Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 10

Designing the Classroom Curriculum
Introduction
David Lynch, Richard Smith and Mike Howarth
This book has been designed as a key resource for the classroom teacher when designing the classroom
curriculum. This book is timely, because teachers today are under policy pressure to design teaching
programs that benefit all students in the classroom. The emphasis of the book then is on the design,
implementation and assessment of the classroom curriculum and it includes guidance on the preparation of
a plan of action for the classroom and its implementation by way of evidence-based strategies. The incorporation
of chapters focused on Technology, is a realisation of how pervasive technology is in the 2000 epoch and
having an understanding of it and an insight into how it can be harnessed for teaching and learning effect is
thus an important addition.
The term ‘curriculum’ fundamentally means a course of study. The term ‘classroom
curriculum’ can be defined as the global strategy through which the teacher aims to achieve defined learning outcomes in
all students in their classroom. The classroom curriculum is ‘detailed/outlined’ in plan form by way of a year /
term plan which is then expanded into a daily classroom plan where explicit teaching steps and the
associated content are outlined for direct teaching reference. Various ‘planning templates’ are available for
such purposes. We explore one such template in Chapter 5.
To fully appreciate the context in which the modern day teacher designs their classroom curriculum, we first
explore the premise of a changing world for key points of reference.
A Changing World and the Education Imperative
John Hattie (Hattie, 2009), in his ground breaking book ‘Visible Learning: A synthesis of Over 800 Meta-analyses
Relating to Achievement’, made the fundamental finding that teachers make the difference. To understand why such
a statement was so ground breaking is to understand that for the better part of two hundred years achieving
at school was largely viewed through the lens of ‘smart and dumb kids’--- meaning they either ‘got it’ or
they didn’t--- and it was thought that there was little the teacher could do to overcome ‘one’s pre-ordained
lot in life’. The ‘one teacher’ with ‘many students’ in a small classroom did little to encourage alternate views.
The schooling system was thus based on a student’s individual capacity to acquire higher levels of education
and designed to exit those students accordingly who couldn’t (i.e. Year 8 = into unskilled work; Year 10=
into trade based or skilled work; Year 12= into university and then into highly skilled work).
In the associated job market (circa 1800 to 1980), jobs in the main were plentiful for the unskilled, skilled
and highly skilled alike and were offered on a ‘job for life’ basis. There were few pressures on the schooling
system to question the ‘success’ or otherwise of students, nor the performance of teachers (Lynch, 2012).
In summary, to achieve at school was considered commensurate to one’s biology and to a large extent their
‘social status’. There were life-long employment options generally for those who wanted to work.
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