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Department of Education, University of the People

EDUC 5220: Curriculum Design and Instructional Decision Making

CURRICULUM REFORM PROPOSAL 2021-2022

EDUC 5220- GROUP 006F

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

Hanani Medina Bocangel

Jose Mari Raphael F. Famarin
Dana Barakat
Le Di Chang
George Akpan

Instructor: Dr. Kimberly Doerflein

May 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
REFLECTIONS 1

PROPOSAL 2

CURRICULUM REFORM COMMITTEE

TIMELINE

MATHEMATICS - DANA BARAKAT 5

SCIENCE - HANANI MEDINA 7

ENGLISH LANGUAGE - LE DI CHANG 9

FILIPINO LANGUAGE - JOSE MARI RAPHAEL F. FAMARIN 10

REFERENCES

Reflection

Hanani

My experience working in curriculum reform is that there is needed field research to find

opportunities in class instruction. The evidence gathered from learning how instruction is

delivered and what purpose helps to improve a curriculum. Understanding the fundamental
goals is as important as knowing the outcomes and the impact the curriculum has on students’

performance and their perception of education and schooling. There is a lot of literature

published about designing a curriculum. Working in a team with people from different areas

of expertise and backgrounds has been an enriching experience. It has helped me to be more

open to listen and to understand other points of view. For this process to be successful, I

needed to be a better listener, compromise, and be flexible. This has been an interesting

exercise worth living it.

Le Di

Curriculum design needs to balance many aspects of education: societal and local

community's expectations, students' needs, regional differences, local resources, etc.

Communications and compromises are keys to make something as colossal as a national

education reform go through. In this exercise, we went through multiple rounds of

discussions to work out one reform on six subjects. To scale this up to a school district or

even a state level would mean a monumental amount of work being put in.

Jose Mari Raphael

Making suggestions for a curriculum reform is difficult; it requires a lot of time and work.

The group’s discussion and feedback played a big part in this curriculum reform. Each one of

us presented the current inconveniences and problems of the current curriculum in their

milieu. The group collaboration is a great help to me. It gave me new ideas and insights to

discuss the issues and recommendations to the current curriculum for the Filipino language.

Even though we are from different parts of the world in different time zones, the team still

managed to come together using technology to collaborate. Many of us sacrificed something

for this group to work.

Dana

I got an unfamiliar experience, considering myself a member of a curriculum committee. I

realized curriculum reform requires the use of different strategies and methods. I learned

through this experience that “All roads lead to Rome”. Each of us is an expert in our own

field, and the richness of the educational experience had no comparison. We are committed to

achieving a common goal and we worked hard to reach it to the best of our abilities.

Curriculum Reform Proposal 2021-202219

The ITBS test, also known as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, is a nationally administered set of

exams designed to assess students' abilities. Subjects tested include Language Arts, Reading,

Mathematics, Science, and Social Sciences for grades 5-9. Test experts write our practice
materials and cover all subject areas. The Board of Education uses this assessment, along

with the PISA results, to gather information about the quality of education in each province.

The effects of the students' poor academic skills are reflected in the external assessment

results and the continuation of students' education. There is a significantly increased number

of drop-offs in secondary schools, and College entrances have registered the lowest number

of applicants in the last few years. We have put together a group of senior school

administrators and heads of departments to analyze the areas of concern and look into the

curriculum currently used by state-funded schools.

The grade levels to be discussed in this proposal are elementary and secondary school. The

aim is to suggest a reform of the curriculum. Hence, the teaching strategies and learning

methods reflect a student-centered approach aligned to the new standards articulated in the

National Board of Education.

Curriculum Reform Committee

Teachers leaders of different subject areas from elementary to secondary school formed this

committee. Waters & Marzano (2006) discussed the importance of teacher leaders by

demonstrating a strong relationship between leadership practices and students’ academic

achievement. Therefore, the teacher leaders in charge of writing this proposal are fully

committed to modifying the current curricular document to provide students with a quality

curriculum.

Table1. Evaluation of current practices by subject area and grade level.

Teacher Leaders Subject Area Grade level

Dana Barakat Mathematics Elementary

Hanani Medina Science Middle school

Le Di Chang English High School

Jose M. R. F. Filipino Language Junior High School

Famarin

We selected the members of this committee considering the following criteria: leadership

position within the school, expertise in their core subject areas, their commitment to school

improvement, and prior experience with curriculum reform.

Timeline

Considering the recent state of emergency in different areas because of the covid-19

pandemia, this committee will meet, via video chat using Google Meets, weekly to share their

results and discuss recommendations from April 25, 2021 - May 16, 2021

1. The committee will revise their current curriculum specific to their subject area and

grade level.

2. Each member will evaluate and assess the quality of their current curriculum based on

student attainment, teacher performance, and school-wide survey results. This

exercise aims to improve teachers’ training programs, focusing on teaching skills,

 improving cultural inclusiveness, social efficacy, and the holistic development of the

learner.

3. The committee decided to use mind maps to evaluate the major areas of concern of

their own curriculum and give each other feedback in the form of questions to

promote deep analysis of current material.

