An Educational Institution select an international curriculum to have a clear identity for its intended curriculum. The standards outlined in the intended curriculum are the skeleton of the implemented curriculum created by administrators and teachers. The implemented curriculum has many layers and each institution might opt to choose different names for those layers as long as the major elements are well defined at any of the layers. Some of the layers are explained below.
Fields of Study: A field of study refers to a well – organized set of program, course and other experiences where learning takes place that is normally offered in several grade levels and school year. These are also considered as the standard subjects in school such as English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Arabic, Music, Arts, PE, etc.
Programs of Study: A program of study refers to the set of learning experiences that are offered for a specific group of students over several years and normally covers different fields of study. In AMS, the students are engaged to studying the trilingual education program in English, French and Arabic languages that starts as early as Kindergarten level. Mathematics and Science are being offered from Grade K – 12.
Courses of Study: A course of study is a set of well – organized student learning experiences based from the program of study and field of study. It is offered in the whole academic year in which students show attainment at the end of each school year. Courses of study are named with the subject from the program and field of study and designated with the grade level of the student. For example, in English, the course of study can be named as English 1, English 2, and so on; in Math, the courses are named as Math 1, Math 2, and so on.
Units of Study: A unit of study is a well – organized set of interconnected student learning experiences that is part of a course of study. These units of study are normally organized in the scope and sequence of each subject.
The development of the unit of study should include the following:
- Include the setting of learning goals strategies at the beginning of the unit.
- Include the monitoring progress, introducing new knowledge and application of knowledge during the unit.
- Include student assistance strategies to find out how well the students achieve the learning goals
The teacher should set a clear component and subcomponents of the unit of study to the students and be able to define specific tasks for such components. In other words, the teacher should be able to present the Unit Plans to the students at the beginning of the school year as much as possible so they will have a clear picture on what they will study for the entire academic year.
Lessons: A lesson refers to the students’ learning experience with focus on specific set of learning outcomes that is typically achieved by the students at the end of the period. This lesson is presented as lesson plan and is the subset of the unit plan.
There are 9 classifications of strategies that greatly affect the students’ achievements according to Marzano and his colleagues (2001). These are as follows:
- Making comparisons
- Synthesizing and note – taking
- Providing reinforcement and rewards
- Take home activities and drill practice
- Nonverbal representations
- Cooperative and collaborative learning
- Setting of learning outcomes and providing effective feedback to students
- Formulating and testing hypotheses
- Using probing questions, verbal or graphical cues and graphic organizers
The best way to enhance the school curriculum is to engage students to activities or learning opportunities with real life integration and problem solving that focuses on real life applications.
