Search results

Aims to develop an organizational model for understanding and managing effective curriculum change in school. Assumes that curriculum change and teacher competence development occur in a three‐level context of school organization: the individual level, the group/ programme level, and the whole school level. There exists mutual development and reinforcement between curriculum and teacher competence and also a hierarchy of influence across three levels. Congruence between curriculum change and teacher development and across levels is important for effectiveness of teaching and learning. Congruence represents conceptual consistency and operational consistency, reflecting the strength of school culture. Provides a comprehensive conceptual framework to plan and manage curriculum change and teacher competence development.

With significant change as an ongoing challenge, the development and use of a flexible change curriculum is identified as a success factor that will allow an organization to optimize the outcome from change transformations.

After discussing significant change, this paper will contrast two organizations in support of a flexible curriculum taking into account multiple theories addressing change, learning, planning, utilization of a curriculum, and assessment, all to enhance the change transformation experience.

The research, investigation, introduction, implementation and refinement of the action plan play a very important role in how the enterprise accommodates change. It is further suggested that at the heart of any action plan is a flexible curriculum by which the organization can use a formulated educational plan to adjust its current mode of operation to incorporate an ongoing change philosophy.

The intent is to identify benefits in using a curriculum to aid significant change transformations where logic and reality can justify its use.

It is postulated that a well‐developed yet flexible curriculum with assessment to track the impact of changes throughout the process will serve to enhance the flexibility of the enterprise and its ability to deal with change. The curriculum serves as the means that provides the organizational membership with identified learning and instruction to mix corporate culture with change urgency.

Taking into account change and learning theories, an action plan in the form of a flexible curriculum with assessment is recommended to optimize significant change transformations.

The purpose of this paper is to find out how organizational and contextual factors affect a curriculum change in a University in Singapore. There is a need to research the processes of educational change in Singapore as rapid changes can result in complex problems. The university is chosen as it is at the forefront of the government's strategy for economic planning. It is also hoped that through this case study investigation of curriculum educational change of this University's Engineering School, the importance of considering people's situations and their roles in the educational change can be highlighted. Previously, students undertook one year of common engineering curriculum when they enrolled in a Bachelor of Engineering program in this University. This has, however, been expanded to a two‐year common engineering program. This study examines the academic staff's collaboration and communication in implementing the curriculum change. This study investigates the organizational factors that influence the academics' communication in a curriculum change.

The research method used is documentary analysis of curriculum, planning and policy documents as well as annual reports.

The interviewees concurred on the points that there should be more consideration of their views on the curricular issues in the University, and that top‐down decisions should be incorporated with bottom‐up input. This study discovers that more attention should be paid to students' learning, particularly in developing skills that will help them adapt to a knowledge‐based economy and rapid economic developments. In general, the academics desired a greater and deeper involvement in decisions on curriculum changes so that they could contribute their professional and pedagogical viewpoints.

This study show the importance of examining the factors that influence academics to change and the stages they go through. It also shows the need to involve academics at every stage of a curriculum change.

The aim of this paper is to present the challenges external drivers and internal inertia faced by curriculum designers and implementers at institutions of higher education. The challenges to academics from competing factors are presented: internal resistance to changing existing curricula vs the necessity to continuously evolve programmes to reflect a dynamic, uncertain future. The necessity to prepare future leaders to face global issues such as climate change, dictates changing curricula to reflect changing personal, environmental and societal needs.

This paper uses the case study method to examine two models of climate change curriculum design and renewal. One model, from an Australian university, is based upon national education standards and the second is a non-standards-based curriculum design, developed and delivered by a partnership of four North American universities.

The key findings from this study are that the highest level of participation by internal-to-the-programme academics and administrators is required. Programme quality, delivery and content alignment may be compromised with either stand-alone course delivery and learning outcomes, or if courses are developed independently of others in the programme. National educational standards can be effective tools to guide course and programme management, monitoring, review and updating.

The paper includes implications for postgraduate level curricula design, implementation and programme evaluation.

The paper is the first to compare, contrast and critique a national standards-based, higher education curriculum and a non-standards-based curriculum.

To cope with the challenges of the twenty‐first century, the Hong Kong SAR government initiated the Curriculum Reform in 2001. In 2006, a research team from a tertiary institution was commissioned to review the progress of change for smooth implementation of the reform in its next phase. This paper aims to examine this issue.

The nature of the review is basically a survey, applying questionnaires and follow‐up focus‐group interviews to collect data from different groups of subjects. The sample was around 20 per cent of the population, i.e. a total of 252 primary (n=138) and secondary (n=114) schools.

The paper reports findings on the support for the Reform by primary and secondary schools. Five areas of agreement among school heads are examined, which include challenges to be met, guiding principles of the reform, learning goals, reform framework and the overall agreement with the rationale of the reform. It is found that, while the curriculum reform was supported among school heads, senior teachers and teachers, there was a gap between the views of senior management team and frontier teachers.

