of doing things, such as visualizing experiments and concepts, assisting students with researching the topic, reporting and records-sharing, and designing lessons with better assessment methods. E-assessment, or electronic assessment, refers to the use of digital tools and technologies to evaluate students' learning outcomes and progress. In the context of STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), e-assessment can have a significant impact on student engagement. I feel the foundation was already laid in the first semester through the course of ICT; however, exploring and discovering more useful tools of assessment through the course of e-assessment has been an overall enriching experience. I can recall a guest speaker session by Sushil sir, our facilitator for this course in the first semester where we got an idea about blended learning, a progressive approach under ICT in Pedagogy. Blended learning as a combination of online and offline instructions enables students’ interaction with the teacher, their peers and the material, both in a physical classroom and online now. It has benefits like personalized learning, social interactions, support to disengaged students, greater time flexibility, active engagement through innovative learning activities, 21st-century skill enhancement like collaborative experience and critical thinking, promoting better students’ learning and knowledge construction enabling contextualization. It also makes the assessment process easier in all dimensions. Overall, it minimizes the operational cost too.  To reap the above-mentioned benefits, the blended learning strategies by (Kasey Bell, 2021) which go beyond the bell, beyond the grade level and subject area, beyond the walls, beyond the tools and beyond the due date are indeed very interesting.

We started this semester with the first module of this course by exploring the idea of the didactic tutoring style where the tutor explains the material and draws the student’s attention to the given information through questions versus the Socratic tutoring style where the students have the opportunity to share the information with relevant reasoning and knowledge is attained through interaction and conversation between two or more people with different opinions, which is more relevant in the present situation of teaching-learning. We also learnt about the ISTE standards for educators which benefit the educators in different roles as a learner, leaders, citizens, collaborators, designers, facilitators, and analysts. The 7 principles for e-learning and assessment are ubiquitous learning meaning the possibility of learning anywhere anytime; active knowledge-making to generate deeper understanding; multimodal learning with text, image, sound and data; recursive feedback in a formative manner from multiple sources; collaborative intelligence through interaction with a diverse group of people; metacognition through reflection of everything you do and differentiated learning according to the interest and needs of learners; all these have been made possible by the educational technologies. We explored the relationship between assignment and assessment and its increased efficiency with e-Assessment in terms of automation to generate results and feedback, its accuracy and convenience, and feasibility of its use in a variety of settings whereas it also poses challenges like technical issues, cheating, accessibility and security concerns. Researching and presenting the impacts and challenges of e-assessment in the fourth module was a different experience altogether. During the course of this module, we also learnt some use interactive tools like generating QR codes for desired websites and its application and creating impressive presentations through online platforms like https://slidesmania.com/  or https://www.slidescarnival.com/. Talking about the four stages of ICT Integration,  I feel I am at the infusing stage and definitely wish to reach the transforming stage. Also, the contribution of the SAMR Model and PAGER Model of PBL cannot be denied in the upliftment of e-learning.

The second module helped me understand the concept of assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment as learning. Along with that, it also provided a comprehensive understanding of the importance of a blended learning environment. It helped me understand that digital tools can be used for assignments and assessments which can have an impactful learning environment. During the course of this module, I learned to design badges and certificates with apps like Open Badge Designer and Home - Canva and how to distribute and manage them through Flippity.net and use of different Google tools. However, the use of Google tools was something most of us were already familiar with and which has become an integral part of our educational and personal lives. Overall, the key takeaway of this module for me would be Assessment for Learning, Assessment as Learning and Assessment of Learning and how all these types of assessment play a role in the development of both the learners and facilitator over a period of time and how they can be recorded as the evidence of the learners' learning and accumulation of knowledge with the help of technology.

In the third module, we explored more about digital pedagogy, the method and practice of teaching that takes into account how the purposeful use of digital tools can increase student engagement, empower student's voice and create more meaningful learning experiences. Use of more different tools/methods for Assessment as Learning like Edpuzzle, and Google Classroom for self-assessment; Two stars and a wish for peer assessment through shared Google Doc and reflective journal writing on Google Sites, Blogger, Wakelet for self-reflection brought back the flashback of the lockdown period where most of us learned it a hard way. Using Google Forms to provide video content to express critical reflection, Google Classroom Stream as Discussion Forum, assigning slides, video or audio presentations on different topics, open book exams, research work, use of Flip app to record video reflection and many similar online tools as a medium to conduct Assessment of Learning makes more sense to me working in a school which is not textbook based and requires us to provide lots of resources and digital activities. The use of these tools in our own class activities during this course makes it easier for me to use them at my workplace. I had never realized that Google Docs or slides could be shared through ready to make a copy or template preview links and a simple Google Doc could be turned into a HyperDoc to create learning content, share resource links and writing activities and even more resources added later in the same centralized document in the process in a blended mode.

The module about AI and AI-generated apps simply blew my mind. I feel it’s bliss and a threat at the same time. We discussed how AI works, its history, what it can do and what it cannot do. There are many applications or websites that use AI like Google Photos, Google Translate, https://gptzero.me/, https://bard.google.com/?authuser=1, https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/, https://translate.google.com/, https://labs.openai.com/, https://chat.openai.com/auth/login that can be used wisely in our teaching-learning activities. However, I have seen educational institutions restricting AI too during activities like creative writing. The competition called World Scholars’ Cup I had an opportunity to attend and judge restricted the participants from using smart devices during the collaborative writing round to retain their originality and creativity. 

Managing data and presenting in an animated form using  https://datagifmaker.withgoogle.com/, use of Google Forms to create survey forms and record the data collected in a spreadsheet, creating quiz-based assignments by inserting videos or reading texts followed by questions related to the same in different formats available in Google Form as part of microlearning lesson was equally useful.  Creating a book through https://app.bookcreator.com/  using different features like including a video, audio, website links and many more to provide the learners with learning resources was an interesting way to provide resources and I look forward to creating a lot for my students. The use of wakelet to record and share different resources in different formats has been one of the best tools I have come across, I tried my hand to record and share the photos and videos taken during my recent educational trip to share with the parents. 

Whenever any new inventions have been made, they have had their challenges and drawbacks too which have given rise to newer inventions. The same has been the case with technological advancements. Although we face some challenges like technical issues, cheating, time constraints, accessibility and security concerns, its use has become inevitable now with many more benefits too. Overall, e-assessment has the potential to enhance student engagement in STEAM education by offering interactive and engaging assessments, timely and constructive feedback, personalized learning experiences, collaborative assessment opportunities, gamification elements, access to resources and support and data-driven insights. By leveraging digital technologies, e-assessment promotes active participation, motivation, and a deeper understanding of STEAM concepts, ultimately enriching the learning experience for students.

References

Mauritz Johnson (1967)

Humphrey. Et.al (1981)

Shoemaker (1989)

 Drake & Burns (2004)

Kasey Bell (2021)

All Education Schools.com (2019)