Mind the gap: A tale of two curriculum fallacies

Abstract

Throughout my professional life, I have been interested in the relationship between teachers and curriculum. As someone who has taught languages, educated teachers, and developed curriculum and materials, I have been puzzled by the separation of curriculum and teaching. In the US, this separation is encapsulated in the phrase ‘curriculum and instruction’, where they are seen as separate domains of research and responsibility (Doyle, 1992; Kaplan & Owings, 2015). Indeed, as a teacher educator, I would often hear the refrain from teachers, ‘I know how to plan a good lesson, but I'm not sure what the big picture is. How do the lessons fit together as a whole?’ I interpreted this to mean that they did not have a sense of the overall curricular structure and aims for their students’ learning. As a materials and curriculum developer, I saw my responsibility as providing a map for teachers that would show how the parts added up to a sensible whole.

Exploring the compelling rationale to include programming in the K-12 curriculum

“…Webb et al (2016) examined curriculum developments in several countries and discovered that teacher professional development is crucial for facilitating curriculum reform. This finding has been reiterated by many researchers (Aljameel, 2022;Graves, 2021;Soto, 2018;Wedell & Alshumaimeri, 2014;Wedell & Grassick, 2018).…”

Understanding context: An essential factor for educational change success

“…However, the lack of success in implementing changes in schools and classrooms, such as with curriculum development and new methodological approaches, often occurs due to ignoring the vital role of teachers in the process. Many research studies reported that teachers were left in the dark regarding the educational change process and were unsupported when charged with enacting the desired change (Graves, 2021;Wedell, 2015;De Segovia & Hardison, 2009;Soto, 2018;Macalister & Phonekeo, 2022).…”

Four spheres of student-teachers’ professional identity formation through learning about curriculum development

“…For the purposes of this study, it may suffice to define a curriculum as a socio-political organiser which, with diverse degrees of specificity, delineates what students learn (Graves 2021). Broadly speaking, there are three versions of curriculum: (1) the societal curriculum (what societies expect students should learn), (2) the policy or official curriculum, and (3) the enacted curriculum, i.e.…”

“…In the forums on definitions and dimensions of curriculum development, the learnercentred curriculum, and the tensions between the expected or institutional curriculum and the enacted curriculum (Graves 2021), the participants travelled back to their biographies as language learners. For example, Alan wrote:…”