The “Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum” is a document that defines the primary aims, streams, and principals of education in British Columbia. It provides the definitions of the base academic terms and notions, such as an “educated citizen,” “personalized learning,” and others (“Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum” 2). One of its primary purposes is to improve the learning process by determining the key educational competencies. The document offers a new curriculum model that includes three aspects: concepts, competencies, and ideas.
One can also find the recommended approaches and references for the extra curriculum data. The document suggests a number of programs that are advised to be applied to the particular students’ groups. Furthermore, it provides a detailed safety guideline. A special emphasis is made on the Aboriginal students and their integration into the common educational process. Therefore, the “Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum” helps one receive a better idea of the educational process in British Columbia, its main targets, and peculiarities. The curriculum under discussion is a redesigned version of an already existing document; it does not include particular course descriptions but provides a summary of the educational process in general. The curriculum is of regulative character.
The “Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum” was worked out by the Ministry of Education in 2015. The reason for creating a new curriculum is a constantly changing social environment that puts new challenges in front of the educational process. Therefore, it was decided to form a group of specialists that would comprise high-quality teachers, commissioned researchers, and curriculum authorities in order to work out a document that would consider all the aspects vital for the learning process model.
One of the main concerns was to focus on the significance of personalized learning and the most efficient ways of its provision. As far as the document has a separate paragraph devoted to the description of the integration of Aboriginal students into the learning process, Aboriginal teachers were also consulted while preparing the documents contents. The redesigned variant provides a more detailed and focused summary of the key educational concepts and denotes the further perspectives precisely.
If one performs the analysis of the “Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum” by unpacking it into components, it will become evident that the document is well-organized and logically-structured. First of all, the introductory sector includes an aim statement that is of great significance both for students and teachers (Jansen and Vijay 5). Secondly, the first part of the curriculum provides the definition of the applied educational terms so as to facilitate further reading and to avoid ambiguous interpretation. Moreover, the document is briefly put; it is not overloaded with unnecessary details; it offers links to all the sources that might interest the reader.
Most importantly, teachers are likely to find all the information they need for creating a favorable learning environment so that the document can serve as a safe and valid base for their actions (Beyer and Michael 51). One of the strongest points about the curriculum is its new efficient model that relies on the “Know-Do-Understand” concept (“Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum” 3). However, one can also point out its weak point – the curriculum gives little attention to the technologies’ integration aspect.
Although the curriculum under discussion does not require significant improvements, several allowances can be made. First of all, it has already been noted that the issue of technologies’ application to the educational process is neglected. However, one should have enlightened this field as it is a significant problem in the modern world. As far as the curriculum has a regulative character, its contents should denote that the integration of interactive technologies is highly recommended, so as to encourage teachers to use them (Carl 98).
Moreover, despite the fact that some definitions are represented at the beginning of the document, the meaning of other notions is frequently revealed right in the text that distracts the reader from understanding the fundamental idea. This fact assigns a narrative character to the curriculum that is an essential drawback (Castañeda 4). Therefore, one can suggest organizing a little glossary either at the beginning or at the end of the curriculum that would include all the terms the interpretation of which requires specification.
Works Cited
Beyer, Landon, and Michael Apple. The Curriculum: Problems, Politics, and Possibilities, Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1998. Print.
Carl, Arend E. Teacher Empowerment through Curriculum Development: Theory Into Practice, Cape Town, South Africa: Juta and Company, 2009. Print.
Castañeda, Linda J. n.d. e-Learning in Higher Education: Searching for a Model of Curriculum Analysis. Web.
Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum 2015. Web.
Jansen, Jonathan D., and Vijay Reddy. n.d. Curriculum Analysis. Web.