COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE AT NEW YORK

GAINING EDUCATIONAL EQUITY AROUND THE WORLD

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York has hosted CIES 2008 Conference and a meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society. The first session of panels began promptly at 8:30AM on Monday, March 17, 2008 and the final session of panels will be on Friday, March 21, 2008 at 10:30AM.

The conference emphasised on the theme of educational equity within and among regions and countries, focusing on the impact of factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, economics, disability, and urbanization.

The venue in New York City and at Teachers College provided a special occasion to return to the roots of CIES. TC faculty John Dewey, James Russell, Paul Monroe, Isaac Kandel, and George Bereday were pioneers in establishing a focus on international and comparative education. R. Freeman Butts, Harold Noah, and Max Eckstein were among many of the early officers and founding board members of CIES who came from the TC faculty, and the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at TC sponsors one of the largest graduate training programs in the world in Comparative and International Education.

In addition, New York City constitutes one of the most internationalized cities in the world with its large multilingual and multicultural populations and its substantial international institutions including the United Nations.

I have made a pannel presentation on on 18th March, 2008 during 1.30 p.m to 3. p.m on "Ganing Equity and Quality in Education: Indian Experiences" and was received well by the international community. This paper was jointly developed by me and my colleague Dr. Anjali Khirwadkar from Baroda University, India.On 19th March, 2008, I have made another presentation with my colleague Prof. Holger Daun, Stockholm University on " Globalization and Education".

Pushpanadham

CURRICULUM MANAGEMENT

CURRICULUM MANAGEMENT

I. Curriculum

The term curriculum is used in a number of different ways by parents, educators, and businesses. Some see curriculum as the "academic stuff that is done to children in school." Others view it as teacher directions and student activities that can be purchased from any number of curriculum publishers. Teachers themselves use the term in different ways depending on their views and needs.

Webster's concisely defines curriculum as, "A course of study offered by a school" (Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary, 1984 p176). Curriculum is also often referred to as learning content, activities, and structures as experienced by students.

Ronald C. Doll, in his book, Curriculum Improvement: Decision Making and Process, goes further, stating that: The curriculum of a school is the formal and informal content and process by which learners gain knowledge and understanding, develop skills, and alter attitudes, appreciations, and values under he auspices of that school (Doll, 1996 p15).

It is this last definition that is perhaps the most useful to educators who wish to affect and improve student learning. Partially this is because it lacks the vagueness that many definitions have, and partially it is because curriculum, as Doll has defined it, can have outcomes that may be measured, allowing for the curriculum to be acted upon and improved.

II. Other definitions:

1. Tyler (1949). In 1949 Tyler identified four questions as the parameters for curriculum study: What educational purposes should the school seek to accomplish? How can learning attaining these objectives? How can earning experiences be organized for effective instruction? How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?

2. Schubert (1986). "A quick survey of a dozen curriculum books would be likely to reveal a dozen different images or characterizations of curriculum. . . To analyze and discuss all of the images that have been advanced would be a massive undertaking, since more than eleven hundred curriculum books have been written in the present century. . . What can be done more economically is to categorize major conceptions of curriculum:" (a) curriculum as content or subject matter, (b) curriculum as a program of planned activities, (c) curriculum as intended learning outcomes, (d) curriculum as cultural reproduction, (e) curriculum as discrete tasks and concepts, (f) curriculum as an agenda for social reconstruction, and (g) curriculum as "currere" (interpretation of lived experience)."

3. Ornstein and Hunkins (1988). "A curriculum approach reflects a holistic position, encompassing the foundations of curriculum, domains of curriculum, and the theoretical and practical principles of curriculum. Five curriculum approaches are (a) behavioral-rational approach, (b) systems-managerial approach, (c) intellectual-academic approach, (d) humanistic-aesthetic approach, and (e) reconceptual approach."

