Role of teacher in curriculum development

While curriculum specialists, administrators and outside educational companies spend

countless hours developing curriculum, it is the teachers who know best what the curriculum
should look like. After all, they work directly with the students meant to benefit from the
curriculum. In order to create a strong curriculum, teachers must play an integral role in
every step of the process.

Planning

Teachers know their students' needs better than others involved in the curriculum process.
While state or federal standards often dictate the skills covered by the curriculum, a teacher
can provide insight into the types of materials, activities and specific skills that need to be
included. Teachers from multiple grade-levels may collaborate to identify skills students
need at each level and ensure that the curriculum adequately prepares students to advance
to the next grade-level and to meet the standards.

Creation

Because teachers must use the curriculum, they should have input in its creation. A teacher
can gauge whether an activity will fit into a specified time frame and whether it will engage
students. If multiple teachers will use the curriculum, allow as many of them as possible to
provide input during the creation stage. As teachers provide input, they will gain ownership
in the final product and feel more confident that the curriculum was created with their
concerns and the needs of their particular students in mind.

Implementation

Teachers must implement the curriculum in their own classrooms, sticking to the plan that
has taken so much time, careful planning and effort to create. When a teacher fails to
properly implement a strong curriculum, she risks not covering standards or failing to
implement effective practices in the classroom. That does not mean a teacher cannot make
minor changes. In fact, a strong curriculum is designed to allow a teacher to be flexible and
to insert a few personalized components or choose from among a selection of activities.

Reflection

Reflecting on a curriculum allows teachers and others involved in the process to find any
weaknesses in the curriculum and attempt to make it better. Teachers reflect on curriculum
 in multiple ways, such as keeping a journal as they implement the curriculum, giving
students surveys and reviewing the results or analyzing assessment data and individual
student performance. Not only can reflection serve to improve a specific curriculum, it may
guide the creation of new curriculum.

Course Implementation

Respondents teaching the standards reported a range of motivations, both intrinsic and
extrinsic, for adopting them during 2011. Of the 51 who reported their motivation, 90%
wanted to provide better opportunities for students. Most had a personal interest in the
topics. Some believed that adopting the new standards was good for the country or simply
the right thing to do. Some felt it would give credibility to computing as a subject, and 8%
were motivated by school management’s requirements.

Teacher confidence

The confidence of teachers and their sense of identity relative to the subject area is an
important consideration. The responses show relatively low confidence among teachers in
their ability to teach the new topics.

Adapter

As an adapter the role of teacher is just same as implementer that is what some conceptual
term which indicates that the teacher become ready to accept the curriculum in order to
implement it.

Developer

As a developer the teacher role is to take part in curriculum process. In Pakistan some
respective teachers are being invited to attend various meetings held by higher authorities
in order to make contributions in curriculum development process.

Researchers

Curriculum is dynamic process, keeping in view the characteristics; there is a need to

conduct the research in order to bring desirable changes in curriculum. Teachers in most of
countries are taking part in various types of researchers in curriculum development process.
These are:

1: To Review the Curriculum

2: To Evaluate the Curriculum

1. Function

The teacher is qualified to judge if a curriculum provides appropriate instruction at three

levels of differentiation: remedial, instructional and advanced. A curriculum should include
techniques and strategies for teachers to help students at their current academic level. For
example, a kindergarten teacher may need to employ a variety of methods when
demonstrating concepts of print. The Mississippi Department of Education's Language Arts
curriculum framework includes suggested instructional methods and activities geared
toward this objective. One suggestion is to read poems to the class and have students track
the words to learn left-to-right progression. The teacher should be able to provide an
informed opinion about the usefulness of such activities by mid-academic year.

Significance

Teachers should be consulted about curriculum evaluation because they are ultimately
responsible for translating its objectives into specific lessons. According to the Alberta
Teachers' Association, teachers are ethically and legally bound to routinely assess students
and report their progress. A curriculum should help teachers do this by providing a realistic
set of goals and suggested techniques to assist students at all ability levels. When decisions
are made about changes in content, teachers can provide feedback based on their direct
interaction with students.

Features

Teachers routinely use assessment data to design and adapt instruction. They can also use
this data to evaluate the effectiveness of a curriculum. Informal assessments, as well as
standardized tests given at the end of the academic year, yield valuable information about
students' understanding of the concepts they have been taught. It is important to look at
each student's progress in comparison to the entire class. If a majority of pupils achieves a
proficient score, this usually indicates an appropriate alignment of curriculum standards and
assessment.

