Curriculum framework

Abstract: Adding computer science as a separate school subject to the core K-6 curriculum is a complex issue with educational challenges. The authors herein address two of these challenges: (1) the design of the curriculum based on a generic computational thinking framework, and (2) the knowledge teachers need to teach the curriculum. The first issue is discussed within a perspective of designing an authentic computational thinking curriculum with a focus on real-world problems. The second issue is addressed within the framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge explicating in detail the body of knowledge that teachers need to have to be able to teach computational thinking in a K-6 environment. An example of how these ideas can be applied in practice is also given. While it is recognized there is a lack of adequate empirical evidence in terms of the effectiveness of the frameworks proposed herein, it is expected that our knowledge and research base will dramatically increase over the next several years, as more countries around the world add computer science as a separate school subject to their K-6 curriculum.

Abstract: This article explores the following question: What does it mean to enact curriculum? In order to do so, it offers a conceptualization of the enacted curriculum and situates it within a curriculum policy, design, and enactment system. The system depicts the formal and operational domains in which curricular aims and objectives are developed and curriculum plans formulated and enacted. The authors situate the enacted mathematics curriculum in the operational part of the system and define it as the interactions between teachers and students around mathematical tasks of a lesson and collection of lessons, but argue that understanding what it means to enact curriculum involves examining the many places within the system that curricular elements are translated and transformed. The authors describe each of the articles in this special issue with respect to the framework.

Abstract: This paper seeks to prompt professional debate about the future of physical education and, specifically, the form that curricula should take in rapidly changing times and societies. Arguments focus upon a reorientation and restructuring of the subject to address educational needs and interests relevant to the 21st century. The current revision of the National Curriculum for Physical Education in England and Wales is used as a basis from which to present a case for a distinctly new orientation to be reflected in the design of PE curricula, units of work and lessons. The work of Bernstein and Young is utilised in deconstructing long-established practices and outlining their potential reconstruction in ways that are informed by, and express, a 'critical pedagogy for social justice' [Fernandez-Balboa (1997) Critical Post Modernism in Human Movement, Physical Education and Sport (New York, State University of New York Press)]. A curriculum framework privileging learning achieved in and via activity contexts, a...

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Professional teams are becoming more central to health care as evidence emerges that effective teamwork enhances the quality of patient care. Currently, health care professionals are poorly prepared by their education for their roles on the team. In parallel, there are increasing demands from consumers for health care professionals to serve the interests of society and patients through engaging in effective professional partnerships. Professionalism for health care providers is now being defined as a commitment to standards of excellence in the practice of the profession that are designed primarily to serve the interests of the patient and to be responsive to the health needs of society. Yet, there are multiple barriers impeding the development of professionalism beyond a uni-professional frame of reference. METHOD: Incorporating teamwork and professionalism into health care professional curricula at pre-registration level is proving to be challenging. These 2 areas of learning are brought together in this paper through a discussion of the role of interprofessional education in preparing all health care professional students for the workforce. CONCLUSION: Interprofessionalism is presented as a pre-registration curriculum framework that includes values shared by all health care professionals, which should be learned in order to more adequately prepare students for working in health care teams. It will be argued that interprofessional education provides appropriate methods by which to learn interprofessionalism, and that this will ultimately contribute to overcoming uni-professional exclusivity.