12.

Curriculum Innovations in the USA

Francis W. Parker School (A child-centered progressive) (1873-1902) The Dewey Laboratory School (1896-1902) The activity or Experience Curriculum (1930s) The Montessori School (1950s) Structure of the Disciplines Approach (1950s and 1960s) Compensatory Education (1960s and 1970s)

Francis W. Parker Schools

An educational reformer who was credited by Dewey as the father of progressive education. Parker (1873-1902) was a child-centered progressive: He sought to move the child to the center of the educative process and to make the curriculum convey greater meaning to the child. Parker abolished the formalities of the traditional classroom that insisted the child remain perfectly still and quiet and substituted instead observation laboratory work, and the use of ideas in practice. The emphasis was on observing, describing, and gaining a grasp of things before being introduced to more conventional studies.(He stressed activity, creative self-expression and scientific study).

The Dewey Laboratory School (1896-1902)

The school was an experiment in cooperative living whereby both individual interest and social life could be satisfied. Dewey sought to reconcile a host of dualism in the larger culture: interest and effort, individualism and collectivism, work and play, labor and leisure, school and society, the child and the curriculum. The school was experimental and children were allowed to explore, create, and make mistakes in testing ideas.

sambungan
The organizational focus for the Laboratory School was social occupations. Studying occupations, it was thought, would not only promote the social purposes of the school but would greatly enliven the schools activities and make the learning of routine skills more interesting. It would also promote the balance between intellectual and practical activities. Since, for Dewey, education was not a preparation of life but was life itself, children were to learn directly about life by the school producing in miniature the conditions of social life.

sambungan
And since many of the children would later become manual workers, they needed an understanding of industrial processes. School subjects in the conventional sense were dispensed with, and even the three Rs grew out of the childs activities. The social occupations represented human concerns about food, clothing, shelter, household furnishings, and the production, consumption, and exchange of goods. Four and five-year-olds learned about preparing lunch before going home at mid-day; by the age of seven, the emphasis had changed from occupations in the home and neighborhood to an historical approach that traced the emergence of occupations beginning with earliest culture; finally, by the age of thirteen, the emphasis shifted to

Experience Curriculum (1930s)

This curriculum emerged in elementary schools during the progressive movement in the 1930s. It was based on the assumption that children learn best by experiencing things, rather than by the presentation of subject matter to them. Furthermore, units of study were constructed from a knowledge of their needs and interest. It was also based on the conviction that learning is an active affair, and involvement in activities will overcome the childs passivity and lack of motivation found in traditional school.

sambungan
The program usually called for some pupil-teacher planning in which teachers ask children about their needs. Teachers and pupils worked together by using the problem-solving approach in planning, focusing on childrens interests for organizational purposes. This program was aimed at overcoming the interest and motivation problem in the subject curriculum, perhaps meeting some additional needs, and keeping students actively involved.

The Montessori School (1950s)

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) believed that the child needs to escape from the domination of parents and teachers. Children in modern society are victims of adult suppression that compels them to adopt coping measures foreign to their real nature. Teachers must change their attitudes toward children and organize an environment in which children can lead lives on their own.

continue
In Montessori schools children are placed in a stimulating environment where there are things for them to do and things to study. This environment should be free of rivalry, rewards and punishments; instead learning is to be through interesting activities. Teachers become directors who see that activities proceed according to a master plan; in fact, Montessori believed that one teacher could handle as many as forty-five children if necessary, but a class of thirty is more desirable.

continue
Special materials are used by children in carefully organized environment. Through regular, graded use of didactic material, children gain skills of manipulation and judgment, and the special senses are separately trained by use of apparatus: Cubes of various sizes are used to build a tower so that children can learn about volume; several kinds of wooden insets exhibit breadth, depth, and volume; sticks of graduated length and cylinders of different sizes are to be placed in the correct blocks.

continue
Children learn to develop neuromuscular mechanisms for writing by pouring rice and picking up beans; they learn their letters through a combination of senses: visual, tactile and auditory. And they learn to associate the sound of the world with an object. In Geography, children are given a globe, tangible objects, and pictures of people from different cultures. Geography activities lead to the study of History, while learning ones language leads to the study of both subjects. Science, mathematics, and foreign languages are outgrowths of learning ones native language.

Structure of The Discipline Approach

This approach originated with scholars in the 1950s and 1960s as to the response to their findings of obsolete content and instructional practices in the subject curriculum. While retaining subjects as a framework for organization, the scholars revised and updated content, introduced discovery learning, and de-emphasized rote learning in favor of teaching students how to grasp the structure of the discipline. This meant that fundamental axioms, concepts, and other building blocks of a discipline became the focus of learning so that students could comprehend the underlying structure, attempt to generate fruitful hypotheses, and perceive how

continue
This approach has certain advantages over traditional subject curriculum: revision and updating the curriculum content are undertaken more frequently; the emphasis is on understanding a disciplines structure rather than learning facts for their own sake; stress is placed on critical thinking and intuitive judgment (in discovery learning); concepts are mastered earlier; and as a consequence of these features, there is a greater likelihood of effective transfer of training and learning.

