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Curricular problem solving in school-based curriculum development for high-ability learners : a case study of a teacher team’s trek through expansive learning in practice
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Type
Thesis
Author
Wong, Marie Linda Irene Shiu Leung
Supervisor
Fang, Yanping
Abstract
The study aimed to have a close up look at a team of teachers developing a Language Arts school-based curriculum for the Integrated Programme (IP) in Singapore. The IP was a policy that decentralized the Ministry of Education’s Gifted Education Programme (GEP) which was dismantled at the secondary school level in 2004. At the start of the study, a group of schools were gearing up towards “IP readiness”, i.e. their teachers were designing a differentiated curriculum that would soon be launched for their target group of high-ability learners, who would be exempt from the GCE O-level examinations. The focus of my inquiry was to investigate three particular aspects of the teachers’ experience of School-based curriculum development: (1) their conception of the curriculum development task and their treatment of a space freed up from the constraints of high-stakes examinations; (2) the nature and scope of their curricular problem-solving and decision-making processes as school-based practitioners; and (3) the impact of their expanded role on their professional learning and identity. The inquiry took the form of a participant-observer case study, with an interventionist element: the Researcher as Critical Friend to the team. Three phases of curriculum development were observed over a period of two years, the first characterized by a paucity of resources, the second by critical questioning, and the third by focused and productive artefact-mediated interactions. Two theoretical lenses were used to analyze the data to yield complementary interpretations: a Community of Practice (CoP) and a Cultural-Historical Activity theoretic (CHAT) lens. Through the CoP lens, the findings included the discovery of a distinct boundary in the overlapping practice of teachers-as-users and teachers-as-designers of curriculum artefacts. Three strands of resistance to innovation included resistance to explicit articulation at the macro level of planning, a reluctance to question the existing model and a lack of consideration of alternatives. Effective brokering between perspectives by in-house curriculum leaders was observed, with an intensification of deliberative decision making. Through the CHAT lens, analysis of teacher discourse revealed the team’s expansive learning through a series of breakdowns and turning points. A transformation of the team’s object was observed through the evolution of their scope and sequence artefact, from being a rudimentary coordination tool to acting as a sophisticated epistemic object in the design process. The ability to retool is theorized as evidence of expansive learning in SBCD. Implications for the professional development of teachers for SBCD include the necessary enhancement of curriculum literacy for curriculum leadership in schools embarking on innovative SBCD. Interventionist artefact-mediated support, especially in the initial stages of design, may also be necessary. Curriculum specialists would need to develop skills for the facilitation of deliberation and problem solving.
Date Issued
2017
Call Number
LC3998.S55 Won
Date Submitted
2017