Effects

A teacher's role in curriculum evaluation affects the school's choice of textbooks, as well as
the adoption of special programs to augment educational standards. Classroom instructors
examine the curriculum's objectives to determine the relevance of the materials. If a great
disparity exists, school officials must reassess their programs or consider editing or
remapping the curriculum to best meet the students' needs. Utah State University's
education department advises teachers to assess their curriculum if students do not achieve
80- to 90-percent mastery on specific skills. In such a case, the curriculum may lack
instructional guidance necessary for teaching prerequisite skills. Conversely, if students
continually meet or exceed these percentages, teachers can propose advanced instruction.

Expert Insight

Over time, teachers gain insight to the effectiveness of a curriculum on their students' long-
term academic development. Thus, they should recognize an effective curriculum as one
composed of student-centered methods that emphasizes the teacher as a facilitator. This
type of instruction begins as early as kindergarten. Certainly, there will be a greater degree
of hands-on teaching at this level, but even students ages 4 and 5 are capable of applying
strategies like questioning and monitoring as the teacher reads a story to them. After they
learn to read, these techniques continue to guide their instruction.

The Alberta Teachers' Association advocates teachers as curriculum evaluators, citing that
experienced instructors—no matter what grade level they teach—know that mastery can be
measured through informal observation as well as tests. An effective curriculum will take this
into consideration when presenting assessment strategies. Teachers are uniquely qualified to
determine if student outcomes and curriculum objectives are properly aligned and
implemented.

An Effective Plan of Evaluation

Evaluation

Evaluation describes how to assess the nature, impact and value of an activity through the
systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of information with a view to making an
informed decision.

Evaluation involves three activities:

1: Outlining Clear Purpose

2: Gathering Evidence

3: Judgment

Evaluation is part of judgment rather than apart from it

An evaluation plan is an integral part of a grant proposal that provides information to

improve a project during development and implementation.
For small projects, the Office of the Vice President for Research can help you develop a
simple evaluation plan. If you are writing a proposal for larger center grant, using a
professional external evaluator is recommended.

Do all grant proposals require an evaluation plan?

Not all grant proposals require an evaluation plan. If one is required, it will generally be
listed in the program announcement. Most often, larger, more involved grant proposal will
require an evaluation plan, while a smaller, single-investigator proposals will not. If you are
unsure whether your proposal requires an evaluation plan, please contact us.

What elements should be included in an evaluation plan?

There are two types of evaluation plans. The components of your evaluation plan may
depend on the type you use. We can help you prepare and review both types of evaluation
plans outlined below.

A formative evaluation does the following:

 Assesses initial and ongoing project activities
 Begins during project development and continues through implementation
 Provides new and sometimes unanticipated insights into improving the outcomes of
the project
 Involves review by the principal investigator, the steering or governance committee,
and either an internal or external evaluator (depending on grant requirements)

A summative evaluation does the following:

 Assesses the quality and success of a project in reaching stated goals
 Presents the information collected for project activities and outcomes
 Takes place after the completion of the project
 Involves review by the principal investigator, the steering or governance committee,
either an internal or external evaluator, and the program director of the funding agency

All evaluation plans should identify both participants (those directly involved in the project)
and stakeholders (those otherwise invested by credibility, control or other capital), and
should include the relevant items developed in the evaluation process.

What does the evaluation process entail?

The evaluation process can be broken down into a series of steps, from preparation to
implementation and interpretation.
1. Develop a conceptual model of the project and identify key evaluation points. This
ensures that all participants and stakeholders understand the project's structure and
expected outcomes, and helps focus on the project’s most important elements.
2. Create evaluation questions and define measurable outcomes. Outcomes may be
divided into short-term and long-term, or defined by the more immediate number of
people affected by the project versus the overall changes that might not occur until after
the project’s completion.
3. Develop an appropriate evaluation design. A successful evaluation both highlights
the most useful information about the project’s objectives and addresses its
shortcomings. In developing an evaluation design, you should first determine who will be
studied and when, and then select a methodological approach and data collection
instruments. The NSF-sponsored Online Evaluation Resource Library provides step-by-
step instructions for developing an evaluation plan.
4. Collect data.
5. Analyze data and present to interested audiences.