Educ.

9-Teacher and the School Curriculum

TASK 4

I- Activity 4

Direction: Discuss the strength and weaknesses of curriculum assessment in public school. Cite
Direction: Discuss the strength and weaknesses of curriculum assessment in public school.
researches conducted along curriculum assessment.
Cite researches conducted along curriculum assessment.

Answers:

The public schools are one of those affected with the major overhaul of educational
system, affecting the planning, implementation and assessment of the curriculum.
Focusing on Curriculum assessment which plays an important role in determining if the
learning outcomes are achieved. Curriculum assessment is the process of collecting information
for use in evaluation. It is an important part of the systems approach to curriculum development.
Any information, data collected or obtained through various processes will be analyzed for the
important decision-making processes.
Based from the references gathered, generally, the assessments help teachers determine
what instructional approaches would be best for certain students, what the students may already
know about a certain topic, and what topics may need to be reintroduced. It also provides
educators with data to discover students’ success in certain skill sets as well.
It also provides students with structure and motivation to better themselves, while
ensuring resilience in competition and disappointment. It helps in understanding competence so
students can be taught an appropriate level and pace for them.
Generally, the weaknesses of curriculum assessments relate to changing the way teaching
is focused. This is away from enjoyment and inspiration towards succeeding purely in an
assessment. It also puts perhaps an unnecessary pressure on students either by themselves, their
parents or teachers.

Specifically, the following were identified strengths and weaknesses of some types of
Curriculum Assessments:
Formative Assessment
Strengths: No grading hence it lessens the anxiety feelings of the students. Teachers can
check if students can understand the instructions so she can step forward but if they are not, she
can take step back for the benefit of students learning. Teachers can give instructions in order to
make task or activity easy for students so the students can understand them well enough. It can
serve as a practice for students. The data can be used to help students to better understand
curriculum. Very easy to implement. Teachers can evaluate themselves with formative assessment.
Furthermore, Formative assessment allows for progress to be checked. These provide
learners with the chance to remain focused, motivated and determined to succeed/reach their
highest potential. Additionally, we have holistic assessments, which allow teachers and educators
to understand their learners not just from an assignment focus, but also understand their
learning styles, trends and anything to help their learners do better. This is often great in practical
courses/subjects like engineering. It can save repetition and duplication of assessments. Overall,
it consolidates learning.

Weaknesses: Students may not take it as seriously as summative assessment. It can be a

time taking process. Students need different kinds of formative assessment at different stages in
their learning. Everything has to be taught beforehand, can be time consuming. Learners may
not understand why assessment is taking place so often, therefore it is imperative that the
teacher/educator has open conversations about assessment plans with learners.

Performance Measures
Types: Essays, Oral presentations, Oral exams, Exhibitions, Demonstrations,
Performances, Products, Research papers, Poster presentations, Capstone experiences, Practical
exams, and Supervised internships & practicums
Strengths: Can be used to assess from multiple perspectives, Using a student-centered
design can promote student motivation, Can be used to assess transfer of skills and integration
of content, Engages student in active learning , Encourages time on academics outside of class,
Can provide a dimension of depth not available in classroom, Can promote student creativity,
Can be scored holistically or analytically, May allow probes by faculty to gain clearer picture of
student understanding, Can provide closing of feedback loop between students and faculty, Can
place faculty more in a mentor role than as judge, Can be summative or formative, Can provide
an avenue for student self-assessment and reflection, Can be embedded within courses, Can
adapt current assignments, and Usually the most valid way of assessing skill development.
Weaknesses: Usually the mostly costly approach, Time consuming and labor intensive to
design and execute for faculty and student, Must be carefully designed if used to document
obtainment of student learning outcomes, Ratings can be more subjective, Requires careful
training of raters, Inter-rater reliability must be addressed, Production costs may be prohibitive
for some students and hamper reliability, and Sample of behavior or performance may not be
typical, especially if observers are present.
Portfolios
Strengths: Shows sophistication in student performance, Illustrates longitudinal trends,
Highlight student strengths, Identify student weaknesses for remediation, if timed properly, Can
be used to view learning and development longitudinally, Multiple components of the curriculum
can be assessed (e.g. writing, critical thinking, technology skills), Samples are more likely than
test results to reflect student ability when planning, input from others, and similar opportunities
common to more work settings are available, Process of reviewing and evaluating portfolios
provide an excellent opportunity for faculty exchange and development, discussion of curriculum
goals and objectives, review of criteria, and program feedback , May be economical in terms of
student time and effort if no separate assessment administration time is required, Greater faculty
control over interpretation and use of results, Results are more likely to be meaningful at all levels
(student, class, program, institution) and can be used for diagnostic and prescriptive purposes as
well, Avoids or minimizes test anxiety and other one-shot measurement problems, Increases
power of maximum performance measures over more artificial or restrictive speed measures on
test or in-class sample, Increases student participation (selection, revision, and evaluation) in the
assessment process, Could match well with Morningside’s mission to cultivate lifelong learning,
Can be used to gather information about students’ assignments and experiences, and Reflective
statements could be used to gather information about student satisfaction.
Potential Weaknesses: Portfolio will be no better than the quality of the collected
artifacts, Time consuming and challenging to evaluate, Space and ownership challenges make
evaluation difficult, Content may vary widely among students, Students may fail to remember to
collect items, Transfer students may not be in the position to provide complete portfolio, Time
intensive to convert to meaningful data, Costly in terms of evaluator time and effort,
Management of the collection and evaluation process, including the establishment of reliable
and valid grading criteria, is likely to be challenging, May not provide for externality, If samples
to be included have been previously submitted for course grades, faculty may be concerned that
a hidden agenda of the process is to validate their grading, Security concerns may arise as to
whether submitted samples are the students’ own work or adhere to other measurement
criteria, Must consider whether and how graduates will be allowed continued access to their
portfolios, and Inter-rater reliability must be addressed.

