Designing A Curriculum Effectively

       A fundamental demonstration of our calling is the making of educational programs and learning encounters to meet indicated reason. Students are our basically customers, given that the adequacy of educational programs, evaluation, and instructional plans is at last controlled by their accomplishment of wanted learning. Our course product is intended to make adapting more successful; similarly as PC programming is proposed to make its clients more beneficial.

     Teachers are not allowed to instruct any point they pick by any methods. Rather, they are guided by national, state, area, or institutional standards that particularly what students should know and have the capacity to do. These standards give a valuable system to enable us to recognize educating and learning needs and guide our outline of curriculum and assessments.

     The backward design is the approach for planning an efficient educational system, following the UbD (understanding by design) system for further work and understandings, and to avoid the twin sins of traditional design. This design contains three stages; the teacher must firstly identify the desired results, then determine the acceptable evidence, and finally plan the learning experiences and instruction.

    According to the Lebanese Ministry of Education, the objectives of the Lebanese science curriculum come as follows:

1. • Develop the learners' intellectual and practical scientific skills.
2. • Deepen the learner’s awareness in the ability of humans to understand, invent, and create.
3.  • Understand the nature of science and technology, their development across history, and their impact on human thought.
4. • Insure that learners have acquired the facts, concepts, and principles necessary to understand natural phenomena.
5.  • Motivate students to apply basic scientific principles in all sciences.
6. • Explain the scientific concepts and principles behind commonly used machines and devices
7. • Acquire knowledge about health, environment, and safety practices and behave accordingly.
8. • Realize that some natural resources can be depleted and make the learner aware of the role of science in sustaining these resources.
9.  • Encourage learners to use scientific knowledge and skills in novel situations especially in everyday life.
10. • Emphasize the role of scientists in the advancement of human kind.
11.  • Encourage learners to be open to the ideas of scientists from different cultures and to their contributions in the advancement of science.
12.  • Encourage learners to abide by such scientific values as honesty and objectivity.
13. • Develop the learners’ scientific curiosity and orientation toward scientific research.
14.  • Encourage learners to work independently and cooperatively in solving scientific problems.
15.  • Make the learners aware of career possibilities in different science related areas.

From here, these objectives must be applied when setting a curriculum, even for small grades, the sense of some of these objectives must be felt.

An Observation Regarding Behaviorism and Cognitive Theory

        Attending science classes is so beneficial; I have observed many different things. Observing a teacher’s way, experience and model creates a critical thinking on our thinking to judge him/her whether he/she is acting well or not, or if I was on his/her shoes, would I act on that way or not… One important issue I could value and analyze is the teacher’s model he/she uses. I have attended  a biology class at grade eight in a private school on my village at Al-Bekaa valley and observed the model the teacher have used. It’s really funny to evaluate other teachers and learn from their experience!

       When the teacher entered a class, he had some types of routines by giving students few time to put their books in front of them and prepare their stuffs (pens, Papers,…) and get ready for explanation. The teacher alerted them that he will start explanation so the whole eyes were looking on the board then. The lesson’s title was “Non Specific Immune Response”. He started by an open-ended question from real life. Each student was answering and responding with him, like how can we stay away from pathogens? How can we protect our bodies against them?... Then made questions more specific; who is responsible for defending these pathogens and keep us safe from them?... by explaining each word’s meaning in Arabic. By this way, the teacher put them in the mood of the lesson and made for them a general idea about what the lesson is about to search for these questions and find the answers through explanation. After that, the teacher started with the first part of the lesson which is about the outer barrier on our body which is the skin, later on inner barriers found in some body systems. While explaining new ideas, he was asking students different questions triggering their previous knowledge and building the new ones based on their experience. He followed this strategy till the end of the explained information during that period.

        It’s obvious that this teacher has used the cognitive theory where he was applying different basic principles regarding this theory. His learning and development strategy were based on learners experience by recalling their prior knowledge through asking different questions while explaining. Also, learners were constructing understanding in an effort to make sense of experience so that their understanding was depending on what they already know. It is important to create an atmosphere of cooperation among students by discussing some answers and different point of views specially the answers of the questions regarding their pre-knowledge, so by this way, constructing understanding was facilitated by this way of social interaction through loudly thinking among students. Furthermore, the real life questions allowed students to do well what they practice doing and to link the new explained information to many small details they faced through their daily life, so that the learning experience they acquired is concrete and connected to the real world. I can summarize what I observed about this theory is that learners do not passively record what they see, hear, or read. Rather, they build and construct understanding of these experiences that makes sense to them, so that the understanding they construct depends on their existing knowledge, and social interaction. In contradiction for behaviorism, where learning occurs when a student respond to questions based on experience only and where the number of correct responses depends on reinforcement and punishment, which is on in my opinion, a traditional theory that needs some development and adjustment.

