Transcript A New Perspective In Curriculum Orientation

A New Perspective In
Curriculum Orientation
A Synthesis in Social Work Education
Dr. Wilfred A. Gallant
Outline
 Quality
of teaching and
learning today
 Curriculum debate
 Five major curriculum
orientations
 Understanding model of
teaching and learning
Outline
 Androgogical approach to
adult education
 Educational content and
process
 Eclectic approach to
teaching and learning
Understanding Model
Professor as
Committed Teacher
 Empathetic
 Fosters Openness
 Provides Wisdom
 Provides Insight
Student as
Invested Learner
 Receptive
 Open to learning
 Accepts wisdom’
 Responds to insight
Symbiotic Relationship
Three Dimensions of
Teaching and Learning
Three Educational Dimensions
of Teaching, Feeling, and Doing
Role of education in the growth process
 Knowledge internalized and transformed
 Alleviating unfavorable conditions
 Development of a more professional
stance
 Shift in ‘thinking’ ‘feeling’ and ‘doing’
 Knowledge + Process = Key Ingredients
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Symbolic Transformation
Knowledge transformed into skill
 Involves:
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Perceiving - new data in environment
 Ideating - discussion of perceptions
 Presenting - testing ideas with others
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Results in understanding, integration,
and operationalizing
Smith, Goodman and Meredith
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Perceiving
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First contact is through the
senses where student
receives new data
Distortion calls for
confrontation
Smith, Goodman and Meredith
Ideating
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Intellect and feeling
dimension are stimulated
The teacher provides a
stimulating environment
Smith, Goodman and Meredith
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Presenting
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Symbolically representing
one’s own terms and
concepts to others
Rothman and Towle
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Thinking
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Feeling
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Knowing Social Work
Knowledge, Values, Attitudes, and Skills
False interpretations call for appropriate information on behalf of
teacher
Emotional development of student
Individualized learning and energy level
Teacher provides for student growth by reducing the ego’s
mechanism of defense and emotional blocks to learning
Doing
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Using the knowledge, skills and values of social work and testing
these for practical use in the classroom teaching/learning practice
component
Rothman and Towle
Thinking
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Knowing Social Work
Knowledge, Values, Attitudes,
and Skills
False interpretations call for
appropriate information on
behalf of teacher
Rothman and Towle
 Feeling
 Emotional development of student
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Individualized learning and energy level
Teacher provides for student growth by
reducing the ego’s mechanism of
defense and emotional blocks to learning
Rothman and Towle
Doing
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Using the knowledge, skills and
values of social work and testing
these for practical use in the
classroom teaching/learning
practice component
Gallant
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Understanding
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Integrating
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Course content and Classroom material
Uniqueness of Teacher
Uniqueness of Student
Misunderstanding and intellectual blocks call for representing
content and facilitating cognitive resistance to learning new material
Personalized learning
Pulling together the knowledge gained
Teacher provides optimal opportunity for meaningful process to
occur
Operationalizing
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Effectively putting into practice the knowledge, values and skills of
social work practice uniquely learned in the supportive
teaching/learning environment
Addressing Classroom
Tension
Teacher
 Recognize anxiety in
student
 Practices sensitivity
 Becomes a counselor
 Attends to student
anger
 Attends to emotional
blocking
Student
 Gains security and
confidence
 Trusts the teacher
 Able to internalize
knowledge
 Able to identify with
and relate to clients
Androgyny
The teaching of adults in higher
education
 Malcolm Knowles (1972)
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Changes in Self-Concept
 Role of Experience
 Readiness to Learn
 Orientation to Learning
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Eisner
Developer of curriculum programs
 Curriculum development is practical and
artistic
 Curriculums should be open to change
 Educational connoisseurship
 Educational criticism
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Five Orientations
Cognitive Processes
 Academic Rationalism
 Self-Actualization or Personal
Relevance
 Social Adaptation or Social
Reconstruction
 Curriculum of Technology
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Cognitive Processes
Possession of information
 Comprehension
 Application
 Analysis
 Synthesis
 Evaluation
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Academic Rationalism
Knowledge is acquired through the
senses
 Values intellect
 Concerned with social order and justice
 Deals with ethical and normative
determinants
 Prepares learners to serve society
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Self-Actualization
Experience as a prerequisite for
learning
 Active learning
 Students as active participants
 Dynamic teacher-student relationship
 Student diary keeping
 Teacher provides rich environment
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Social Adaptation/Reconstruction
Based on social needs
 Most allied with social work and social
welfare
 Curriculum is structured to meet
students’ needs in relation to societal
problems
 Students learn to critically evaluate
 Curriculum is vehicle to remedying
social problems
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Curriculum of Technology
Relates means to ends
 Determines:
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Purposes and objective of curriculum
 the developmental processes it wishes to
promote
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Learning is sequential
 Learning is student reliant
 Creates co-operative community of
learners
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WHAT IS YOUR OWN
ORIENTATION?
