Learning to code: A narrative inquiry - “Without code we would probably be like cave people”

<p>In 2018 there was educational change in New Zealand with the introduction of new curriculum content for digital technologies. A key component of the digital technologies curriculum content was computational thinking where all students from Years 1 to 10 were expected to learn core coding concepts. The reasons for introducing coding into schools reflected a range of ideologies including preparing children to contribute meaningfully to society in the digital age. This narrative inquiry aimed to explore the value of coding in the curriculum through the experiences of students in Years 7 and 8. The research questions to meet this aim were; Why do students think coding is taught in school? Do students use coding outside of school? Why do students want to learn how to code and how do students think coding might help them or be useful? Curriculum ideologies underpinned this study as a theoretical framework to evaluate student experiences of coding across two case studies. The narratives were derived from focus group interviews held at two different schools. Similarities across the case studies included students’ beliefs about the benefits of including coding in the curriculum. Students’ felt confident that learning coding allowed them to; understand the digital world, create digital products, prepare for the future, teach others and fix broken technology. They could not comprehend what their lives would be like without technology and therefore coding. Some students believed that “without code we would probably be like cave people”. The main difference between the case studies was the level of teacher direction. This reflected a contradiction between competing curriculum ideologies and addressed the broader debate in education of 21st century skills versus powerful knowledge. The contradictions highlighted how the pedagogical design of coding in the curriculum could be effectively structured. Traditional knowledge and teacher explanation were found to be important to students when learning more complex coding. However, globalisation is a key concept for education in a digital age. Therefore, opportunities can be created for students to build on knowledge and collaborate in new and challenging ways. Treating coding as a social practice by teaching students to connect with the wider community or to use programming for social good can engage them with experiences beyond their own. This does not mean abandoning the elements of 21st century learning, such as students’ own experiences or active learning. Drawing on the strengths of both traditional knowledge and 21st century learning approaches can lead to more powerful knowledge creation.</p>

Learning to code: A narrative inquiry - “Without code we would probably be like cave people”

<p>In 2018 there was educational change in New Zealand with the introduction of new curriculum content for digital technologies. A key component of the digital technologies curriculum content was computational thinking where all students from Years 1 to 10 were expected to learn core coding concepts. The reasons for introducing coding into schools reflected a range of ideologies including preparing children to contribute meaningfully to society in the digital age. This narrative inquiry aimed to explore the value of coding in the curriculum through the experiences of students in Years 7 and 8. The research questions to meet this aim were; Why do students think coding is taught in school? Do students use coding outside of school? Why do students want to learn how to code and how do students think coding might help them or be useful? Curriculum ideologies underpinned this study as a theoretical framework to evaluate student experiences of coding across two case studies. The narratives were derived from focus group interviews held at two different schools. Similarities across the case studies included students’ beliefs about the benefits of including coding in the curriculum. Students’ felt confident that learning coding allowed them to; understand the digital world, create digital products, prepare for the future, teach others and fix broken technology. They could not comprehend what their lives would be like without technology and therefore coding. Some students believed that “without code we would probably be like cave people”. The main difference between the case studies was the level of teacher direction. This reflected a contradiction between competing curriculum ideologies and addressed the broader debate in education of 21st century skills versus powerful knowledge. The contradictions highlighted how the pedagogical design of coding in the curriculum could be effectively structured. Traditional knowledge and teacher explanation were found to be important to students when learning more complex coding. However, globalisation is a key concept for education in a digital age. Therefore, opportunities can be created for students to build on knowledge and collaborate in new and challenging ways. Treating coding as a social practice by teaching students to connect with the wider community or to use programming for social good can engage them with experiences beyond their own. This does not mean abandoning the elements of 21st century learning, such as students’ own experiences or active learning. Drawing on the strengths of both traditional knowledge and 21st century learning approaches can lead to more powerful knowledge creation.</p>

The Integration of Different Curriculum Ideologies in a School Science Subject

School science subjects may be informed by curriculum ideologies such as discipline-centered, service-centered, student-centered, or citizen-centered ideologies. The distinct characteristics of each ideology complicate the extent to which science subjects could integrate different curriculum ideologies. Consequently, the present research explored how different curriculum ideologies are reflected in a school science subject. Natural Sciences was used as a case study that followed a mixed-methods approach. Inductive content analysis was performed on the curriculum document to determine its foregrounding curriculum ideologies using a validated open-ended instrument. Findings indicate that Natural Sciences integrates four curriculum ideologies concurrently. These are the student-centered ideology, service-centered ideology, discipline-centered ideology, and citizenship-centered ideology. However, while attempting to adopt multi-curriculum ideologies, the subject could not ensure equal representation of these ideologies. For example, citizenship-centered ideology received the least representation even though it is the ideology most related to the imperatives of social empowerment. It is concluded that the integration of different ideologies may lead to teaching difficulties where teachers find it challenging to adapt teaching methods that satisfy all four curriculum ideologies. Additionally, students in different schools may be taught according to different curriculum ideology principles, leading to inconsistencies in attained learning outcomes.

