Designing an Inclusive Curriculum - Term Paper Example

Education Education In education, curriculum is the set of s and their information or content offered in learning institutions such as university or high school. Inclusive curriculum means the process of creating and designing a course or program of study to reduce barriers that learners may face in accessing the curriculum. By concentrating on the main needs of a course or program, it is easy to identify some elements of the curriculum that might hinder some learners from achieving their goals. The role is to redesign the course to decrease such potential barriers. This focuses on all students who may take the course or program in future (Jones & Mahony, 1989). In this manner, the course meets the needs of the learners who do not want to reveal impairment and will help them in engaging in education to their full potential. There are different aspects that can influence access to curriculum and the real design of the curriculum. In my subject areas of mathematics and edexcel, mathematics is common since it is practical while edexcel is theoretical. In order to ensure that all learners engage in the learning process curriculum fall into particular model because it is the role of the teacher to ensure that students fully understand the content before asking them questions. This is because if the students might have not understood the lesson, it may be frustrating for both the teacher and the students, when the students fail to answer the questions asked during the lesson. It is also important for the students to understand the criteria against which their work is tested. As much as students should understand the criteria of assessment, the method of looking into each other’s scripts is however contradictory. This is because exchanging of scripts might lead to discouragement of the poorly performing students. An efficient method that could be used is the training and educating of the students on the criteria used (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000). The criteria of assessment can be shown to students by letting them know in advance, the content of the assessment. This can give them time to prepare and thus help them in understanding and improving their scores. This can also be achieved by choosing effective assessment tools that are precise and that measure the actual content learned. The tools can be comprehensive and give students details of what is required from the assessment. Through such tools, teachers can practice multiple measures, which can help them have a better understanding of the students (Gould & Lahiff, 2000). For instance, when teaching functional skills mathematics within different pathways, GSE and stage 3 students could earn marks equivalent to an additional half a GSE each. In the conservative perception, the school is a replica of cultural attitudes and values. It is seen as an institution of transmitting the cultural values and norms from one generation to the other, thus maintaining and preserving the cultural heritage for future generations. In addition, the school also helps other institutions by spotting or identifying future leaders and offering the education necessary to its destiny as a leadership cluster or group. The conservative curriculum aids to transmit the societal culture to all people and offer relevant education to the different groups in society. It incorporates the accepted general skills such as writing, arithmetic and reading found in learning institutions (Middlewood & Burton, 2005). Additionally, loyalty to the societal membership is established by the application of literature to demonstrate important cultural themes. For conservatives, history needs to be incorporated in the curriculum because it offers perspective into the evolution of the culture and its values or norms. Music and fine arts are also applied to expose learners to the cultural values. Prescribed and defined cultural norms and values are utilized to influence and shape character or behavior to follow the traditional values or norms. In some applicable instances, conservatives prefer to include behavior or character formation within religious realm. Higher and secondary education continues to nurture intellectual discipline via the study of subjects such as classical or foreign languages, science, mathematics, and native English. Conservative curriculum focuses more on the fully articulated ideology. It stresses on the continuity of education and emphasizes on the strength of the cultural heritage to influence and shape values, knowledge and character. Conservatives perceive humans as unequal in capacity and abilities, and in turn, it perceives an excellent society as one organized hierarchically. Education founded on conservative ideology is a process of cultural transmission and maintenance or preservation (Honderich, 1995). Personalized curriculum model is a curriculum in which the content, teacher, and the course of study are geared towards the learning requirement of each learner. It advocates the school to observe and monitor each student’s progress on daily basis and offer a catch up course or program for those learners whose studying is improving slowly. The government law should emphasize the idea of personalization of the school courses and the curriculum in general. The use of personalized curriculum needs the adoption of substitute pedagogical methods because it cannot be attained via conventional teaching. For instance, it needs the teacher to work as a moderator and facilitator of the learning process rather than director or instructor. Personalized curriculum advocates for negotiation or dialogue between the teacher and pupil about what to study, how to study and methods that encourage learner centered learning. In addition, the idea of personalized curriculum or personalized learning advocates for a school curriculum that advances student progression which is based on the ground that students have reached a certain stage in their learning rather than upon sequential age (Pearl & Singh, 1999). Personalized learning encourages learning institutions to be more adaptive and flexible in reacting to the different requirements and interests of learners. This is because there is a great potential of emergence of new technologies in education which calls for learner centered learning. It is significant to note that while personalized learning may take place in traditional learning contexts such as colleges, universities and schools, it advocates learning that takes place anywhere such as in the homes and community. Further, personalized learning can take place in partnership with other learners such as working together as a group to learn a certain topic (Honderich, 1995). Situational curriculum model This kind of learning advocates for learning to occur in a certain context or situation. It is good to evaluate the context in which students work and its