NOTETAKING GUIDES: CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
Key Point
- The most appropriate and valued curriculum will go for naught if it is left on the shelves after it is developed.
- Many individuals responsible for curriculum do not possess a macro view of the process or realize that innovations need careful planning and monitoring.
Implementation
- Implementation attempts to alter individuals' knowledge, actions, and attitudes.
- It is an interaction process between those who have created the program and those who are charged to deliver it.
Implementation Failure
- Sarason believes many times "those in charge of the [implementation] efforts had little or a distorted understanding of the culture of the [organization]."
Key To Curriculum Implementation
- Theory of organizational change.
- Theory of knowledge and how ideas fit into a real-world context.
Fullan and Pomfret
- Effective implementation of . . . innovations requires time, personal interaction and contacts, in-service training, and other forms of people-based support. Research has shown time and again that there is no substitute for the primacy of personal contact among implementers, and between implementers and planners/ consultants, if the difficult process of unlearning old roles and learning new ones is to occur (p. 293).
Implementation Planning
- People
- Programs
- Processes, organizational
Changing Adults' Behavior
- Fostering multiple perspectives
- Allowing time for integration of ideas
- Creating a supportive environment where learning becomes autonomous
Curriculum Implementation
- Open discussions on the new program should be scheduled throughout the planning and implementation process.
- Opportunities for implementors to work together, share ideas, jointly solve problems, and cooperatively create materials greatly enhance the probability of successful curriculum implementation.
- The purpose of curriculum development, regardless of the level, is to make a difference - to enable learners to attain the institution's, the society's, and, perhaps most importantly, their own aims and goals.
- Curriculum activity is change activity.
Change Theory
- Leadership
- Communication
- Release of human potential
- Problem solving
- Evaluation
(Lovel and Wiles, 1983)
Obstacles to Change
- Lack of ownership
- Lack of benefits
- Increasing burdens
- Lack of administrative support
- Loneliness
- Insecurity
- Norm incongruence
- Boredom
- Chaos
- Differential knowledge
- Sudden wholesale change
- Unique points of resistance
Increase Receptivity
- Curriculum activity must be cooperative
- Some people like to change; some people do not like to change
- Innovations are subject to change
- Proper timing is a key to increasing people's receptivity to an innovation
Implementing Curriculum Change
- Instructional Design, Kemp
Instructional Design
- Topics and General Purposes
- Student Characteristics
- Learning Objectives
- Evaluation
- Subject Content
- Pre-Test
- Teaching/Learning Activities and Resources
- Support Services
Implementing Curriculum