Compensatory Education (1970s)

These are programs that seek to overcome the educational disadvantages of children that arise from personal history, social background, or economic conditions. Among the many approaches used in compensatory education are health programs, reading readiness and remediation programs, emphasis on developing a positive self-concept, expanded guidance services, and curriculum enrichment. Compensatory education programs were funded under Title 1 funds to supplement and improve the education of poor and minority-group children. Ex. Program such as Head Start for early childhood education programs in lowincome schools in metropolitan areas.

Model School Project

During the 1960s and 1970s, J. Lloyd Trump, former associate secretary for research and development for the National Association of Secondary Schools Principals (NASSP), redesigned secondary schools in the US and Canada. Thousands of schools in the US and Canada implemented its basic elements: team teaching,, use of teacher assistants, large-group instruction, smallgroup instruction, independent study, flexible scheduling, and attention to the individual differences of students and teachers.

continue
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Trump served as project director of the NASSP Model School Project (MSP), a national effort in some 36 American and Canadian schools to bring comprehensive, research-based change to middlelevel and high school education. Trump postulated that truly significant change can take place in the school environment only when it occurs simultaneously in six broad areas: the role of the teacher, the role of the student, curriculum, facilities, and evaluation.

continue
Trump proposed five basic principles for constructive change in the operation of secondary schools: The school principal must devote a majority of his or her time to the improvement of instruction The instructional staff must be recognized using instructional aides to give teachers more freedom for instructional planning Students need more time for independent study The curriculum must offer continuous contact with essential materials in the basic areas of human knowledge The things of education buildings, equipment, supplies, and money must be better utilize

Goals and Curricular Connections (1980s)

Under the sponsorship of the Carnegie Foundation, Ernest L. Boyer made a study on the American High School in which 15 varied school from all sections of the country were investigated. He found the the high schools lack a clear and vital mission. They are unable to find common purpose or established educational priorities that are widely shared. Consequently, he proposed that the mission of general education is to help students understand that they are not only autonomous individuals, but also members of a human community to which they are accountable. In other word, the aim is to restore the balance.

continue
By focusing on those experiences that knit isolated individuals into a community, general education can have a central purpose of its own. Which human experiences should be the focus of a common curriculum for the schools?. Boyer suggested six themes that may provide an appropriate structure for the nations schools. Shared use of symbols Shared membership in groups and institutions Shared producing and consuming Shared relationship with nature Shared sense of time Shared values and beliefs

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

The Learning Environments Consortium (LEC) International (1990s)

The Learning Environment Consortium (LEC) International is an independent, nonprofit organization that assists interested school in redesigning themselves and in developing personalized instructional programs. It was dedicated to providing more responsive schooling for children and young people. LECs mission includes 1) a diagnostic/prescriptive model of education; 2) a leadership-team approach to school administration, with the principal serving as principal teacher and instructional leader; 3). A personalized strategy of instruction, with teachers acting as learning facilitators and teacher advisors; and 4) a systematic and performancebased evaluation of students, teachers and program.

continue
Personalized education is an attempt to achieve a balance between the characteristics of the learning and the learning environment. Personalization focuses on the learner and is a process of adaptation. LEC schools have applied personalized education in various ways, from a complete continuousprogress curriculum, to-school-within-school applications, to learning teams, contract learning and project approaches.

continue
The LEC approach to personalized instruction emphasized thoughtfulness in the learning environment and interaction between teachers and students. LEC personalization is characterized by; A dual teacher role of coach and advisor The diagnosis of relevant student learning characteristics, including developmental level, cognitive/learning style and prior knowledge and skills. A culture of collegiality in the school, characterized by a constructivist environment and collaborative learning arrangement An interactive learning environment, characterized by small school and group size, thoughtful conversation, active learning activities and authentic student achievement

continue
Flexible scheduling and pacing, but with adequate structure Authentic assessment

The Coalition of Essential Schools (2002)

The Coalition of essential Schools (CES) also carries on the pattern of comprehensive school change pioneered by the Model School Project. The CES is a national network of schools, regional centers, and a national office, working to create schools where intellectual excitement animates every childs face, where teacher work together to get better at their craft, and where all children flourish, regardless of their gender, race or class.

continue
Like LEC International, CES supports the concept of shared ideas that good schools have in common about learning and schooling. Shared ideas also known as a set of common principles beliefs about the purpose and practice of schooling. CES calls for the development of small schools and classrooms, democratic and equitable school policies, personalized instruction to meet the individual needs of students, assessments requiring performance of authentic tasks, and close partnerships with parents and the community.