Curriculum Ideologies

The study of the curriculum and educational knowledge is a study of ideology. The curriculum is never neutral. It always reflects or embodies ideological positions. Ideologies present within the curriculum are negotiated and formulated through multilayered processes of strategic compromise, assent, and resistance. And as such, the curriculum ideologies become operationalized in both overt and hidden means—constructing subjects and objects of knowledge in active as well as passive ways. Teaching is always a political act, and discussions and debates over curriculum ideologies have a long history within the field of curriculum studies. In terms of its function related to the organization and valuing of knowledge, it remains important to recognize not only the contested nature of the curriculum but also how such contestations have ideological dimensions in the framing of the curriculum. Curriculum ideologies manifest in terms of what might be thought of as values, visions of the future, and venues or forms. This is to say, the curriculum is imbued with processes for valuing assumed choices related to its design, development, and implementation. These choices draw from ideologically based assumptions about the curriculum’s basis in political, economic, historical, sociocultural, psychological, and other realities—whether they be discursive or material in effect. Additionally, these curriculum choices also pertain to the means by which the curriculum achieves these goals or objectives through the formulation of designed experiences, activities, or other forms of learning opportunities. The curriculum—in certain regards as finding principle in the conveying of knowledge through a system of organization related to an outset purpose—has, as a central component to some degree, a vision of a future. The curriculum is something simultaneously constructed and enacted in the present, with often the expressed purpose of having implications and ramifications for the future. The curriculum’s role and purpose in constructing both tested and untested or imagined feasibilities again has to do with some type of vision of learning inflected by ideology. This may even take the form of envisioning a future that is actually a vision of the past in some form, or perhaps a returning to a remembered time that may have existed for some but not others, or by extension a similarly romanticized remembering of a mythic past, for instance. Ultimately, the curriculum, whether translated into practice or in being developed conceptually, is in all likelihood never exclusively one of these, but instead is in all probability an amalgamation of such to differing degrees wherein a multitude of possibilities and combinations exist. Among the key questions of curriculum studies that remain central in terms of both analyzing and theorizing the curriculum are: Whose knowledge counts and what is worthwhile? These questions help to raise to a level of concern the ideological underpinnings of all curricula in ways that through sustained critical dialog might work to collectively build a more sustainably just and equitable world.

Understanding the Perceptions of Teachers of Sukkur IBA Community Colleges and the Teachers of Public Schools of City Shikarpur about the Curriculum Ideologies: A Comparative Study

The current study aims at understanding the perceptions of teachers about curriculum ideologies in the context of Sindh, Pakistan. A quantitative approach was employed within it the descriptive design was used. The data was collected through an adopted questionnaire developed by Schiro 2008. The sample of the study was a hundred teachers and the convenience sampling technique was adopted in this study. The data were analyzed through SPSS (SPSS) version 23.0 and percentages were calculated to know the perceptions of teachers regarding four curriculum ideologies namely scholar academic ideology, social efficiency ideology, learner-centered ideology, and social reconstruction ideology. The results revealed that learner-centered ideology was the most preferred curriculum ideology among the teachers of Five Sukkur IBA Community colleges whereas the Scholar Academic ideology has been the least favorable for them. However, Scholar Academy ideology was the most preferred, and social reconstruction ideology was the least preferred among Teachers of Public Schools of Shikarpur City.

Curriculum up-gradation practices among higher education institutions of Pakistan: does curriculum ideologies make difference?

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to find out the perception of prospective teachers and teacher educators regarding the curriculum ideologies. The student–teachers and teacher educators from a public university of Pakistan participated in the study.Design/methodology/approachThe current study has employed quantitative approach and used descriptive survey research design. The data was collected through the convenience sampling techniques. The data was collected through a questionnaire developed by Schiro in 2008. The questionnaire consisting of six parts and each part contains four statements on the curriculum ideologies of Scholar Academy, Social efficacy learner centered and social reconstruction ideology. The population of study comprised of 200 Prospective teachers of education department of a public sector University of Sindh, Pakistan. The data was collected by using 4-point Likert scale. The likert scale was ranging from the first priority to least priority. The reliability statistics was computed through Cronbach alpha α = 0.763. The data was analyzed through Statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 23.0 and mean and percentages were computed in this study.FindingsThe findings of the study revealed that most of the prospective teachers as well faculty members are following the scholar academy ideology to align with national goals of curriculum. The prospective teachers and faculty members believe that knowledge should be transferred from the institutions to the learners rather than the knowledge can be disseminated from the other sources as per the new dimensions for updated curriculum.Practical implicationsThe current study suggests curriculum ideology awareness programs should be given to prospective teachers and faculty members before their induction. The study also recommends that a survey study can be conducted from teachers and teacher educators before designing the national curriculum of Pakistan because majority of participants believed that knowledge can only be transferred from institutions.Originality/valueThis empirical study has given thoughtful insights to investigate the curriculum ideologies with new dimensions for those who are studying in teacher education courses and for their mentors. So, this study has contributed new knowledge in the context of Sindh, Pakistan specifically in the domain of curriculum ideologies and frameworks.

EXPLORING THE STUDENT AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES CURRICULUM: A CASE OF HIV/AIDS

Science is generally expected to respond to students and societal needs by adopting student and social accountability principles. Therefore, school science curricula are revised regularly to address emerging socio-economic, political, and scientific issues. Similarly, the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement of South Africa was introduced to foster a student and social accountable education that adopts relevant curriculum ideologies. Partly, it attempts to equip students with relevant skills and knowledge related to emerging societal challenges such as HIV/AIDS. The aim of the present research, therefore, was to determine the extent to which the curriculum is student and social accountable concerning HIV/AIDS. The current research explored the extent to which HIV/AIDS knowledge was presented in the CAPS Life Sciences curriculum and selected textbooks, and how curriculum ideologies informed this presentation of HIV/AIDS knowledge. Data were collected from the Life Sciences CAPS document and selected textbooks. Results revealed several HIV/AIDS-related topics, which were taught in Life Sciences. While the literature suggests that the citizenship-centered ideology is most relevant for student and social accountability, the present study found that the Life Sciences curriculum adopted a predominantly discipline-centered ideology. It is concluded that Life Sciences may not provide students with HIV/AIDS-related skills and knowledge required in a student and socially accountable curriculum. Keywords: curriculum ideologies, HIV/AIDS education, life sciences, school science curriculum.