Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 132

Designing the Classroom Curriculum
We defined Learning Management in Chapter Four as knowledge and skills (capabilities) that enables the teacher
to achieve learning outcomes in all students . Note the emphasis is upon all students, not just those students
who find learning easy. Working on an understanding that it is what the teacher does (through teaching) that
makes the fundamental difference in the learning outcomes of students, we can appreciate that the Learning
Management agenda is one focused on the ‘improvement teaching capabilities’ (Hattie, 2009). The key
question is how does one do this? Our central point thus far has been to highlight the processes available to
guide the teacher and the role that “research engagement” can play in achieving such teaching/learning goals.
There are two important dimensions to this “key question” in a book on assessment and
reporting. The first is having a reliable set of learning performance data (i.e. the product of classroom
assessment regimes) and the second is a set of teacher capabilities that enable the teacher to make appropriate
and responsive teaching design decisions. Each dimension is inter-linked. The Learning Management Design
Process (See Chapters Three and Four) is used by teachers to design the most appropriate teaching response
(i.e. the classroom curriculum: a plan for teaching) and Learning Diagnostics to locate and remediate learning
failures (see Lynch and Smith, 2012 for more detailed information). Our key message is that the answers to
each ‘design’ or ‘diagnostic’ question are enmeshed in a process of research and the classroom assessment
regime is the source of such data. This now brings us back to the idea of classroom data being ‘useful’ or
not and how teachers can discern it.
Returning to the theme of data, we can illustrate the usefulness or not of classroom generated data by
presenting the type of data available to teachers (through assessment and other means) on a continuum.
Table 10.1 illustrates this continuum. Classroom data can be broadly classified as ‘information’, ‘assessment
data’ or ‘performance evidence’. Each increases the scope of the teacher’s analysis of data and the application
of potential of findings.
So what can we discern from Table 10.1?
In summary, data collected without the influence and guidance of achievement outcomes --- ‘information’
is of little constructive use in the modern day classroom. Wh ile it can provide context, its use has little
potency in a professional teaching context. ‘Assessment data’ compiled and presented in the context of the
teacher’s classroom curriculum, where learning outcomes are key, is useful in a formative and summative
teaching and reporting contexts but of limited use if the teacher’s professional growth and development is a
requisite or the teacher has to enact a process of diagnostics. This is because the collected data is not
referenced to external benchmarks and performance indicators and therefore subject to the teacher and their
prejudiced views of learning performance in their classroom.
From a teacher as researcher perspective, assessment data presented as ‘performance evidence’ provides a
more robust and reliable basis from which to make professional judgments and to objectively solve and
answer classroom and school based learning problems and questions of significance.
How a Teacher Can Use Research to Enhance their Teaching and Learning Outcomes
To this point in the chapter we’ve explained what is meant by research and located its meaning in a context
of teacher as researcher. Key to our explanation has been the arguing for the strategic collection of learning
based performance data --- assessment regimes --- and interrogating it by way of structured research analysis
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