4. Cornbleth (1990) "Curriculum construction is an ongoing social activity that is shaped by various contextual influences within and beyond the classroom and accomplished interactively, primarily be teachers and students. The curriculum is not a tangible product but the actual, day-to-day interactions of students, teachers, knowledge and milieu. The curriculum encompasses what others have called curriculum practice or the curriculum -in-use. Curriculum as product or object, the conventional view, is seen as one aspect of the context that shapes curriculum practice. . . .. . . Curriculum as contexualized social process encompasses both subject matter and social organization and their interrelations. Social organization, including teacher and student roles (and their attendant rights and obligations) and patterns of interaction, provides a setting for academic activities that can extend or constrain students' learning opportunities. Recitation activities, for example, reflect the super and subordinate roles to teachers and students respectively, and the limited communication patterns found in many classrooms. Learning opportunities are constrained by the recitation organization insofar as students are discouraged from pursuing ideas, raising questions, or offering personal observations. Social organization and academic activities also communicate normative messages including the meaning of knowledge, authority, responsibility, work and success.

The curriculum knowledge or subject matter of interest here is primarily but not solely academic (e.g., mathematics, history). It also includes the personal, social, and world knowledge that is communicated or otherwise made available to students and what might be characterized as knowledge about knowledge - Its nature, sources, limits and change. While knowledge typically is treated as an object or commodity to be acquired, that is not the intention here. Curriculum knowledge as the knowledge made available to students refers to opportunities to construct, reconstruct, or critique knowledge. Knowledge selection and organization refer both to the information that is communicated directly and the opportunities that are provided for students to create and critique knowledge. The selection and organization of curriculum knowledge can be purposeful or tacit as seems to be the case when teachers and students follow a textbook. Knowledge treatment refers to what others have distinguished as pedagogy or instruction; it also includes the playing out of assumptions about the nature of knowledge. Knowledge distribution refers to the kinds of knowledge opportunities made available to different groups of students."

III. The Relationship Between Curriculum and Instruction:

Instruction is the creation and implementation of purposefully developed plans for the teaching of curriculum content. It is what teachers often concisely refer to as "planning" and "teaching." The relationship between curriculum and instruction is so intimate that "curriculumandinstruction" is frequently spoken as if it were one word (perhaps we should refer to it as "curstruction" or "instriculum"). With curriculum being the content of what is taught along with an overall process of how that content is to be taught, and instruction being the more detailed plans and the way those plans are implemented in order to teach the curriculum content, it becomes easy to understand that the two must be compatible in order to maximize student learning.
The Bases for Curriculum Planning

When planning for curriculum improvement, two categories of bases should be understood, those that are institutional in nature and those that affect people directly. The institutional bases for curriculum planning include planning domains, the context or characteristics of the school situation, the impact of current trends and issues, and the use of strategic planning. Those bases of curriculum planning that affect people directly include student and teacher needs, local curriculum problems to be addressed, competencies of the planners, and pressures from inside and outside the school (Doll, 1996 p362-378). All of these bases affect the curriculum planning process in various ways and to differing degrees. They can also vary with each situation over time.

IV. Criteria to Plan, Develop, and Implement Curricula

These principles form the criteria of a quality curriculum development process that includes the stages of planning, development, and implementation.

Curriculum decisions should be made:

For valid educational reasons on the basis of the best available evidence in a context of broadly conceived aims of education within a context of previously made decisions and of needs for additional decision making so that balance and other important curriculum considerations may be safeguarded by achieving a resolution of forces originating in the

• nature and development of learners,
• the nature of learning processes,
• demands of the society at large, requirements of the local community,
• and the nature and structure of subject matter to be learned.

V. How Values Can Influence Curriculum Planning

Social forces that can influence curriculum planning come from far and wide. The ideas and values of various groups of people may include their social goals, ideas about cultural uniformity and diversity, social pressures, ideas about social change, their plans for the future, and their concepts of culture (Coutts, 1999).

VI. Curriculum Foundation

At the foundation to every curriculum, including the planning, design, and implementation stages, is the educational philosophy of those directly involved in the process. Often this can influence to a great extent the direction a school or school district takes with its curriculum and instruction. At the school district this writer has been employed with, the philosophy has allowed for a diversity of instructional styles as a way of meeting a diversity of children's learning styles. This has led in the elementary school to several educational options available for students and parents: single-grade, single-grade clusters, multiage, looping, and home-school hybrid educational environments. Because some of these educational structures have different instructional designs than others, there are available different curricular materials. Other nearby schools offer only a single choice and a single curriculum. The basis for these decisions can be found in the above mentioned factors as well as in the educational philosophies of the decision makers.

