Curriculum Overload: Key Features by Kairat Kurakbayev

totykusbagdaulet1 — 2024-04-08 10:53:53 UTC

new content items in the curriculum as a response to new societal demands or pressure from lobby groups

manggytay4 — 2024-04-10 05:40:49 UTC

adds new content without proper consideration of what needs to be removed

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unrealistic expectations for retaining both breadth and depth of content within the allotted space and time.

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the excessive amount of content to

be taught and learned in relation to the time available for instruction (Boersma, 2001[23]) .

nu2024 — 2024-04-10 05:42:18 UTC

Excessive number of subjects and/or topics per subject within the allotted time

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studying fewer topics in greater depth helps students to develop richer understanding and higher-order thinking that can be transferred beyond specific subjects to new learning areas and new problems

Key words

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Over-prioritisation of some subjects, academic and non-academic subjects, instruction time is limited

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A poorly designed curriculum that lacks clear structure and coherence can increase the sense of content overload .

Example: the implementation of Global competencies and "ОПиБ" into the school curriculum

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Solution

totykusbagdaulet1 — 2024-04-10 05:43:24 UTC

Adding new topics within existing subjects is a policy alternative to adding new subjects

Number of subjects/topics

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Teachers may perceive there are too many topics to teach, thus the pressure.

For students, they will have shallow learning

Examples

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UNT

Over-prioritisation of subjects for high-stakes exams. More time is given only for subjects from UNT.

Academic/ non-academic subjects

Over-prioritisation of academic subjects over non-academic, like maths over arts and physical education.

Not revising the whole curriculum

When curriculum elements are prioritised or reprioritised without sufficient consideration of what content should be removed or replaced, the curriculum can lose its overall balance.

2024-04-10 05:44:35 UTC

Project-based learning, where students solve real-world problems or participate in group projects, can improve learning and attitudes through the group-oriented nature of the work. While various approaches can be used to facilitate learning, project-based learning is often more relevant and effective at engaging students, although there is no conclusive evidence on the impact of such practices on actual learning outcomes.

New Zealand

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“key concepts” and “facts and procedural knowledge”

Subject-specific content is not mandated, although key topics and focus areas are identified.

prioritizing some topics as key concepts in a crowded curriculum

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challenges: unchanged teaching time, no proper teacher training, funding

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When introducing new content in a curriculum, attention should be given to sequencing the new topics, considering students' stress or boredom.

disconnected factual knowledge towards more holistic

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conceptual understanding

Without a framework, curriculum committees at each different

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level of education are likely to make decisions considering the age group specific to that level. This often results in fragmentation,

redundancies and inconsistency of topics across levels of education.

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To address curriculum overload, strategies include redefining learning goals by learning stages rather than grades, such as primary or secondary cycle, achievement levels, or other factors such as discipline or complexity.

Size of curriculum, textbooks, learning materials, homework

2024-04-10 05:47:25 UTC

when the curriculum is overloaded or textbooks are not appropriately modified, teachers can be frustrated and students overwhelmed. Too much homework that is not explained well or does not have clear links to course material, can be boring, demotivating, and ineffective in helping learning. Also, textbooks may have cultural bias and unadapted to the local people

Frequency, focus and type of assessment

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As the world strives to use non-standard ways to assess the students to have multifaceted approach, this can be overwhelming to do.

In addition, students who want to have stable grades would not do their best when having formative and non-graded tasks

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Curriculum that is primarily built on the priorities of subject areas rather than on what is developmentally appropriate is likely to overlook grade-level transitions and could allow repetition to persist without considering or assessing the needs of students. Students may experience a decreased sense of self-efficacy, along with negative attributions to explain failure in the face of new learning.

Lack of readiness for reform (reform fatigue)

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Busy teachers may not find the time to review such long documents and fully understand the new curriculum. They may become dismissive of the latest reform, preferring instead to resort to their previous classroom practices and lesson plans as something more feasible and long-standing. They may quickly lose interest in better understanding the new curriculum and discount it as one more transitory reform cycle that is likely to be short-lived.

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Compromising students’ well-being with excessive learning hours or excessive homework is also a common challenge when addressing curriculum overload

factors affecting imbalance

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social and political agenda

high-stakes national

state examinations

international assessments

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Of their working time, teachers only spend an average of 53% on teaching (Figure 9).