In research, policy, and schools, teachers are held more and more accountable for the quality of education. In the Netherlands policy makers therefore, increasingly attach importance to the active involvement of teachers in processes of curriculum reform. Because implementation of curriculum reforms seem to be most effective and successful when teachers are actively involved in the change process. In particular, teachers’ involvement and collaboration in designing curricula for realizing curriculum reform is considered a sine qua non. Sound curriculum design practices are a necessary condition for a curriculum that is relevant, practical and based on up to date knowledge of teaching and learning. By involving teachers more actively in the curriculum design process, relevant and practical curricula can be the expected outcome. In particular, collaborative curriculum design in teacher teams is considered important for the design and implementation of sustainable curricula.
The reasoning behind this is threefold:
While these conceptual and practical development considerations offer many possible advantages for curriculum reform and teacher professional development, it offers various challenges as well. The main challenge is to proof whether the claims on teacher design teams as expressed in the threefold reasoning, are empirically valid. In order to address this challenge a number of issues need to be dealt with: teachers need to understand the curriculum design process; there is a need for a deeper conceptualization of the reform and the teacher learning process and on measuring the effects of collaborative curriculum design in schools. Finally, studying team learning and reform process in context is complicated. These issues will be discussed during the conference in two ways.
During the morning session the speakers will deal with two topics: Professional development through teacher design teams (by Adam Handelzalts and Alain Breuleux), and Curriculum implementation and teacher design teams (by William Penuel and Nienke Nieveen).
During the afternoon session workshops will be presented about the practices and experiences of various teacher design teams, introduced by teachers, designers and researchers. Please note that the plenary sessions will be in English while workshops 1 to 4 will be in Dutch.
Jules Pieters
The reasoning behind this is threefold:
- By involving professionals that encounter students daily we can come to context- specific curricula that have relevance and chance for success in schools.
- During the curriculum design process teachers’ professional development is enabled and encouraged. They learn from one another, from engaging with new content and pedagogies and improve their design and teaching competencies.
- By enabling professional development and curriculum design in teacher design teams the chances for sustainable curriculum reform increase.
While these conceptual and practical development considerations offer many possible advantages for curriculum reform and teacher professional development, it offers various challenges as well. The main challenge is to proof whether the claims on teacher design teams as expressed in the threefold reasoning, are empirically valid. In order to address this challenge a number of issues need to be dealt with: teachers need to understand the curriculum design process; there is a need for a deeper conceptualization of the reform and the teacher learning process and on measuring the effects of collaborative curriculum design in schools. Finally, studying team learning and reform process in context is complicated. These issues will be discussed during the conference in two ways.
During the morning session the speakers will deal with two topics: Professional development through teacher design teams (by Adam Handelzalts and Alain Breuleux), and Curriculum implementation and teacher design teams (by William Penuel and Nienke Nieveen).
During the afternoon session workshops will be presented about the practices and experiences of various teacher design teams, introduced by teachers, designers and researchers. Please note that the plenary sessions will be in English while workshops 1 to 4 will be in Dutch.
Jules Pieters
Conference organized by DoCenter, Center for Knowledge Creation on Teacher Development and Curriculum Design, and SLO, National Institute for Curriculum Development in The Netherlands.