Journal of Theory & Practice in Curriculum

Conceptualizing Powerful Knowledge according to Michael Young’s Knowladge-baced Curriculum Theory

Mahmood Mehrmohammadi

“Powerful Knowledge” is the main concept in Michael Young’s Knowledge-based curriculum theory. For more than 4 decades, he has been developing a variety of educational Ideas under the shadow of the concept. This paper tries to take out its implications for Curriculum theory, by reviewing most of annotated bibliography which was published by Young. The paper also covers some remarks and critiques on the concept and reflects them in a classified manner, and making inferences from them to conclude the most important implications of the concept for theory and practice.

The Analysis Experiences Curriculum Internship: The Conceptual Model

This aim of the current research was presenting a conceptual model based on living experiences of internship curriculum. The research approach was qualitative and phenomenological. The instrument for data collection was a semi-structured interview and research data was gathered from 24 student-teachers, 15 Supervisor and 18 teacher-educator from different departments. The content of the living experiences of those groups was analyzed according to Colaizzeri pattern. The research results showed the categories of curriculum internship experiences. Among Supervisor, 4 categories of knowledge, attitudes, organization and interaction, among teacher-educators, 3 categories including attitude , organization and interaction, and lastly among students-teachers 5 categories of cognitive, emotional, attitude, behavioral, interactions was developed. At the end of the research five points was proposed for improvement of the quality of internship curriculum.

A Narrative Inquiry Curriculum & Professional Development of Student-Teachers in Farhangian University: Design Curriculum Model

The aim of the present study is to design and validate the narrative inquiry curriculum for professional development of student-teachers in Farhangian university. The model of narrative inquiry curriculum is grounded on the theories of Dewey, Bruner, Schwab, Vygotsky, Donald Schön, Clandinin and Connelly. In this model, learning is a reflective practice and experience-based practice. The student- teachers make sense meaning through thinking and reflection on self-experiences of themselves and the experiences of others; They actively learn, acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes through narratives and enhance their professional development. In this study, two main questions were addressed: 1.) What characteristics have a model of narrative inquiry curriculum for professional development of student- teachers? 2.) Is this the model is validated? To answer those questions, a descriptive-analytical method was employed. The model was designed and validated by 20 curriculum experts and teacher- educators. A high percentage of professionalsthe experts, assessed the model and its different parts of it as appropriate.

Explanation of Entrepreneurship Curriculum Components in General Education( Synthesis Inquiry)

Niloufar Mortazanejad

Entrepreneurship education (EE) is a fast growing field; despite of this, the content and teaching strategies are vague. This paper collected the studies on goals, content, teaching and evaluation approaches of EE, and by synthesizing them, provided an appropriate compound of them. The criteria for selecting the studies were examination one or more of mentioned components among 2000-2016. Findings of each component have been discussed and by synthesizing them, the final conclusion has been approved. According to this study, EE goals in elementary level include familiarizing with basic concepts, motivation, interest and entrepreneurial spirit. The secondary level objectives are promotion of entrepreneurial skills and competencies. Content is developed based on goals, and is integrated in three first years, and then is delivered in both integration and discrete. Active teaching strategies, especially induction and intuition, are appropriate. The authentic evaluation methods and formative evaluation approches are more fit with entrepreneurship nature.

Determination of Innovation Indicators in Teaching-learning Activities of Curricula based on Constructivism and their Application

The present research aims to determinate the innovation indicators Teaching-learning activities of Curricula based on Constructivism and their application in Isfahan Art University. Qualitative and quantitative methods have been used. The statistical population was the qualitative part of all authorities in education and art education of whom 19 were purposefully selected as samples. The statistical population in the quantitative part consisted of MA and PhD students of Isfahan Art University whom 285people were randomly selected. The research data's were collected from semi-structured interview and realized questionnaires The results of the qualitative part that the most important innovation indicators in Teaching-learning activities consist of: Experimental approach in curriculum planning, attention to the Self- directed, According to the thinking skills., continuous and quality Evaluation, According to the Artist principles of dialogue and discovery-based learning and Application of new knowledge in the field of view and analysis of works of art. The application of innovation indicators” is less than the average. So, holding educational courses, using the experiences of the arts faculty and art experts, continuous review of curriculum based on constructivism indices, are useful factors in improving and innovating Art curricul.

The potential of teaching modelling problems in the national curriculum for changing students’ attitude towards mathematics

Hassan Alamolhodaei

The National curriculum of Islamic Republic of Iran has been focused on promoting students’ modeling skills. In consideration of this emphasis, this study has investigated the attitudes towards mathematics and the views towards mathematical modeling problems of 244 students in grade 10. This research was conducted with a pre-test, followed by an educational intervention and a post-test. During the educational intervention, two groups of students with different instructional formats; the direct teaching method, which is teacher-centered, and the operative-strategic method, which is student-centered, attended 6 sessions of modeling problem-solving. In order to gather data for the study, a Likert scale and an open questionnaire were used. The results of this study showed that teaching modeling problems improved students’ attitudes towards mathematics in both groups. While most students had positive attitudes that expressed the modeling problems as interesting and applicable, other students had negative comments.

The Goals of the Curriculum Orientation and Mobility in Iran and America (Especially the Visually Impaired Students)

Golamreza Haji Hossein Nejad

This study has compared the goals and objectives of orientation and mobility (O&M) curriculums in Iran and America. The Bereday’s comparative method was used in this research. Initially the goals were defined and interpreted based on two criteria including the level of generality and the level of coverage and then they were compared by juxtaposition. The study found that American O&M curriculum has 41 functional mobility tasks with 38 goals and 270 objectives solidly based on the students' needs in five different environments: home/living, campus, residential, commercial and public transportation. Furthermore, some of these goals were also devoted to low vision students. Iranian O&M curriculum had only developed 10 goals and 75 objectives exclusively for blind students, ingnoring their surrounding environment. American O&M curriculum with specific goals and objectives provides numerous opportunities for blind as well as low vision students to learn O&M skills through a meaningful learning environment extremely helpful in their daily lives.