Sources: ( Go through the following websites for further reading and reflection)

1. http://www.multiage-education.com/russportfolio/curriculumtopics/curoverview.html#anchor1331245

2. http://www.coe.ufl.edu/Courses/TODD/curriculum.html

3.http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm

INTERESTING ARTICLES ON EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Dear Colleagues,

The following are some of the interesting articles on Educational Administration and Leadership. These articles can also be used as "Readings" for our M.Ed.M students. We can ask them to read and reflect and then followed by classroom discussions and explanations.

Of course, we need to read first and uderstand what it is and then put our perspectives for better understanding in the local context.

Dr.Pushpanadham.K


Principles of Reform and Reforming Principal Training: A Theoretical Perspective
Lars G. Bjork and Rick GinsbergEducational Administration Quarterly, 2 1995; vol. 31: pp. 11 - 37.
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International Reports
Educational Administration Quarterly, 1 1981; vol. 17: pp. 107 - 116.
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Inquiry in Educational Administration and the Spirit of the Times
Donald J. WillowerEducational Administration Quarterly, 8 1996; vol. 32: pp. 344 - 365.
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Internationalizing Educational Administration
R. Michael Paige and Josef A. MestenhauserEducational Administration Quarterly, 10 1999; vol. 35: pp. 500 - 517.
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The Sociology of Leadership and Educational Administration
Robert O. SlaterEducational Administration Quarterly, 8 1995; vol. 31: pp. 449 - 472.
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The Professorship in Educational Administration —A Personal View
Roald F. CampbellEducational Administration Quarterly, 1 1981; vol. 17: pp. 1 - 24.
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Feminism and Professionalism in Teaching and Educational Administration
Judith S. GlazerEducational Administration Quarterly, 8 1991; vol. 27: pp. 321 - 342.
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What is it in Stockholm?

Dear Friends,

As you all know that I am on Swedish Institute's Guest Scholarship and presently with the Institute of International Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Spending winter in Sweden really sounds well. It is cold. It is dark. But it is exiting and beautiful.

Let me share with you the little background of the country;

Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It has been a member of the European Union since 1995. Its capital city is Stockholm.

At 449,964 km² (173,720 square miles), Sweden is the third largest country in Western Europe and fifth in all of Europe. Sweden has a low population density except in its metropolitan areas; 84% of the population lives in urban areas, which take up only 1.3% of the total land area.[1] The citizens enjoy a high standard of living and the country is generally perceived as modern and liberal,[2] with an organizational and corporate culture that is non-hierarchical and collectivist compared to its Anglo-Saxon counterparts.[3] Nature conservation, environmental protection and energy efficiency are generally prioritized in policy making and embraced by the general public in Sweden.[4][5]

Sweden has a long tradition as a major exporter of iron, copper and timber. Improved transportation and communication allowed more remote natural assets to be utilized on a larger scale, most notably timber and iron ore. In the 1890s, universal schooling and industrialization enabled the country to develop a successful manufacturing industry and by the twentieth century, Sweden emerged as a welfare state, consistently achieving a high position among the top-ranking countries in the UN Human Development Index (HDI). Sweden has a rich supply of water power, but lacks significant oil and coal deposits.

Modern Sweden emerged out of the Kalmar Union formed in 1397 and by the unification of the country by King Gustav Vasa in the 16th century. In the 17th century Sweden expanded its territories to form the Swedish empire. Most of these conquered territories had to be given up during the 18th century. In the early 19th century Finland and the remaining territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost. After its last war in 1814, Sweden entered into a personal union with Norway which lasted until 1905. Since 1814, Sweden has been at peace, adopting a non-aligned foreign policy in peacetime and neutrality in wartime.

Climate

Sweden has a temperate climate despite its northern latitude, mainly because of the Gulf Stream. In the mountains of northern Sweden a sub-Arctic climate predominates. North of the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets for part of each summer, and in the winter, night is similarly unending.
Typical temperatures in the seasons (°C): [36]
Winter: -1° in south, -5 to -1° in middle and down to -16° in the north.
Spring: About 10 °C in the south and middle and a bit colder in the north.
Summer: 18° to 25° in south, 16° to 22° in middle and around 15° in the north.
Autumn: A bit under 10° in the south and middle and often under 5° in the north.
Average precipitation is between 500 and 800 mm/year. ( Source: wikipedia)