LEPASANA, MICHAEL CLYDE S. MW 9:00 – 10:30 A.M.

BSED SCIENCE-3B TT&SC

Issues that beset Teachers when Designing a Curriculum

The goal of a successful educational program and effective curriculum
development is that it should constructed to meet the needs and demands of the culture,
the society, and population being served. Therefore curriculum development and the
educational reforms process continually under goes review, revision, and constant
changes (Johnson, 2011). It also involves stakeholders, especially teachers who are
directly involved in the students interaction. Teacher’s involvement has been a tradition
of professionals in designing the curriculum with their knowledge, skills and
competencies, made them a vital piece as a curriculum developer and revisionist because
they are most knowledgeable about the practice of teaching and responsible for
introducing the curriculum in the classroom. The importance of and relevance of teacher’s
involvement in curriculum designing becomes increasingly apparent when curriculum
policy is considered.
Teachers in different contexts have been increasingly involve as designers in the
curriculum reforms, projects, however, not all efforts have been successful. A major
problems was that teachers lack certain knowledge and skills in particular, (1) subject
matter knowledge, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, and (3) curriculum design
expertise. The above mentioned are the issues that beset teachers when designing a
curriculum and those are essential aspects to enact collaborative design process to
successfully fulfill the proposed role as a designer. Even though some teachers fulfill the
role of designer, many of them lack intuitive design expertise, therefore most teachers
can be considered novices in curriculum design and subsequently experience beginner’s
difficulties while designing curriculum materials. Curriculum materials are expected to
represent accurate, relevant, and up-to-date insights of the subject matter knowledge.
But, according to research some teachers have lack of knowledge and skills to keep
subject matter knowledge up-to-date, and lack of knowledge and skills to gain insights
into learner’s subject matter knowledge difficulties (Huizinga, 2009). Furthermore,
teachers need to apply various strategies to keep their subject matter knowledge accurate
and up-to-date, and they need to become familiar with the difficulties of the students
because they can use these insights to design a curriculum materials that effectively
support learners in their learning process. Shulman (1986: 9) defined pedagogical content
knowledge “which goes beyond knowledge of subject matter per se to the dimension of
subject matter knowledge for teaching. There are three distinguish pedagogical content
knowledge and skills that teachers encounter as a curriculum designer: pedagogical
repertoire addresses the teachers’ knowledge and skills to select, apply and include
pedagogical strategies and subject matter, material selection skills, ICT selection skills.
In my own analysis the lack of pedagogical knowledge and skills of a teacher is a great
factor the affects their performance in the curriculum designing because pedagogy is an
essential aspect in arranging the curriculum appropriate to the students learning process.
Lastly, the curriculum consistency expertise in which there are two specific knowledge
and skill that teachers lack in order to develop consistent curricula, those are to create
internally consistent curricula balance and coherence of curriculum elements, and create
externally consistent curricula the coherence and of perception of teachers on what
problems and how to tackle it. Teachers need to develop these two knowledge and skills
in curriculum consistency expertise because in designing curriculum these will allow them
to create materials which are well balance and well aligned and will also lessen the
problems that they can encounter along the process.
As a curriculum designer teachers encounter so many issues along the process
but those will only occur if they have lack of knowledge and skills in terms of pedagogy,
subject matter, and curriculum expertise. They should master these aspects during their
studies as a teacher education in order for them to be effective and successfully fulfill
their role as a curriculum designer. Just-in-time support from their supervisors and co-
teachers will also help teachers directly apply the new knowledge and skills gained in the
design process.
References:
Tjark Huizinga, Adam Handelzalts, Nienke Nieveen & Joke M. Voogt (2014). Techer
involvement in curriculum design: need for support to enhance teachers’ design expertise.
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(1), 33-57, DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2013.834077.
Retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/10.1080.00220272.2013.834077. Retrieved on October
13, 2020
Alcubaie Merfat Ayesh (2016). Curriculum Development: Teacher Involvement in
Curriculum Development. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(9), 106-107. Retrieved
form https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1095725. Retrieved on October 13, 2020.