4. The committee will write a report with recommendations of how to achieve the

proposed modification based on research.

5. The team will meet to revise their progress regularly and to write a report and discuss

the recommendations before submission to the Board of Education

Mathematics - Elementary, Dana Barakat

Rationale

Early years mathematics holds a fundamental place in any school curriculum, as any other

subject, it starts in an easy and fun manner. Teachers use abacus, fingers, and counters to
teach skipping numbers. After that students know how to add, subtract, and sort 2-D and 3-D

shapes, the more the teacher uses any didactic materials and demonstration strategies

exposing young students to mathematics through instructional material, the more proficient

students can become and they reflect, remember and reuse what they learned.

Let us call this My 3R.

As students advance their education to the next level, they encounter many mathematics

themes that confuse them, like three digits multiplication, fractions, and equivalent fractions.

That causes the teaching fluidity, moving from one theme to another when students reach

grade four. There are many reasons to consider:

1. Teachers assume that grade four students are old enough to use any didactic material

without instructions or support from the teacher or even count by their fingers.

2. Students in Grade 4 and above are less inclined to show their misunderstanding because

they are too shy to ask their teachers. However, multiplication and fraction are the most

straightforward things students will face in grade 4 that affect the forthcoming years. So

that causes reforming the math curriculum to increase the students’ engagement for this

subject by increasing the sense of success.

Recommendations

Recommendations should be adapted because it provides students with many new concepts,

skills, and strategies which are fundamental for daily life, it helps children understand

numbers, shapes, and operations to be used all day long. Later they will discover how math

can be taught in context: economics, politics, and culture. “Studying mathematics stimulates

curiosity, fosters creativity and equips children with the skills they need in life beyond

school” (Haylock, & Manning, 2018)

The proper use of technologies and smart devices helps teachers facilitate the delivery of

math instruction, there are many applications available such as BrainPOP and myIMath.

Using these applications in class and assignments as homework or even classwork helps

students to be interested and engaged with what they studied. It also minimizes disruptive

behavior and boredom in students. Easy access to these applications at any time and place

helps students to rely on these resources. For teachers, using technology or any new idea

transforms mathematics lessons into interactive classes, which makes the teacher spend less

time in front of the whiteboard and closer to the students who need more support. The

technology used effortlessly in the classroom will help high achievers to become independent

learners and it helps them develop problem-solving skills while improving students’

participation and collaboration (Lopez-Lopez, 2012). Above all teachers gain new

experiences of how to make combinations between traditional and modern methods by

adopting the best part of both teaching methods.

Applying mathematics to real-life contexts will help develop strategies for solving problems,

reasoning mathematically, and engaging with mathematics. The design of a more interactive

mathematics curriculum by learning the subject in a context will help students apply their

learning in their own environment. When asking students to record the number of canned

food they consume per day, and to calculate how much canned food they consume per week,

per month, and per year, is an example of real-life problems. Students master three skills:

numeration, problem-solving strategies. Furthermore, develop a deep understanding and

analytical skills.

Science - Middle school, Hanani medina

Purpose/Rationale
There is a growing concern about students' results on the external assessments such as PISA

and ITBS, where students' performance showed that their science skills such as questioning

and predicting, planning and conducting investigations, processing and analysis of data and

information, evaluating, and communicating scientific ideas were low compared to the results

gathered by other provinces.

According to a survey given to all public schools in this province, it was found that 84% of

the participants think that the science content they have to teach in an academic year is too

dense and they don’t have time to do practical work nor use strategies that help students learn

in a more interactive manner because there is no time to cover content. 10% of the

participants argued that they managed to cover all the material superficially with no practical

work and the rest of the participants considered the breadth of science material of greater

importance than the experiences gained by performing laboratory experiments.

The change proposed is to reduce the science content to the most relevant information that

has connections with the community using inquiry-based strategies, and focus on the

development of better science skills.

Recommendations

According to the evaluations made to the current science curriculum, there is broad content

knowledge to cover in a year, from each of the following sciences: biology, chemistry,

physics, and earth & space. It is worth studying success stories in other places where there

were inspiring results of science curriculums that include “enduring understandings,

meaningful essential questions, mapped vertical articulation, balanced literacy instruction,

formative assessments, and future career proficiencies” (Jacobs, 2010) Teachers are willing

to implement some changes in their science instruction, the most effective manner to help

teachers during this process if to create professional learning communities where teachers
work on a specific goal at a time and learn from each other by peer observation and feedback

(Sahlberg, 2005)

A student-centered approach will require the teacher to design lessons in context where

students need to develop or use their inquiry, observation, and critical thinking skills in a

hands-on style. Wiggins & McTighe (2005) proposed the use of essential questions as a good

starting point, when identifying what the essential questions are, teachers will guide their

instruction towards answering them in different contexts throughout the unit.

