Curriculum Trends

Curriculum Trends

Tanya Dubose

CUR/558 Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction

Dr. J.P. Keener

April 21, 2010

CURRICULUM TRENDS

Just this morning I was watching the news and they spoke about this new gadget called the Clicker. The Clicker is currently being used in college classrooms. The students can use the Clicker to respond to questions and allows them to actively participate in classroom discussions. It can also be used to keep account of who attended class on any particular day. The Clicker is purchased at the beginning of the freshman year and can be used for the entire time the student is at college. These types of things are also currently being used in both middle and high school and are indeed a great way to keep the students focused, interested, and on task. Although the “clicker” concept has been around for a few years now, I still found this to be very interesting and thought about how much the curriculum is changing. We are no longer in the age where the use of pencil and paper will do, the new generation of students require much more.

From the chalk board to the white board; the encyclopedia to the Internet; the type writer to computers with word processors; and from the overhead projector to the Promethean Board, so many things have changed throughout the years and with good reason. Students of today are so much more tech savvy. “Since the minds of today are trained to interact with television, many different video and audio stimuli will be used to help students to focus more in class” (Mehner, 2009). Based on the current trends, we as teachers must prepare ourselves in order to prepare our kids.

At the school in which I currently work, we have what are called Smart classes. These classes are equipped with multiple technologies such as computers, Elmo document cameras, Promethean boards, LCD projectors, DVD players, and are equipped for surround sound. Only about ten classes are equipped with these...