           Motivation to learn also requires an orderly learning environment instruction that helps learners succeed on activities they perceive. So success on these activities can be increased with concrete and personalized examples, high levels of involvement, and detailed feedback about learning progress. (Eggen & Kauchak, 2002). This what cognitive theory serves where motivating students to answer and discuss their ideas even if it’s wrong or irrelevant, but creating the sense of sharing, discussing and challenging will lead them to reach new tasks and activities easily and with high spirits. Sincero claimed that the cognitive learning theory explains why the brain is the most incredible network of information processing and interpretation in the body as we learn things (2001). So cognitive theory is dependent on the work of our brains. By motivating students to answer, they will bring their pre-information from their long term memory into the short term memory, integrate it with the new information creating new ideas then send it back for the long term memory. All shows the importance of using the cognitive theory through our teaching systems.

         As a conclusion, the cognitive theory must be applied in teaching strategies to help our students build their ideas and own critical thinking by making them able to analyze things around them. Eggen and Kauchak claimed that teachers who believe that they can get students to learn regardless of circumstances, who model their own interest in the topics they teach, who are caring, and who have positive expectations for their students increase students’ motivation to learn (2002). Thus a teacher must believe on him/herself that a change can happen by their work and effort to make each student able to observe and analyze everything around them they face through their daily life.

An Observation Regarding Professional Knowledge

Being a teacher is not easy; it needs a lot of effect and hard work to achieve this mission well. A teacher has to be conscious for every single detail on the classroom; he/she must pay attention for very student and for the explained information precisely.

To be a good teacher seeking for perfection, one must be worthy knowing and applying the professional knowledge, which includes four different kinds of knowledge; knowledge of the content, pedagogical knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of learners and learning.

         I have visited a school in my village and attended a biology class for grade eight to observe the skills applied with the teacher. This teacher, in my opinion, and relying on what I’ve learned about teaching strategies is very good, he was so fluent in the class and I got many benefits from him regarding the “professional knowledge” strategy. His knowledge of content was so good, so he was prepared and well-knowing enough the explained info more than the required basics. In addition, his pedagogical knowledge was great, he was able to revise each explained idea and link it with the previous ones. He has a very good way in presenting topics and he is able to make the information easier. By this way, I felt that every student in the class got the information, understood it and was able to apply it with the required exercises.

          Furthermore, the teacher’s general pedagogical knowledge was great; he has nice instructional strategies in solving activities and questioning. His classroom management also attracted me, when a student misbehaved during the session; he directed a question to him and brought him back to the lesson. I touched during his section the sense of teaching students as unique individuals and not teaching content, by adapting the ways students already know and to what fits their understanding.

        As a conclusion, a teacher must take care and pay attention for each student in the classroom and consider each as a unique individual according to the student’s level of concentration, so that, the teacher can handle every situation in the class without leaving negative effects on the required information and affecting students’ understanding method in order to let information reaches each student as it might be given.  

Eastern and Western Philosophies of Education

Eastern and western philosophers have different assumptions about the role of education in many different life fields; and in particular in the social life. Plato, as western Greek philosopher who started as a discipline of Socrates, and considered as an idealist, is one that had a great impact in the philosophy of education. According to him, people in their social life should concern themselves primarily with the search for truth. He believed also that people need, as much as possible, to free themselves from a concern with matter so that they can advance toward the good and this can be done by the use of dialectic, in which one moves from mere opinion to true knowledge. (Ozman, 2012).

       According to Plato, he agreed that education should not only stress development of mind but also encourage students to focus on all things of lasting value, and that is how one should act and believe through his social life, and that the value of any major work whether in arts, sciences or literature, should all lie in its carrying us to a higher point in our thinking. He added that, the proper function of education is to educate people to know and do their duty in ways that respect this demand, thus people who have a good will know what their duty is and conscientiously seek to do that duty, so one should never act in any manner other than how one would have all other people act through the social life.

       As Plato postulated, the main functions of education are to gain knowledge, to make future leaders, to search for the truth behind any event and also to build good characters for people. In addition, education aims in one’s self realization so that one knows his himself very well with the knowledge of what he wants, needs and at the same time to know what he has to do. All these ethical aspects will help people to stay within the standards of their society without being weird in some actions no matter what is the level of education they have reached.