influence on what they carry on in the curriculum. In the BTEC level, exclusive qualifications offer opportunities for learning and teaching functional mathematics skills in a vocational situation. In this sense, it is clear that for students, these vocational situations are successful background for the applied teaching and learning of mathematics. In order to encourage an inclusive practice, all students taking diploma courses must attain functional skills English, ICT and mathematics to be given diploma. Diploma requires students to attain functional skills at level one for foundation and level two for higher and advanced diploma. Cultural learning context/model In the cultural model, it is significant to highlights some key tensions that exist between the growing drive towards traditional higher education and globalization. Any implementation of measures to give value to a diverse range of global online students, while maintaining the established standards of the providers, entails an array of contradictory needs and pressures arising from rapid and interwoven new developments in language and educational, technology practice. Existence of a global learning society requires greater emphasis on the attainment of certain types of knowledge and the development of cognitive skills that would be influential for the dynamic employability of the employee, for faster economic development and the amassing of wealth, and for global and national prosperity. This is a movement away from concern with liberal and cultural humanistic facet of university and schooling education. Imperialism combined the mixture of identities and culture on a global scale, but its most practical and worst gift was the allowance of people in the globe to believe that they were only, exclusively, majorly, oriental, white, western, or black. This is what brought about the differences (Honderich, 1995). Cultural globalization may well be a positive movement in encouraging inclusive education. In order to understand the cultural learning model, it is significant to use the Tipton’s fourfold analysis of culture in consideration to the main virtue that underpins the same culture. Obedience to moral authority (authoritative), rationality in enacting and discerning moral principles (regular), efficiency in the maximization of the satisfaction of people’s needs (consequential) and sensitivity of situational response and feeling (expressive) (Middlewood & Burton, 2005). Global universities are faced with the choice between continuing to expect all students to adjust to traditional English-western academic values and uses of language, and varying their course of action to have room for others. Learners experiences, expectations and beliefs about different aspects of culture such as interaction patterns, roles, goals and outcomes of behaviors, have not sufficiently informed either our pedagogy or our modes of assessment when learning mathematics (Middlewood & Burton, 2005). Consequently, this paper is timely and full of clear distinctive points over cross-cultural issues that show the distinctions in linguistic and pedagogic cultures and the hidden international tribulations that globalization of education tries to create. Learning should not be moderated by English-western standards that give high value to vitality as well as Standard English. This is because it brings about the extension of imperialism. By imperialism, it means there will be many conflicts created causing unfairness to finding the reality about what students all over the world understand. Global universities should change their processes to accommodate students from all cultural backgrounds, perhaps moving towards workplace and lifelong learning demands for education that is credit-worthy for experiential rather than academic reasons. With the use of modern technology in education, the best way to handle cross-cultural issues can be found (Hall & Marsh, 2000). Inclusive curriculum The diversity of the learner’s population is rapidly increasing with broader proportions of disabled learners and international learners entering higher education annually. This raised diversity allied with roles placed on learning institutions to fulfill learner’s goals, call for inclusive teaching and curriculum evaluation methods in order to ensure that all learners are in a position to experience success in education and attain their full potential. Inclusive approach in learning implies that learner entitlement have been drafted into activities and plan from the outset. Inclusion in education does not mean there should be lowering of the standards of education (Middlewood & Burton, 2005). Instead, it advocates for a change in the manner that students work. When considering inclusion and diversity in education, it is rational to include areas that are covered by laws such as sexual orientation, race, disability, age, gender, and religion. An inclusive curriculum not only tackle group of learners who are covered by the law, but also permits flexibility to hold matters that can potentially be experienced by a larger group of learners. Good practice for disabled or challenged learners is good practice for all students when learning mathematics skills at different level of education (Pearl & Singh, 1999). In inclusive curriculum in mathematics and edexcel, students should be able to assess their own performance on their own depending on the goals they have set for themselves because they are accorded the same treatment in classroom. Inclusive curriculum also encourages self-assessment of the students can be connected to using detailed and comprehensive assessment tools such as rubric. Providing such a tool can lead to students, having the ability to assess themselves and others because they know what is required in the assessment. The curriculum takes into account different cultures, class distinctions, local context, employment needs, and language ability. The context of my curricula is Adult and Community Learning because of the complexity involved in learning some concepts (Pearl & Singh, 1999). In conclusion, inclusive curriculum practice in education is very significant in ensuring that everybody in the world can access education. Different educational ideologies have different ideologies regarding the type of curriculum that learning institutions should adopt. In my curricula, it does not discriminate any person based on race, gender, disability, or religion. Instead, it calls for inclusiveness in learning where students can learn and share information on various topics. References Gillborn, D. & Mirza, H. (2000). Educational Inequality: Mapping race, class and gender – a synthesis of research evidence. London: Ofsted. Gould, M & Lahiff, A. (2000). Equality, Participation & Inclusive Learning. London: Greenwich University Press. Hall, L & Marsh, K. (2000). Professionalism, Policies and Values. London: Greenwich University Press. Read More