Curriculum Alignment Essay Example for Free

Curriculum Alignment Essay Curriculum development process are steps and processes where by educational contents are designed, learning activities are specified and evaluation methods are devised in schools. Pugach, M. C. (1996). These are broken down into various subjects that are taught in schools in different classes (grades). In line with this; students’ needs in learning are catered for and should be kept with international standards. The curriculum should be able to promote the learning development and assess the students’ performances. We all are aware that there is no particular effective teaching method but the following instructional methods for a teacher should be used. The teacher’s presentation skills, should explain to the students what is expected of them. In teaching, the teacher should not show distracting manners. The teacher should take instructional levels are into account. In creating a lesson plan for a class the teacher should provide an overview of the lesson, link the lesson to the past session and outline the main points of the lesson this can form an introduction of the lesson. The body of the lesson should be broken into various activities and the lesson should have a conclusion which should state the main points of the lesson and create a link to the next lesson. For example a lesson in problem solving can be taught in grade 3. The lesson outline will ask the student; to name and explain problems that occur in the classroom, in the school or in the family, explain how one makes a choice and accept responsibility and enumerate factors that one considers before making a decision. Also in development a curriculum, the teacher needs to consider the development level of students. Development relates to behavior, which means; the conduct of a student and how he/she relates to others in the social circles. In considering developmental level such as those of children in Kindergarten the curriculum will have to address and include social and emotional lessons in accordance with the child’s developmental level. Therefore, in designing the curriculum questions will be asked in relation on how the child relates internally and externally. There are many ways was that a kindergarten child can be taught pertaining development. For example, a Kindergarten class can have a lesson on drawing of pictures or the teacher can ask them to articulate themselves using dolls/ and puppets. This lesson will teach them creativity. In development of curriculum, special attention has to be taken in regard to special needs of students. Students with disabilities such as those with impaired eyesight need special attention. As opposed to traditional methods where segregating and arranging students based on their abilities was used, today, new ways have come up. In tackling the problem of visual impairments, according to Armstrong (1994), the teacher will be required to develop multi-level and have different instructional ways of teaching such students. For example to teach the visual impaired students, the teacher will have to design charts with specific colors, objects, and shapes to test the perception of the student. The teacher should also test the ability of the student to differentiate 26 alphabetical by teaching the visual impaired skills to identify visual elements of letters. This will be able to benefit the visual impaired. We find that schools are normally structured according to grade levels, and teachers teach using same materials without regard of students’ differences in terms of their levels of understanding and functioning. Cole, R. (1995). Thus, instead of developing a curriculum that is narrow and don’t address this issue, a curriculum which is all inclusive putting in mind students’ differences in terms of learning abilities should be developed. So, an effective curriculum should address these issues; it should ensure a teacher plans lessons for several levels, which test students’ ability at the each level. For 5th grade that have both accomplished and emerging readers, the curriculum should address the reading aspect in regard to various abilities in reading. When preparing a reading lesson in a class with various students a teacher should pay special attention on extensive experiences of the students. The teacher also should select various levels of difficulty in the selected reading lesson to cater for the different students’ ability. The lesson should provide slots for students to read a loud and the teacher should also read to students. The instructions methods of the teacher should also explain vocabularies used in the text and any other techniques used. For example, to assist the students understand what they have read the teacher can encourage them to have a group discussion. Another example of a lesson that can be taught in 5th grade, the teacher can teach use of prefixes e. g. , â€Å"Re† as used in â€Å"reproduce, review rename. † The lesson will can also include language competence in general, student’s ability to differentiate between which words are verbs and which are not, and how to segment and mix language sounds. I n addition informal lessons will be included. This will involve, reading aloud in class to allow the teacher to know mistakes in decoding, and be able to establish the student’s level of fluency and accuracy in reading. The main aim of any curriculum development is to ensure that, the student is able to achieve academic excellence Daniels, H (1998). This will enable the teacher to asses the student’s performance in major areas which are mathematics, reading abilities, and writing skills. Though, standardized tests may not reflect a true picture of the standards it gives a general picture of student performance. In assessing students’ ability in mathematics, which is a study of figures and how they relate and other computations, student’s capacity in arithmetic, and application have to be tested. So the curriculum should be able to asses the learner’s ability analyzing student’s class work, and teach the student on how to sum numbers and subtract them, and how a student can be able to tell an error in summation or subtraction. Further more, the students can be given tasks to perform and shown steps to follow in problem solving. Conclusion Curriculum development and design is very important as what the students is taught at school greatly affects him/her in his future career development. Therefore it must be careful planned and must have a holistic approach in order to address the various disparities of students in terms of physical, emotional and mental abilities. A curriculum needs to reflect the objectives of education and have proper assessments methods to evaluate the students understanding and development as he/she moves from one grade to another. References Armstrong, T. (1994): Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Cole, R. (Ed. ). (1995): Educating everybody’s children: Diverse teaching strategies for diverse learners. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Daniels, H. and Bizar, M. (1998): Methods that matter: Six structures for best practice classrooms. York, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers. Orkwis, R. and McLane, K. (1998): A curriculum every student can use: Design principles for student access. Reston, Virginia: Council for Exceptional Children. Pugach, M. C. and Warger, C. L. (Eds. ) (1996): Curriculum trends, special education, and reform: Refocusing the conversation. New York: Teachers College Press. Tomlinson, C. (1999): The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.