Instructional and Learning Strategies in the Curriculum
Cycle two Education is designed to prepare students in grades 6 to 9 for the future, helping them become full-fledged society members. Cycle two English language curriculum includes different techniques that teachers should apply in class to develop students’ abilities and skills by encouraging them to learn in a student-centered environment. Thus, ADEC’s goal is to make learner-centered classes and to emphasize their role in the educational process.
Learning strategies in the curriculum have specific objectives to apply the newly acquired skills. One of these strategies is the inquiry-based cognitive approach that helps students develop lifelong learning skills. This pedagogical approach is to be implemented throughout grades 6-9, when students will spend most of their time studying the English language. They will learn through hands-on experiences and opportunities coupled with a variety of age-appropriate literacy resources.
Moreover, children will be engaged in active learning experiences and immersed in a print-rich environment. They will participate in a wide range of literacy activities: e.g., reading aloud, independent, guided and shared reading, and writing. Also, all students will take part in conversations and classroom discussions and contextualized experiences (ADEC, n.d.).
Cycle two teachers are required to integrate different subjects. For this purpose, they meet to plan their lessons in the PLC meetings. For example, grade seven science teacher in trimester one is going to teach the digestive system. In contrast, the English language teacher is expected to connect the digestive system to his/her healthy lifestyle theme. ADEC teachers follow the vision and mission of ADEC, which implies that they use 21st-century skills when planning lessons.
Lessons are structured using Bloom’s taxonomy that includes experimenting, analyzing, evaluation, and creation. Students in grade 8 English reading, for example, will analyze the cause-and-effect of a community helper job or identify and analyze visual elements such as pictures, maps, graphs, charts, tables, comic strips, and photographs within a print text to discern meaning. In science, they will experiment and discover the results of this experiment. In both scenarios, they will evaluate their work and other students’ work.
Scope of Diversity in the Curriculum
According to Piaget’s cognitive development description in terms of stages from birth to maturity, cycle two students are in the formal operation stage (ages eleven and up). It means that few or no limitations on the content of learning depend exclusively on students’ intellectual potential and environmental experiences. They can analyze ideas, evaluate data, formulate hypotheses, assume possible consequences, and reach conclusions without direct experience in the subject. Therefore, it allows to state that ADEC is adopting a learner-centered approach to learning (Ornstein & Francis, 2012, p. 121).
Cycle two English curriculum does not differentiate students by gender or race. Yet, it addresses multiple intelligence. Howard Gardner outlines eight types of intelligence, including verbal, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Those students who have high interpersonal intelligence communicate effectively and easily with others and often enjoy discussion and debate. Thus, group work is an essential part of their learning.
On the contrary, students with developed intrapersonal intelligence tend to work individually. ADEC’s curriculum considers both types, also stressing the importance of verbal intelligence through students’ project presentations and discussions. (Ornstein & Francis, 2012, p. 126)
In constructivism, the learner plays the main role. He/she participates in generating meaning or understanding. He/she cannot just passively receive the information by copying other people’s conclusions or words. We can see this in the exploration, discovery, and experimentation strategies. That is why teachers also plan different instruction levels to make sure that each learner is actively contributing to the learning process.
ADEC aims to provide special needs students with a high-quality education, yet it would be a great opportunity for such students if they can have a special needs teacher that teaches English, math, and science. ADEC created a plan that facilitates learning for special needs students and offers appropriate programs for them in Arabic. It integrated students with intellectual disability, specific learning disability, autism, speech and language disorder in private and public schools. (ADEC, 2013), (ADEC, n.d.).
Use of Technology
The use of technology is highly encouraged in the curriculum. As ADEC states, the process of learning has completely changed in the last 40 years, so the current education system needs to be aligned with it. E-Learning strategies are implemented in the curriculum, as well as other use of technology during listening and reading tasks, doing which students will receive relevant information through various media (the Internet, TV news, etc.). For more details about curriculum books for cycle two and the ways it aims to develop learning by using technologies, see Appendix G.
Assessment
Internal Assessments
Students will pass various tests by the end of each term that will show the language level they have achieved. The assessment provides various criteria that the students need to consider. Depending on the student’s performance, his/her language skill can be labeled as ‘mastered,’ ‘developing,’ and ’emerging.’
The ECART framework (English Continuous Assessment Rich Task) is also used during the learning process. It outlines specific themes and topics for each trimester and stresses the importance of teachers’ feedback to the students (ADEC, n.d.).
External Assessments
The National Assessment Program focuses on curriculum development and teacher development; it collects the data and provides it to the Ministry of Education in order to evaluate the education system’s efficiency (Egbert, 2012). Another type of external assessment is exercised by the External Measure of Student Achievement (ESMA) that measures students’ performance through a set of standardized tests featuring English reading and English writing as the essential parts of the assessment. (ADEC, n.d.)
Assessment Benchmarks
Assessment benchmarks are various and depend on the section of the subject. For example, the strategy of summarizing is assessed by the teacher in the ‘speaking and listening’ tasks, while the strategy of questioning and making connections is significant for reading comprehension. By the end of each trimester, a test is conducted where students’ performance is measured according to the assessment criteria.
Assessment’s Alignment with the Standards
Both types of assessment are aligned with the standards presented by ADEC. While one of the major aims of the curriculum is to prepare students for real-life events and situations that can require English, it is important to notice that this approach is also going to help students in their future careers. Such results are expected by the Abu Dhabi Vision 2030, the strategy implemented by the UAE government (ADEC, n.d.).
Curriculum Review and Reform Cycle
Curriculum review and reform are types of evaluation processes that presuppose looking at data to build a change or develop weak areas. Evaluation can be defined differently, but in most general terms, it implies gathering data to make decisions. (Ornstein & Francis, 2012, p. 278) In ADEC, curriculum, standards, and assessment are critical components of education system development and reform (ADEC, 2010).
