Introduction
The academe is an ever growing field and just like any other institution or business company, it has to adapt with the changes that society and other significant factors may impose. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate highlights regarding my personal viewpoints about the development of curriculums and several processes underneath it.
Sure, there are a lot of ways to learn but one can never disregard studying in universities and institutes as a means of learning. Even, with skill-based professions, early learning plays an important factor too. Here are some of the key points I was able to ponder about the process of curriculum assessment.
Seriously, why do we even have to bother about changing the way of educating citizens from to time to time when we can just employ a single and fixed educational system? One of the objectives of curriculum assessment is to identify aspects of curriculum that needs to be changed (Wolf et al., 2006) and from those identified problems, make the necessary planning steps to solve the cases.
Perhaps another purpose of such processes is to satisfy professional accreditations. The development of a curriculum can be on a small scale program that can affect programs at a university level and it can also range up to large-scale ones that could affect current strategies at a national level. Additionally, Curriculum assessment is a requirement for academic institutions to meet different program review requirements conducted by the corresponding department in a specific country (Wolf et al., 2006). As a result, it would literally uplift an institution’s integrity in the educational field if they do conduct assessments at regular and planned intervals.
Current Administration of Curriculum development in Schools today
According to an article published by the website National Council of Teachers of English (2008), further developments and innovations in assessing and remodeling curriculums for learning and teaching strategies are indeed necessary. Also, addressing concerns for the current curriculum programs should not only target management concerns but also matters like the proficiency of schools for technologies and ethical responsibilities.
For me, the current curriculum assessment being implemented in most universities in the country today is heading on a positive direction and I could say it is quite adequate although more improvements could be implemented still. Nevertheless, it is still a good thing that it’s improving and not degrading.
Pros
Curriculum development can be a very effective means of coping with the demands of highly-specific professions for the academe. It is a general knowledge that the academe—involves the universities and educational institutions aiming for knowledge and expertise in different fields, is a primary gateway for individuals to be able to work and be culturally competent in their chosen fields. Without proper development of this element, it would be safe to say that the current practices and principles we know today may soon be obsolete thanks to the lack of support and attention being given to curriculum development.
Curriculum development can either be a centralized or a decentralized process (Wolf et al., 2006) and this is what’s good about it. It involves several processes that are most likely geared towards constructivism and improvisations of the current factors affecting the learning capabilities of not only the students but all of the people involved in the advent of learning.
Cons
Although this process of assessing curriculum has been done for so many years already, there are still some points about it that until now has not been addressed. I would want to compare the processing of assessment of curriculum with that of the electing process. It could have errors due to the subjectivity (Wiliam, 2003) of grading especially if the assessment process was done at a national level. Even the slightest errors could cause significant negative effects on the process of learning for present and future individuals.
It was stated also stated by Wiliam (2003) that the reliability of national curriculum assessments could sometimes be misguided since some do not strongly mandate the publication of assessments routinely which is the opposite of what’s supposed to happen. The grading could also be incredible since a large number of proctors are usually involved and each of them has their own perceptions and beliefs about the supposed to be assessment process.
Conclusion
I would like to close my argument by saying that although curriculum assessment is indeed a vital process for intellectual and knowledge growth, there are still rooms for improvement, large rooms at that and it would be nicer if people in the academe could fill that room with some good, if not the best, results.
References
Wolf, P., Hill, A. & Evers, F. (2006). Handbook for Curriculum Assessment. Pages 1-30.
National Council of Teachers of English. (2008). 21st Century Curriculum & Assessment Framework. Accessed October 2011. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentframework.
Wiliam, D. (2003). National Curriculum Assessment: How to make it better. London: Department of Education & Professional Studies.
