MPPC 1333 THEORY AND CHANGES IN CURRICULUM

IMPLEMENTING CURRICULUM CHANGE

MAGHFURAH BINTI MOHD ZAHIR
MPP152059
DR. AHMAD JOHARI BIN SIHES
INTRODUCTION
• This chapter provides a perspective on such serious
issues as whether curriculum change should start
with teacher, administrator, education committees,
or professional reformers at local states and federal
levels.
• It emphasize the importance of considering a wide
range condition in implementing curriculum change,
of matching innovation with the realities of the
school, teacher perspectives and abilities and the
prevailing social climate.
• Teacher always doesn’t get opportunity to
formulate curriculum for the classroom due to
time constraint and heavy teaching loads. May
be also resistance from parents, peers or
principal. It is difficult to effect a school system
curriculum revision through teacher initiation.
• Administrators often feel helpless in initiating a
new curriculum, finding it difficult to persuade
staff and others to respond enthusiastically and
to carry out the proposed changes.
• Those who develop a curriculum at state or
national level also run into problems in order to
get the curriculum adopted
• Some believe that the practical suggestion to
help those who would implemented the
curriculum changes by using theories of
educational change to achieve it.
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE CHANGE PROCESS
Kind of changes and difficulties in implementing them

• One element may be substitute to

another already present
Substitution • Ex: new textbook for and old one

• Occurs when a change is introduced

into existing materials
Alteration • Ex: modifies activities accompanying
an academic textbook
 • These irritating changes are disruptive, but
teachers can adjust to them within fairly
Pertubations short time
• Ex: duration of teaching and learning

• Lead to modification of the system itself

Restructing • Decentralization and new concepts of the
teaching role are example of restructuring
changes

Value • These are shifts in the fundamentals

value orientation of participants

oriented • Ex: a school begins to be staffed with

new teacher who valued student
personal growth or social reconstruction
changes rather than achievement.
SOCIOLOGICAL FINDINGS ABOUT CHANGE
Sociologist study stability and changes in
organizations found the features of curriculum
change
• Formal and informal channels of
communication

Curriculum innovation in a school are borrowed

rather than invented

The borrowing may take the form of direct

imitation or the importation of new
personnel.eg: a new writing program

This is to avoid many of the errors and cost

associated with the initial development
Observation of result in classroom situation and
the exchange of opinions with fellow teacher
are also important in getting teachers to
change, particularly, when the validity of
information is in doubt.

For teachers they may be little incentive for

accepting the innovations and may to work
more longer in order to make a change and may
attract criticism from the opposition.

However most teacher more comfortable to be

a conventional, considering the basic reward
system that discourage risk taking,
experimentation, and responsiveness to some
pupils.
School administrators are viewed
as persons in the middle, with little
possibility of being primary
advocates for major curriculum
change.

One problem in effecting

change is the conflict
between the school
organization and its external
environment
• Often tension arises between those
who seek to maintain the values of
the school staff and those who would
respond to the conflicting values of
changing the community
Major curriculum decision are being
made at the national level concerning
for example academic standards,
bilingual education, early childhood
education, and special education.

Groups and individuals in the

community can also aid in devising
supplementary learning situations.
They can plan opportunities out of
school in which students generate
goals that come from their
personal lives and then consider
how the intellectual skills available
in the school might address their
goals
GETTING CHANGE PAST THE CLASSROOM DOOR
• Lary Cuban, curriculum reform returns again, again,
and again with new players repeating the failure.
• Further new knowledge regarding what is important
in effecting curriculum change is dispelling many of
our beliefs about change
Expensive Failures

Typical of the expenses of many curriculum change

efforts by outsiders is the recent account of the Annie
E. Cassey Foundation’s new Futures Initiative

The foundation gave about 40 millions over five years

and technical assistance to four cities wit the aim
altering the life chances of at risk youth

During the first 3 years, a case management system wat

established, entailing additional human resources to
serve students and contribute institutional change
Staff development was aimed at helping teacher gain
knowledge and skills to implement the proposed change.

An evaluation at the end of three years revealed that none

of the following interventions impacted curriculum and
instruction.
• Expended day (activity period)
• Incentives
• Home based guidance
• Teacher advisory program
• Early morning tutoring
Most of the interventions were not implemented or they were
implemented than abandoned.

The evaluators thought that the primary reason for the

absence of curriculum reform was the schools did not believe
that fundamental change in curriculum was needed.

Teacher believed the problem that created a-risk students

were student problem

Lary Cuban attributes such failures to uncritical reliance on

rational approaches to organize change and too much
emphasis on coordination and control.
Newer Views Of Curriculum Change
In the 1970s The Rand Change Agent Study focused
on 293 projects regarding on curriculum change.
Three findings are still regarded as today
• The nature, amount and pace of change at the
local level is product of local control beyond the
control of higher level policy makers.
• Policy cannot mandates what matters
• Although classrooms share the common features,
they differ in fundamentals way
Revision to original findings are as follows

Instead of believing that teachers initial motivation and beliefs predicts

outcomes, evidence suggest that new beliefs can follow practice.

Instead of being sceptical about the role of external change agents, there is
evidence that external consultants can be effective in stimulating and
supporting local efforts to improve practice.

Instead of believing that teacher respond to top level policy goals and
activities, we now believe the teachers give greater weights to professional
networks, school departments, colleagues and students
CONDITION CONDUCIVE TO CHANGE

Prevailing social
Imbalance exist in
change in the same
the traditional Crisis Develop
direction of
power structure
proposed change

Faculty and
Change in physical
administrator see
arrangements of the
the change benefit
institution
to their own interest
STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE

Top Down Strategies

Bottom Up Strategies

Middle Up Strategies
Top Down Strategies

• Top down strategies are technological.

