Transforming BC’s Curriculum

In the last month the Ministry of Education has released further documentation related to the transformation of BC’s Curriculum under the BC Education Plan. I have commented upon this plan in previous blog posts. Here are some of my initial thoughts on the work to date.

The preamble points out stakeholders from across the province were consulted to provide the conclusion:

“A more flexible curriculum that prescribes less and enables more, for both teachers and students and a system focused on the core competencies, skills and knowledge that students need to succeed in the 21^st century.”

Further comments included teachers stating the curriculum has too many PLO’s (I guess they didn’t check out the secondary science curriculum). It was felt that reducing outcomes will give more time and flexibility to allow students to explore their interests and passions. I suspect there will no new money to support these new directions. Consequently, it’s pretty safe to say that you won’t change anything if you don’t properly fund it. At the same time, it’s critical to stay abreast of these developments. Then each of us can participate in our own way to provide the feedback necessary to make the appropriate changes that work for teacher and student. It is with this thought in mind that I’ll summarize the key aspects of the work to date.

You can find the documents discussed below at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/transforming_curriculum.php . For a somewhat humourous (?) look at how to find this page, I made a small video of my adventures on the Ministry website looking for this information. The two new documents are:

1. Exploring Curriculum Design
2. Defining Cross Curricular Competencies

The framework for these policy documents come from the Enabling Innovation report released in August 2012 and previously mentioned in blog posts.

1. Exploring Curriculum Design – January 2013

The first four pages of this report provide background on who was consulted and guiding principles for future curriculum development. When I read the guiding principles ( a concept I like in building a coherent curricular structure) I must confess that it is unclear to me the difference between prescriptive nature of current curricula and essential learning as written in the third bullet. The only difference seems to me that the people writing this document were not the people who wrote the last curriculum. Hence, their favourite material didn’t get included. And in the fourth bullet it is equally unclear how you build on higher order learning when you’re dealing with a novice learner to a particular big idea or enduring understanding. Expert problem solvers come from having a deep repertoire of background knowledge to draw upon when utilizing higher order thinking skills. This particular research based fact seems to counter the thought held by many “educational gurus” who feel a student can access higher order thinking skills by accessing a search engine to find information on any particular concept.

The second part of the document gives an overview of the different subject areas. The science summary is on page 6 where the development group indicates the focus was on Kindergarten to grade 10. A reasonable decision given the timelines. There isn’t really any ground breaking observations as most science curriculum writers in the past have figured out the difference between curricular outcomes and teaching strategies to support learning in the classroom. It appears the same cannot be said for other subject areas.

Finally a model for future curriculum development is provided along with draft prototypes. As you can see from the Science 7 draft, there are many new terms and many boxes of information to be filled. I say to be filled because the subject committees were given the same template to work with. This template is similar to other provincial and state formats (Manitoba comes to mind). It attempts to capture the complex nature of the classroom by providing a post-modern reflection of current educational thinking. There are so many different ways to look at this page, that everyone will be happy because they see their point of view reflected in the document. But, no one will be satisfied, because they don’t have a clue what to teach. So, depending of where you sit on this continuum will determine your level of comfort with this particular presentation. At the same time, it could be a very exciting time in the science education community if we could start conversations around should science be taught with a focus on Enduring Understandings or Learning Standards or Cross-Curricular Competencies. My sense is that what is likely to happen is the question will narrow down to what should go in the box labeled “Content”. And to some degree this is appropriate as it outlines what the learning map in each classroom must start to look like. The bigger question is how to we support science teachers weave in the other aspects of the proposed curriculum when there is no interest in funding these changes. The potential to have engaging, thought provoking science activities woven into the daily activities of the classroom is so great we need to let people know the extra funding for such activities is critical. I’m reminded of the comment it’s cheaper to pay up front with education then later with other government supports.

Finally there is a short section on Next Steps including a request to help in the review process by contacting the Ministry at curriculum@gov.bc.ca. I think it would be appropriate to have a real name instead of an anonymous email address.

My analysis of the second document, Defining Cross-Curricular Competencies will be in the next blog update about two weeks from now.