The Future Starts Now

Up to this point in my educational career, I have had little if any introduction to the structural mechanics of the classroom.  In many other classes I have learned about aspects of  child development, educational philosophers and even educational theories but I have never learned about what goes into a curriculum or even how it is formed.  Until taking EDUC 4P19 I probably would've thought that creating a curriculum was pretty rudimentary and standard.  This is probably because my grade school and high school experience was one that encompassed the"old story".  I found that most of my classes had the same curriculum structure lessons every day, one test after a unit is done and assignments in between.  This made my personal education experience boring and stale as the curriculums in class were never exciting as they have the potential to be. After reading the  chapters and the lectures for this week, I realized that creating a curriculum is an incredibly long and well-though out process to ensure students are are not just memorizing facts but actually creating and understanding their own learning which will promote interest in the subject and student development.

From what I gathered from the reading, it is important to integrate the KBD method into your curriculum documents.  What KDB stands for is Know, Do and Be which overall provides a common vocabulary.  All three of these interconnect to provide an visual umbrella that creates a curriculum that is challenging and innovative yet promotes critical thinking in students.

The Know comprises the content that is mandated in curriculum documents.  In the "old story: the know was the information in your head that was filled from the teacher at the front of the room.  Even if you didn't know pay attention the whole year in class, you knew you could spend a couple hours the night before and memorize definitions, graphs, diagrams that would be on the test and still get a very good test score.  I wonder, is this truly "Knowing" the material or is it just remembering facts? I can remember countless times memorizing definitions and facts for highschool exams the night before even if I didn't truly understand them.  This is why the old "Know" is at the bottom of the structure of knowledge.  We as prospective teachers need to implement more Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings in our Know to ensure a true conceptual understanding.  And I do believe we are on the right path but we must continue and move forward.

The video below describes the Norwegian education system and provides a completely different perspective on what we North Americans think about Norwegian education.  Although as a country they do place an incredibly high amount of money and resources into their education system, as of late they have had high drop-out rates and less than average test scores?  This video describes that the curriculum must integrate technology (ICT Movement) to keep students interested in learning and overall make it an experience in which they can create, evaluate and challenge their thinking.

Moving on...

The Do contains twenty-first-century-skills which enhances creativity, critical thinking and collaboration to be prepared for the 21st century world.  I like the textbook, personally believe that in order for students to to be prepared for the 21st century world we must be giving them an opportunity to develop 21st century skills.  I feel that the root of these skills involve interactive knowledge with the use of technology.  But the students can't facilitate that themselves, they don't create the curriculum.  The curriculum is created from us, our experiences, we as prospective teacher's are already so familiar with technology in our everyday lives... why not use it for the better of our students?

The Be is the idea of incorporating innovative ideas into our curriculum that addresses respect and individual character development.  Although knowledge is incredibly important for students to gather in the education system I feel that students learning about their own identity is important.  And I would also like to note that as a human being we can constantly develop our character as new situations arise. This is why the Be is not only important in grade school it is very important in high school and even into adult life.

Overall I believe this curriculum framework, KDB is an incredibly useful way to make sure that all the essentially parts of the "new story" education system are met.  With this curriculum framework and the use of technology in the future I feel that us as prospective teachers will each provide a unique, challenging yet interactive environment for students to reach their true potential.