Curriculum Development
seyed Ramezan Aghili; . Jamileh Alomalhoda; kourosh Fathi Vajargah
Abstract
Purpose:
Moral education as a serious content area of most educational systems has attracted more attention from educational philosophy perspective than from curriculum designers. Although such research studies have contributed to the growth of this field, but they have almost failed to yield any operational ...
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Purpose:
Moral education as a serious content area of most educational systems has attracted more attention from educational philosophy perspective than from curriculum designers. Although such research studies have contributed to the growth of this field, but they have almost failed to yield any operational insight for empowering educational authorities. On the other hand, a review of top-level policy documents in the field of education reveals that, despite the real emphasis on moral education in such documents, no moral education curriculum has ever been developed for general courses. Therefore, it seems that moral education has been neglected in formal educational system. To fill such a gap, this study aimed to identify the main principles governing moral education curriculum development.
Method:
This study used a qualitative approach and an inductive content analysis method. The participants consisted of experts in the field and experienced teachers of the primary school. The data was collected by semi-structured interviews.
Results:
According to the results, 9 general categories with their 25 related principles were extracted. The principles included core competency, comprehensive goal-setting, situationality, focus on habituation, universal responsibility of moral education, diversity of sources of data in assessments, and determination of learning situation based on time and place.
Discussion:
Generally the suggested principles governing moral education curriculum have been developed in response to shortcomings in moral education process and aim to shift away from the instruction of values to moral education. The limited definition of ethics in moral education process, the limitation of ethics to the level of cognition, and the limitation of moral content in the area of moral knowledge constitute the main shortcomings. The present curriculum made an attempt to fill in this gap by focusing on ethics as a competency as well as emphasizing other aspects of moral development such as attitude and moral deeds. On the other hand, to fulfill moral education goals, all the resources of the school should be used in harmony with each other. Therefore, learning should not be limited to classroom, and the responsibility of moral education should not fall on the teacher only. As a result, an effective moral education curriculum makes use of all the potential learning resources such as a discipline-based curriculum, integration into other courses at the micro level, and integration with the whole school at the macro-level. To do so, all those who are involved, directly or indirectly, in the process of moral education should understand the importance of this area of learning and its relationship with other areas and perform their respective duties.
Curriculum Development
najmeh soltani nejad; mahboobeh arefi; Nematollah Moosapour; kourosh fathivajargah
Abstract
The aim of this study was to explore the teaching approach of an elementary school teacher focusing on the role of educational theories. Narrative inquiry was selected as the research methodology. As narrative inquiry focuses on the life of one or a few individual, this research focused on a single elementary ...
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The aim of this study was to explore the teaching approach of an elementary school teacher focusing on the role of educational theories. Narrative inquiry was selected as the research methodology. As narrative inquiry focuses on the life of one or a few individual, this research focused on a single elementary school teacher as participant. In order to analyze the data obtained from narrative and semi-structured interviews, narrative analysis and analysis of narratives were used. In order to ascertain the validity of the research findings, member-check and triangulation methods were used. Straus and Corbin paradigmatic model was used as a technique for analysis of narratives. Findings revealed that the core category determining this teacher’s teaching approach was her beliefs formed under the influence of background experiences and teacher education courses. In the final analysis the strategy of the teacher involves selecting academic theories providing a background for this teacher to according to practical wisdom in the classroom. So the findings indicate that although different factors other than educational theories affect teacher’s approach, theories play a critical influence on teacher’s activity. So, the rigorous design of teacher education curriculum can help teachers perform informed action in classroom.