      This philosophy was common according to western philosophers that are considered as realists also. Ozman claimed that their approach was dealing with the world as reflected through observations and studies and to verify the world as a whole, and the social, economical, and religious events in particular through experience and through the development of methods of rigorous inquiry (2012). Their aim of education was common with its general idea with the idealists with some methodological differences; they considered educational aim is to apply new information to understand it, and that life must be based on its organization, classification, categorizing, observation, lecturing and emphasis on all what is going around to discover its legend to deal with it in a logical, social-acceptable way.

       Easter philosophers have an opinion too. Siddhartha Gotama, an eastern philosopher who belongs to the Buddhism, was one philosopher that had a critical point of view in changing social life according to some criteria. He believed that people could find release from suffering in nirvana, a state of complete happiness and peace. To achieve nirvana, people had to free themselves from desires for worldly things. These are the eight precepts the Buddha taught that all beings must follow for their entire lives if they want to cultivate wisdom: 1. Right Understanding; 2. Right Thought; 3. Right Speech; 4. Right Conduct; 5. Right Vocation; 6. Right Effort; 7. Right Mindfulness; and 8. Right Concentration. Essentially, the correct way to think about all life is to view the world with compassion, wisdom, and love. Clear and kind thoughts build good character because a person is whatever he or she thinks about. Singer claimed that a person will earn respect for oneself and amongst his or her community building trust and good will, by speaking kindly and helpfully. Others will know a person from the way that he or she behaves no matter what attitude one’s words reflect. A person should never perform a job that causes harm to another being, nor seek happiness in the misfortunes of others (2004). All these beliefs are considered as the basics of living is a peaceful society.

      In addition to that, other eastern philosophies, unlike western ones, stress in intuition, inner peace, tranquility, attitudinal development and mysticism. They showed a strong bet toward the spiritual side of nature and their stories. Their main belief is to save the stable traditions; to keep the basics needs of people in many different fields, as morals, physiological and psychological needs conserved in societies.

The Social Effects of Education

Appropriate since the old circumstances, personal satisfaction, values at social and individual levels, otherworldly and material advance have been immediate results of training. Obviously, the shape and technique of instruction have been experiencing change continually and reliably with evolving times. In antiquated circumstances, training was personally associated with religion and the social estimations of the day. In any case, among the current hundreds of years, the extent of instruction has expanded immensely to incorporate significantly more than what it did already.    

       As education flourishes, a great refinement in the civilization, attitudes, social development and responsive administration are expected. Nowadays, educational impact is reaching all spheres of life and all corners of the globe.

        In the evolutionary history of education, right from Socrates to Galileo, many great intellectuals, scientists and philosophers made great sacrifices in sticking to the truths they discovered. Only on the foundations of such sacrifices and lifetime contributions of many great people, the education survived and evolved to its present form (Bhumireddy, 2014).

      Education has a crucial role in many different fields in life. Needs of the human beings and their consumption levels have raised sharply, making an enormous pressure on the natural resources. In addition, we see sudden birth of various diseases, health hazards and natural disasters because of the over exploitation of the nature. Here comes the essential role of education with its powerful research and development that can solve these problems and can also prevent its negative consequences. Whenever there was absence of education in some parts of the world, there were dark ages. Whereas, whenever there is quality of education, we see enlightenment, quality life and upward improvement of science, medicine and technology in addition to peace, development, order and refined culture.

          No one can under estimate the fruitful impact and improvement happened in public health, sciences, medicine, technology and living standards. All are originated making the life easier and finding solutions to the new problems and challenges facing us through our daily life. It is all because of the improvements occurring in education.

My Unforgettable Teacher

Almost everyone we know has been turned around, or at least seriously shaken, by

A teacher-in college, maybe, but often in high school, by a man or woman who drove

home a point or two about physics, literature, or ethics and look at us sternly and said, in

 effect, you could be more than what you are. (Denby, 2016). I have passed by a similar

thing. A Math male teacher who taught me Math in my Life Sciences grade in a public

school at Bekaa valley has influenced me too much. This teacher has changed my look at

Mathematics. I have always found Math a hard and boring class before I met this man.

 From that day after, Math is a nice, enjoyable and interesting course.

         My teacher has many great teaching skills. He always supported us in every

situation and whatever student’s level is. Each student found the support he needs and motivations he misses from him. Every day he enters the class, he recalls the whole explained information that has given before, so he can build the new information based on the explained one in order for ideas not to become disconnected. I love his organization for the given ideas, he gives description and interpretation for every single information, and he analyzes, synthesizes and then applies the described information step by step.