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Curriculum profile developed by Patrick Babin
Illustrates level at which one uses the five
orientations in their own teaching practice
Allows teacher to determine their own
orientation relative to content, goals, and
organization of the curriculum
Consists of 57 questions rated on a Likert
scale
Creative Synthesis of
Orientations
Improvement of teaching can be
facilitated by integration and synthesis
of orientations
 Eclectic curriculum orientation:
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combining tenets of teaching philosophies
Use of modified aspects of the five
orientations to curriculum
Eclectic Incorporation
Five ideologies are rarely used
independently
 Ideologies are usually a mix with one
dominating over the others
 Curriculum orientations are based on
one’s own practice
 Teacher adopts or applies what they
consider useful or facilitative to teaching
and learning
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A Personal Orientation
An attempt to integrate various teaching
and learning approaches
 Principles taken from Freud, Adler,
Frankly, Curran, Maslow, Shostrom,
Egan, and Carhuff and Berenson
 Focus is on experiential learning and
classroom practices
 Students are encouraged to be active
participants
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My Mix of Teaching Philosophies
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Freud
Adler
Frankel
Sullivan
Shulman
Eisner
Maslow
Carkhuff and
Berenson
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Learning pleasurable
Student empowerment
Student integration
Consensual validation
Symbiotic relationship
Logical discovery
Self-Discovery
Teaching Humanism
Student Responses
What do students say about my
curriculum?
 Following each class students write
comments about the teaching/learning
experience
 Students are invited to make
suggestions
 In final class, students are given a
questionnaire
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Favorable Feedback
“It kept my interest alive and really
made me think and learn”
 “We were challenged to take a good,
hard, honest look at ourselves and to
recognize areas which required our
attention”
 “It made me take responsibility for
myself, and not leaving the onus on the
teacher”
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Continued . . .
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“The
class has provided me with
a deeper awareness of the
dynamics which occur in human
interaction, and has given me a
stronger ‘skill’ base for effective
intervention”
Continued . . .
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“I am use to sitting and taking note after
note while listening to the teacher
ramble on about something which is
supposed to have relevance. This class
challenged us to think ‘outside the box’,
to be creative and to be expressive of
our true selves”
Less Favorable Feedback
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“Too
structured; expectations too
high”
 “Too
risky to respond in front of all
the other students because it will
be looked upon by other students
as patronizing the professor”
Less Favorable Feedback
 “I
know what you’re doing in
terms of teaching within a
holistic context, nonetheless,
we have twenty years of hardnosed ‘traditional schooling’
behind us which hampers our
movement”
Suggestions for Educators
 Critically
examine personal
teaching orientations
 Determine the impact on
students learning
 Evaluate the effectiveness of
eclectic approach
Suggestions for Educators
 Monitor
reactions of students to
curriculum
 Be
willing to adopt new
techniques and processes
Concluding Remarks
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SPARK a renewed interest in curriculum
building
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ADOPT more encompassing orientation
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ENCOURAGE a re-examination of
personal teaching style
Continued . . .
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Better understanding of adrogogical
approach
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Student learning as most important
outcome
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Fresh and innovative humanistic
approach
Alfred North Whitehead
“No matter what approach we
responsibly take in our legitimate
attempt to teach students,
‘the joy is in the journey’”