This is a very comprehensive research project with a limited timeframe. The paper can only report and discuss findings mainly on the support for curriculum reform by school heads. Other aspects of the study will be discussed and reported separately in subsequent papers.

The gap between the views of senior management team and frontier teachers is worth probing as this is the most obstructive factor to the implementation of the reform. Identifying the cause would be the first step in formulating strategies to address and, hopefully, to facilitate the smooth transition from the phase of implementation to the continuation phase of the change process.

The study has suggested the development of a two‐dimensional framework of agreement areas and stakeholders which will contribute to a better understanding of the change process in general, and achievements of a curriculum reform in particular. Other issues are also discussed.

A survey was mailed to the deans of AACSB accredited schools and 50 per cent of the non‐accredited AACSB affiliates, to determine their perceptions of how the changes in accreditation criteria might affect their curricula and what methods might be used to make these changes. The sample was classified according to the Porter‐McKibbin categories and significant differences were found among these categories for perceived ease of accreditation; changes in programme quality; resource allocation changes; use of mission statements in decision making; curriculum component emphasis, and curriculum evaluation methods. While the overall amount of change expected in the next five years seems modest, the nature of the changes expected could have significant effects on the curricula of US business schools.

With the accelerated impact of external forces on business school academic programmes, a key question that faculty and administrators must address is whether to continue to pursue incremental curriculum extensions (the traditional approach) or to undertake large‐scale reform and innovation efforts. A case is made that bold thrusts at large‐scale change are more likely to enhance educational relevance, invigorate faculty, and draw the B‐school closer to its primary customer‐the corporate community. Offers a propositional framework, built on seven principles of change applied directly to the process of curriculum change. Each proposition is supported with one or two mini cases drawn from experience within a large, publicly‐assisted university. By building on a series of bold, curriculum thrusts that include constituencies as active partners, a school will transform its character and strengthen quality.

Reports the results of a qualitative, cross‐sectional study involving a survey of 549 teachers′ perceptions of the Unit Curriculum system in 22 metropolitan state senior high schools in Perth, Western Australia, in the context of system‐wide change, within a centralized educational system. Surveyed perceptions of six general variables applied to the specific case of the Unit Curriculum system. These variables are: perceived cost benefit to the teacher; perceived practicality in the classroom; alleviation of fears and concerns; participation in school decisions on aspects affecting the classrooms; perceived support from senior staff; and feelings towards the previous system compared to the new system. Suggests these variables offer pointers to educational administrators on how best to tailor system‐wide changes so that teachers will be more receptive to the changes in the implementation stage.

This paper seeks to discuss the rationale of the newly reformed health education curriculum in Cyprus, which aspires to enable not only teachers, but also all the school personnel, to work from the perspective of health promotion. It is a curriculum which moves from the traditional approach of health education focusing on individual lifestyle/behaviour modification into approaches that recognise and tackle the determinants of health.

The paper critically discusses the structure and the content of the learning objectives of this curriculum that encourages teachers to work in a health promoting way.

The central goal of this curriculum is to enable students and schools to act as health agents, addressing the structural determinants of health and promoting environmental changes. The optimum level for all topics of the curriculum is achieved through learning objectives, which concern three interconnected levels. These are: “investigating determinants of health”, “practising action competency skills for health” and “achieving changes in favour of health”. All levels are means as well as end products in terms of the curriculum objectives.

The outcome of the development of the health education curriculum acts as a guide for school interventions, through a methodological framework, which encourages participants to identify and promote environmental changes that facilitate healthy choices. This is of significance to those working in the field of health promotion and who seek to establish a new language of health promotion that goes beyond the pervasive discourse of individual lifestyles.

The implementation of the particular health education curriculum will promote not only health in the school community but also in the local community. This is because a key principle which underlies the curriculum is the involvement of the students, school staff, family and community in everyday health promotion practice. It also promotes the development of partnerships among them.

This is an innovative curriculum for Cyprus, based on health promotion and health education principles, but at the same time taking in account the local socio‐cultural and political perspective. This curriculum may be applicable to other European countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the progress of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong in the implementation phase from 2001‐2006, with the agreement and support of heads and teachers on the reform.

Survey questionnaires and focus group interviews were used to collect data from various stakeholders. A stratified random sampling method was employed to select 150 primary schools and 120 secondary schools to participate in the study.

It is found that with the agreement and support of school heads and teachers, there is good progress in the reform items on teaching and learning. Findings of this paper also suggest that teachers who agreed with the reform items made changes with their practices in terms of learning and teaching strategies, catering to learner diversity, assessment for learning, developing students' language proficiency, cross‐curricula learning, playing multiple teachers' roles and preparation for the new senior secondary curriculum. This study thus supports most findings from the change literature with its empirical data that educational changes and innovations with the agreement and support of school heads and teachers tend to have a greater chance of succeeding.

The paper contributes by examining to what extent findings and views established in change literature elsewhere can be justified and enriched with the case of Hong Kong.