        A teacher’s character is the whole story. It leads him/her to act in a great or a bad way. The most beautiful point in my teacher’s character is his personality. He was able to help any student to learn. I remembered one of my classmates who was so lazy to study, he had failed the whole courses we have taken except at Math, it was like a “wow” for us and for the administration. That all returns to our teacher’s conscious toward every single person at the class and to his way in sending his message for different mind’s thinking levels. One of the best things he used to manage is his time management. He uses time precisely and effectively. In addition, he was able to adopt new curriculum and uses new strategies in teaching. Math periods were passing like a blink of an eye!

       Modeling was observable in his way; he has had his own way in teaching. He accepts every single idea given from students even if some others find it a “silly” idea, he was, in contrast, showing interest in hearing students’ different ideas he shows information is valuable and worth learning. When students’ given ideas are irrelevant, he gives emotional support and makes students happy and proud for sharing their ideas and information.

For sure the principals and administration of a school play a crucial role in supporting the teacher to do all his/her best as a teacher. My school’s administration was so friendly and understanding in every situation, which makes students as teachers comfortable and happily loving teaching. Barett and Breyer claimed that in an environment where principals demonstrate efficacy pedagogy and lead teachers in learning and adopting effective strategies, teachers can be both motivated and energized to implement fresh approaches to teaching. (2014).

       I’ve learned anything in my time as a teacher, it’s that the only heroes in this story are kids who go to school and do their best despite the systems that are keeping them down. (Mullis, 2015). So as a conclusion, students are the center of view in schools who will flourish and nourish the society they live in. This development and building needs a good leader to orient each single ability in the right direction, and later on, this leader will see him/herself in the eyes of these builders.            

Webinar 1: 12 Keys to High-Quality Early Childhood Inclusion

This webinar represented by Kathy Wahl. She aimed through this webinar to show the audience the importance of co-learning that is the inclusion in classrooms to include the whole students, even those with certain disabilities, within the same classroom for further improvements for such students with such disabilities, so students with disabilities will be mixed and addressed with normal students.

She claimed that kids need to feel that they do belong to a certain group, in other words to feel that they are valuable, in order to engage learning and feel that they are a part and a member in a community or even in a classroom. This will beneficially helps them engage the acquired curriculum effectively. Then, students will feel respectful so they will feel also safe and healthy.

Such results need some efforts that will bring benefits not only for those students with certain disabilities, but also to their parents and then communities. As for teachers, one must do certain activities, after the inclusion within a classroom, to engage students effectively, such as having pictures for students, holding their names in walls, knowing their hobbies and interests then provide them with some, and many other simple activities that will have a big positive impact.

Person First Terminology is an approach for such careers, where this model aims to respectfully referring to a person with disability by placing the person ahead of his/her label or disability. This will show that each person has value. It is the first step towards changing negative perceptions and attitudes about people with disabilities. This model emphasizes the importance of inclusion that is by definition, an attitude, a philosophy that promotes the sense of belonging, community and membership, it also values differences and diversity that will lead to the building of positive social relationships and friendships and promotes reaching full developmental and learning potential.

Inclusive programs mainly are as follows;

-         Use Evidence-Based practices

-         Creatively adapt activities to that each child can participate.

-         Make reasonable modifications to policies, practices and procedures.

-         Embed children’s developmental goals into daily routines.

-         Welcome all children!

Least Restrictive Environment is a low, which emphasizes that school districts must ensure to the maximum extent appropriate that students with disabilities ages 3-21 are educated with children who are not disabled and participate in non-academic and extra-curricular activities with children who are not disabled. A logo was done for such classes holds the letters ICP, stands for Inclusive Classroom Profile, to complement existing classroom quality measure and standards.

This ICP item measures 12 areas of inclusive practice,

1.     Adaptations of space and materials.

2.     Adult involvement in peer interactions.

3.     Adult’s guidance of children’s activities and play.

4.     Conflict resolution.

5.     Membership

6.     Relations between adults and children.

7.     Support for communications.

8.     Adaptation of group activities.

9.     Transitions between activities.

10.                        Feedback.

11.                        Family-professional partnerships.

12.                        Maintaining children’s learning.

Its benefits for children with disabilities are frequent;

-         Seen as a child first, special needs second

-         Observe and imitate other children

-         Become more independent and self-reliant

-         Learn to cope and problem solve

-         Learn appreciate social skills

-         Make new friends

-         Increase their self-esteem through helping others

-         Decrease fears and prejudices.

This will bring benefits for communities too;

-         Promotes acceptance of individual differences throughout the community

-         Provides more collaboration of resources within the community

-         Creates an environment of welcoming and belonging.