“How can we predict what life will be like 30 years from now?” gives an excellent

opportunity to learn forms of energy using students’ future life as a context, each lesson could

use the P-O-E (predict-observe-explain) strategy that develops the skills previously

mentioned. Easy to follow practicals to learn how energy is transformed in different ways, in

case practical work is not possible, teachers could use online simulators that will help

students understand abstract ideas. While students explore science and find answers to their

own questions in collaboration with their peers the teacher can support the students who need

differentiated instruction.

Science teachers across grade levels could build a curriculum map to identify areas that

overlap throughout grade levels and determine the depth at which the science material will be

organized from basic conceptual understanding to more complex one, helping students build

their science understanding through their academic years in a spiral curriculum (Clark, 2010).

This strategy will help reduce the science content and focus on the essential information,

which will allow teachers to design lessons that include practical work, hands-on, and

inquiry-based activities.

Foreign Language (English) - High school, Le Di Chang

Purpose/Rationale
The Yamaguchi Board of Education’s (BoE) report on student performance in English class

paints a very dire picture in the previous school year. Only 40.9% of students had achieved

the goals set by BoE at the start of the school year, and even this data holds very little value

as only 45% of the teachers trust the survey results. (Yamaguchi BoE, 2019, p.8)

There is a multitude of problems with English education. Neither teachers nor students had

much faith in the existing curriculum: only 45% of the teachers and 38.3% of the students

believed that they could reach the goal set by the provincial BoE. Evaluation methods were

outdated, as Yamaguchi BoE only evaluated two (speaking and writing) of the four aspects

(reading, writing, speaking, and listening) specified by the Ministry of Education, Culture,

Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). Even then, students' test performance was poor,

dropping from 32% (1.6 out of 5) in 10th Grade to 16% (0.8 out of 5) in 12th Grade. There is

also minimal English language used in class, as students only used the English language

44.3% of total class time. (Yamaguchi BoE, 2019, p.8)

Recommendation

Design courses to cater to all four aspects of English learning set by MEXT 2020 Curriculum

Guidelines. (MEXT, 2017, p.2), reading, writing, listening, and speaking, with a strong

emphasis on the development and reinforcement of speaking and listening skills. The current

English language communication and expression courses do not provide enough

opportunities for students to practice their listening and speaking skills.

In these classes, teachers should promote student-centered strategies. They will give speeches

in front of the class to build up their confidence, debate with their classmates to hone their

communication skills and work collaboratively to present different issues that directly affect

students. Increase English language usage in the classroom. Teachers should be using

English for instruction 100% of the time, and students should be using the English language

to communicate as often as they can to hone their language skills.

Filipino Language - Junior high school, Jose Mari Raphael F. Famarin

In order to respond to its sociopolitical, economic, technological, and academic spheres,

various reforms were made, including the implementation of the K-12 curriculum that is

based on expectations and outcomes when the previous curriculum was based on objectives.

Filipino language teachers are having a hard time implementing the new curriculum in their

classrooms. According to Bongco and David (2020) report, teachers find the curriculum

confusing. They do not have time to learn the new curriculum document. They have a sense

of powerlessness and frustration because they have limited experience using expectation and

outcome guidelines.

The whole curriculum of the K-12 subjects itself in a learner-centered nature as prescribed

and stated by the Department of Education (DepEd). Even after stating that, many teachers

and educators still commented that the traditional way of teaching is still good (Montemayor,

2018). We can suspect that these teachers are still not ready for learner-centered instruction in

this kind of thinking, and this awareness is growing here in the Philippines. Many experts say

that teachers should shift to a more learner-centered approach in teaching and instruction

(Magno & Sembrano, 2009).

Recommendations

Right now, teachers have issues coping and trying to adapt to the changes brought by the

implementation of the new curriculum. In order for the teachers to improve, the DepEd needs

to provide ongoing support by providing training courses such as seminars and workshops

and the resources required to attain the knowledge needed to level with the standards of the

curriculum (Bongco & David, 2020) and to address teacher variables such as social

environment, use of teaching platform, level of teaching difficulty and level of readiness of
teachers (Nacis, 2014). The in-service training from DepEd should be developmental in

nature and be calibrated to the standards brought by the needs of the new curriculum (Bongco

& David, 2020).

In order to make this process more efficient and practical, the formation of professional

learning communities is strongly encouraged. Teachers team up according to one area of the

curriculum they would like to work, they devise a strategy or strategies to include in their

lesson plan, peer-to-peer observations with feedback analyzing the areas of improvements

and try to use the same strategies again, once these specific teams finish their process of

observation, modification, adaptation, and application, they report back to a larger group of

teachers who might be able to see how a specific section of the curriculum has been used and

its impact on students’ performance (Jacobs, 2010)

The Philippines is a very diverse country, and a classroom could contain students from

different cultural backgrounds. It is crucial that the curriculum be considerate in being

sensitive to cultural differences by promoting respect and understanding in theThe curriculum

must be class. (Walden University, n.d.). Teachers should adapt poems, epics, legends, and

other literary pieces from different regions and cultural backgrounds to expose students to

different aspects of Filipino society and promote appreciation of this diversity. Teachers

should also encourage students to share stories and poems from their native regions.

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