• Improvements is sought by training teachers in new
techniques and holding them accountable for
following these techniques
Research and development adoption

R and D model has been popular among those concerned

with implementing curriculum throughout a region or
nation

The strategy take s programs, research, and projects from

universities, regional laboratories or others institution and
disseminates as innovative packages of material of
products.

The strategy makes use of an aide who first performs the

role of salesperson and later of trainer, teaching key school
personnel about the program so they can teach others.
Innovator, together with school leaders,
monitors and assists with problems that
arise during initial installation.

Criticism of the adoption model centers

on its lack of attention to political factors
that might interfere with acceptence
Multiple elements strategies

The newer top down

Efforts to improve strategies try to overcome
the Rand D model the limitation of “single
element change by acting
have been made by upon the organizational
giving more elements”
attention to • Social norms
political, social and • Teacher perceptions
economic factors. • Technology
Mc Laughin and Ann Libermen use three
concepts addressing teacher perceptions and
the technology
• The way teacher change as they confront
Developmentalism new ideas
• Ex: self oriented, task oriented

• The need for understanding how teachers

Participation see their work
• Ex: demonstration and observation

• Different kinds of support needed at

Support various time in the implementation process
• Ex: material and human support
Bottom Up Strategy

• Bottom up strategy of change start locally

• The change agents may attempt to get a school staff
to look at its problem and to consider options as a
means of bringing about innovation in the
curriculum or they may start with individual
teacher-innovators who contact other teacher,
forming teacher to teacher networks of change
The integrative development strategy

The strategy in the

integrative model is The step in the
to handle the strategy
immediate concerns • Help teachers identify
of teachers than problems (within the
move out of the competence of the
teacher)
classrooms, perhaps • Study the course of the
even to recognize difficulty
the school system.
Difficulties with However changes
this approach in teacher
include attitudes takes
• Lack of time time. An
• Expertise on the experimental
innovator part to altitude is
handle and relate
human relation and
especially slow to
the theory develop at first
Teacher as an agent of change
The teacher as agent of change
was proposed long ago by Hilda
Taba. She wanted curriculum
making to start by teachers
planning specific units of
instruction.

A recent demonstration of the

value of a teacher as an agent of
change is found in IMPACT II, an
experimental to teacher network.
Middle-up Startegy

• Karen Louis and Robert Dently propose a middle

road. Their strategy assumes the school to be the
appropriate unit of change as opposed to strategies
that try to introduce identical changes in all school
and strategies that focus meeting the need of
individual teachers.
• In contrast the middle up strategies is school
focused in the sense that local conditions influence
the cahange
The main elements of middle up strategies

Help staff attend to new information from the outside

Encourage teachers to consider ways to apply new information with

the idea that their cognitive understanding are changed ad develop

Facilitates the spread of new ideas by giving opportunities for the

staff to share their understanding

Stimulates diffusion of new ideas by giving information to people

both within the school and outside the school
SUGGESTION FOR SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION
THROUGH STAFF DEVELOPMENT

• Staff development is a central focus in successful

curriculum implementation.
– Intensive staff development
– Staff training
• Curriculum innovations may require a change in the
principal’s role
• Active involvement of the teachers in the
developmental process
• In order to illuminate problems that come with curriculum
implementation , one need only reflects on this
consideration
– What is the desirable number of new curriculum
installation for any one year?
– What should be the timing of installation and requisite
experience of the staff?
– Must there be agreement on humanistic, technological,
and subject matter orientations?
– What relationship between administrators and teachers
are necessary?
– In what way does a school district’s history of innovation
efforts influence the decision to innovate?
• Collaborative networks for developing ne programs
and new curriculum are increasing. Beatrice Ward
has identified four characteristics of such
collaborations.
Characterisitics Elaborations

Variety All participating agencies are potential locales for

improvement

Problem focus Efforts are focused on resolving problems that are seen as
persistent and important by all participants

Responsibility Collaboration assume responsibility for carrying out the

required research, development and evaluation

Content relevance Focuses upon change in the schools and classrooms of the
participants
INTRODUCING NEW MATERIALS INTO THE
CLASSROOM
Ronald Lippit is one of the few to show the importance
of involving pupils in the change and to specify the
aspects that lead to the greater teacher acceptance
and use of innovations.
Students use of new Teacher use of new Adoption of new
material material material
• The involvement of • To get the teacher • A curr.
the students with a use the new curr. Committee’s
new curr. need The leader need to adoption decision
internal (values, involve the teacher should include
interest and in the review, involvement of a
curiosity) and evaluation, and appropriate
external support exploration of the decision makers in
(students norms) materials a review of the
• The teacher should alternatives.
have freedom to • It is important that
explore the new adoption
skills, concepts and committees
techniques analyse the needs
for the staffs dev.
That would follow
if the materials
were adpted
 The search for Development of new
curriculum innovations materials
• In searching for new • New materials may be
ideas, curr. planners developed through the
should start with work of a team in a
homeschooling, school system, the
recognize the hidden creative efforts of a
curriculum single teacher or a
• Consider neighbouring project staff of Rand D
school system centre
• Obtain information
regarding promising
innovations
CONCLUSION

• The nature of curriculum changes effected from

both outside and inside school indicate the
continuous need to consider the value of proposed
innovations
• Decision maker should be sure that a proposed
curriculum can best served as specified group of
learners or aid general education