Cus3701 Summary Study Notes 2022

CUS3701 SUMMARY STUDY NOTES 2022 CUS3701 - Curriculum Studies Stages of planning for curriculum interpretation and implementation. Four key stages: 1. Strategic school planning 2. Phase planning 3. Planning per grade 4. Lesson planning 1. Strategic school planning Before planning for the school year, SMT and professional staff should do SWOT analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). After swot analyses, academic staff select what they consider important content for learners in the next academic year. - negotiate with teachers from other phases, select what to focus on, take into account context from which learners come and in which the school is situated. - should be informed by stakeholders 2. Phase planning All teachers in a phase should work together to create a clear plan of how they will guide learners through that phase for a particular subject. Planning takes place across a phase (3 grades). The organising tool for a phase: CAPS doc and the characteristics of a learner in this age group. Learners are clearly at different developmental levels at different phases. 3. Planning per grade The year's work for each grade in a phase must be planned. Work schedule for each subject is based on CAPS Developed into sequencing, context, core knowledge, concepts at each level. Schedules might be included in CAPS - teachers will have to also work with the realities of school and learner context when planning for each term and year. 4. Lesson planning Individual teachers must plan lessons for each grade, based on the topics in the curriculum - must ensure they plan for the particular learners in their classes - there must be outcomes/aims for each lessons S MABOEA CUS3701 STUDY NOTES October2021 Teaching strategies in a teaching-learning environment - 1. Interpreting the curriculum and planning to teach requires arranging content in such a manner that knowledge transfer can take place most effectively. 2. Planning should also identify the current level of learner understanding, define the final outcome (goal) of the teaching process (instruction), and provide some assistance in the process of understanding. Planning and designing happens within a contextual whole. Examples of teaching strategies: • Cooperative learning through mediation • Teaching critical thinking • Cognitively guided instruction • Scaffolding • Problem solving as teaching strategy • Simulation as discovery learning in action • Discussion • M-learning (Mobile / multimedia / micro-learning / motivated / e-learning / distance • learning) • Blended learning (4.6.1) Cooperative learning through mediation Reciprocal teaching allows for the creation of a dialogue between learners and teachers. Encourages learners to go beyond answering questions and to engage in the discourse This two-way communication becomes a teaching strategy. (4.6.2) Teaching critical thinking Why do we teach thinking skills? - we want to give learners the ability to solve problems and make decisions that are more intelligent, - to make them open-minded - to allow them to develop self-confidence when reasoning. Learners will become dedicated to search for reliable information and keen to test hypotheses. They need to approach problems in a systematic way in order to arrive at a new level of understanding. This requires learners and teachers to develop an awareness of each other's viewpoints, to think about their own beliefs, standards, values, and to be able to make connections and decisions and provide reasons for their opinions and choices. Interactions involves teaching, learning and assessment of thinking. One interprets assessment as the process by means of which learners learn, and the systematic collection of information about learners' learning, to make decisions about how to improve learning - this would also refer to the modification of planning for more effective teaching. Assessment with an underlying mediated character provides an opportunity to diagnose, guide, and motivate - through constructive and formative feedback, in order for learning to take place during and through assessment. Assessment tasks has to be justified into the learning aims that they serve. S MABOEA CUS3701 STUDY NOTES October2021 It is necessary to look/listen carefully, examine writing/actions through which learners display the level of their understanding. The components to enhance critical thinking (essential to assess learners' individual abilities and needs) include - development of a set of outcomes and criteria, - the use of close-to reality contexts, - ideas about individual feedback, - fostering the ability to self-assess through a mediation process. (4.6.3) Cognitively guided instruction Strategy for implementing Vygotsky’s theory on the importance of language and listening in teaching as a social construct. For instance, learners are able to solve problems without direct instruction by drawing upon informal knowledge of everyday situations and through dialogue An approach to teaching mathematics with the main focus on the practice of listening to learners’ mathematical thinking and using it as a basis for instruction. It involves the teacher and learners exploring mathematics problems and then sharing their different problem-solving strategies in an open dialogue. Listening to learners’ thinking about the domains of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, base-ten concepts, multidigit operations, algebra, geometry and fractions provide guidance to teachers about what learners really understand about these domains. Teachers’ professional judgement is central to making decisions about how to use information about learners’ thinking, but it again underlines the importance of listening and dialogue in any guided instruction. (4.6.4) Scaffolding builds learning bridges Scaffolding requires the teacher to provide learners with the opportunity to extend their current skills and knowledge. The teacher must engage learners’ interest, simplify tasks so they are manageable, and motivate learners to pursue the instructional goal. The teacher must look for discrepancies between learners’ efforts and the solution; control for frustration and risk; and model an idealised version of the act Scaffolding is a teaching strategy that provides a temporary, supportive and adjustable framework for a learner, which enables him or her to participate in or complete a task/activity that is beyond his or her reach.