The curriculum department is the place for making decisions related to the development process of the curriculum. The 2013 academic year witnessed a qualitative leap in some curricula that have been developed by ADEC’s Curriculum Department (ADEC, 2013).
In 2016, ADEC organized a workshop on the development of local content curriculum in collaboration with 42 local entities represented by 92 members. The workshop was aimed to present their programs and topics, which can be included in different frameworks over the next three years (ADEC, 2016).
Continuous curriculum revision ensures that standards and materials remain current and applicable. It is a four-step process that should be repeated in a continuous cycle to accommodate changing needs every 3-5 years. In details, curriculum revision is explained in the appendix (see Appendix H ).
Internal Review and Validity of the Curriculum
The results of the assessment measure the validity of the curriculum during the school year and present the data drawn from these assessments. Related to the UAE school inspection framework, the result of internal assessments is linked to the curriculum’s subject. It shows if the students’ progress is valid if they are out of standing. It is aimed to prove that the curriculum is valid, reliable, and provides comprehensive information, which is used to ensure that students’ progress with the school’s curriculum is aligned with standards and expectations (ADEC, 2016, pp. 56-58).
To evaluate the internal validity, ADEC engages parents, students, teachers, school principals, and the ADEC team by distributing online surveys (See Appendix I) (ADEC, 2014). This is a type of humanistic approach, where values, traditions, and cultural beliefs are considered.
External Review and Validity of the Curriculum
External review is measured by the quality of external assessments and students’ progress. It is meant to identify if the results manage to meet national and international standards (ADEC, 2016, pp. 24-28).
EMSA summarized the results of students’ achievements between 2009 -2015 in English (reading and writing skills). It showed how different grades gradually increase the results of data and how learners improved in reading. However, in English writing skills, the results between 2014 and 2015 for all grades have remained stable. These results give us evidence about the process of ADEC in measuring the validity of the curriculum (Freeman & Eveleigh, 2015).
Also, there is another type of external evaluation allowing to keep on checking the validity of curriculum and reform the weaknesses of ADEC schools. It gives consultation to the school, and its members are external expert reviewers. Irtiqa’a program is looking for high-quality education and aims to identify levels of performance quality in schools, to provide clear recommendations that would allow improvement, to inform policy-making at the sector level, and to emphasize the importance of sharing the best practices between schools and the exchange of professional expertise. Irtiqa’a is working with all schools in order to find what is good and to help with what can be improved (ADEC, 2012). The fact that ADEC uses data from EMSA and Irtiqa’a proves that a scientific approach is applied as ADEC studies the validity of schools by looking at statistical numbers and evidence.
Human and Financial Resources
The Effectiveness of Human Resources
To implement the curriculum successfully, human resources need to correspond to the assigned tasks. According to the ADEC’s plan, education advisors will be employed to support English teachers and present international practices (ADEC, 2016).
Moreover, licensed teachers from English-speaking countries will also be employed by ADEC schools to ascertain the high quality of education. In-service teacher professional development is vital to keep teachers’ knowledge and skills up-to-date as well as to contribute to the social and relational aspects of teaching. It can take many forms, such as content courses, sharing information and strategies, and monitoring programs that pair more experienced teachers with new ones. Moreover, teachers must pass an exam and provide a portfolio of evidence to be able to teach in the UAE. The program will be rolled out nationwide in 2021.
UAE is trying to ensure a high-quality education for its students, which means that teachers’ and staff quality is very important to students learning and success. That is why expert staff like teachers, principals, and supervisors are selected carefully by ADEC to ensure better school performance (ADEC, 2016).
Effectiveness of Financial Resources
In 2013, ADEC won an award for the best government entity at the financial level in the 3rd cycle. Its budget is one of the largest budgets in Abu Dhabi. This was achieved due to implementing the best practices in financial planning and budgeting through financial management (ADEC, 2015).
Therefore, this process is also based on Abu Dhabi Department of Finance policies and directions. ADEC worked on transforming the financial system from a cash basis to an accrual basis. Yet, ADEC is preparing for the possible budget reduction due to the decree of the government budget and the plummeting of oil. ADEC achieved minimal variation rates compared to the assigned budget. The results of the indicators of achieving the strategic objectives of the Finance Division over the past three years were excellent (ADEC, 2015).
ADEC owns contracts with specialized companies and suppliers of certain resources such as furniture, electric appliances, and books, where those items are supplied to schools directly; nevertheless, there is a temporary storage of some resources and books in the warehouses obtained through closed edifices (ADEC, 2015).
ADEC guarantees free transportation to all students from Kg – 12 grades. It is possible due to the agreement with Emirates Transportation Institute to provide advanced buses with safety supervisors in kindergarten and first stage students to ensure that they are watching and keeping them safe during their presence in buses (ADEC, n.d.).
The maintenance at ADEC schools is done by Musanada that has contractors and companies specialized in maintenance management. Thus, ADEC has no spare parts or stock management department (ADEC, 2015).
References
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EDB. (n.d.). Web.
Egbert, A. (2012). A clearer picture: national and international testing in the UAE. International Developments, 2(2), 1-6.
Freeman, C. (2014). Web.
Freeman, C., & Eveleigh, F. (2015). Web.
Great Schools Partnership. (2014). The glossary of education reform. Retrieved from Learning Standards: The Great Schools Partnership.
Harris, D. E., & Carr, J. F. (1996). How to use standards in the classroom. USA: ASCD.
Law, F. (2005). Speech at Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Web.
Ornstein, A. C., & Francis, H. P. (2012). Curriculum; foundations, principles, and issues, 6th ed. (Vol. 27(4)). Reference and Research Book News.