II- Think about It

Direction: Read and reflect.

1. What do you think would be the consequences if:

a. Curriculum does not relate to instruction

Answers:
 Curriculum in teaching is said to be the structured set of learning outcomes or
tasks which educators usually call it as goals and objectives. It is then expected that the
students have learned the information in the curriculum so that they will have the skills
needed to prepare students to succeed in society. While Instruction is the actual
engagement of the learners of the planned learning activities. It is the implementation of
the curriculum plan.
Therefore, curriculum and instruction interlock with each other. This implies that
they should go together, they have strong relationship and should aligned with each other.
Thus, without a curriculum plan, there could be no effective instruction, curriculum has
very little meaning.
So, when the curriculum does not relate to instruction, this indicates that the
learning outcomes or the goals and objectives will not be attained and at the same time
the teaching-learning activities will not have clear directions.

b. Instruction does not relate to assessment.

Answers:
Instruction refers to the various ways of teaching, teaching styles, approaches,
techniques, and steps in delivering the curriculum. It is a complex activity that requires
teachers to use a variety of action to accomplish a variety of functions. As explained above,
instruction is a means of delivering the curriculum. It puts into action the plan set at the
beginning. Hence, Instruction and assessment should be intertwined to provide a system
that supports and encourages students’ progress.

Therefore, when instruction does not relate to assessment, it implies that the
assessment will not provide the teacher or curriculum maker the value of their work. It
will not also tell the general public the quality or kind of product that resulted from a
prerequisite process, which is instruction since assessment gives the quantitative
measure of instruction.

c. Assessment does not relate to curriculum.

Answers:
Curriculum is also related to Assessment. In fact, it is the curriculum as explained
above that determines what assessment should be done, and how to do it. What to
accomplish is established by the curriculum. How to determine if the curriculum has been
achieved is determined by assessment.
 Therefore, when the assessment does not relate to curriculum, this reveals that
it fails to measure what it intends to measure, it can not provide feedback whether the
curriculum has been achieved or not.

2. In your experience as a learner does your curriculum provide these connections or matching?
What is the application of this lesson to your becoming a teacher?

Answers:
I do believe that when I was a student (as a learner), my school has developed a
well-planned curriculum since I won’t become a nurse now, if they are not organized and
systematic on their implementation with the Nursing curriculum.

The best learning insights from this task as a future teacher is to develop a
standardized curriculum plan that matches with the instruction and assessment. These 3
components in a curriculum should aligned with each other.

III- Assess

Direction: Read and answer the following questions carefully.

1. How would you describe a school curriculum where the intended outcomes do not match
with the implemented activities and the achieved outcomes?
Answers:
The scenario implies that the school administrators specifically the Principal or the
head of office failed to monitor and evaluate if the curriculum (learning outcomes) and
instruction (implemented activities) are aligned. Also, it connotes that the school is not
standardized and have not undergone accreditation and may have low performance in
board exams.

2. In writing your lesson plan, would you consider matching the intended, implemented
activities and the achieved curricula? Why?
Answers:
Yes, we should match those 3 components of a curriculum considering the positive
effect of to the learning of the students. By simply doing it will give implication that the
school where I will be working with is standardized and I am assured that I provided a
quality education to my students.