Harry Grover Tuttle

Richard Hanzelka’s ” India’s National Curriculum Framework Fosters Active Learning” in ASCD’s March 2007 Education Update (pgs. 4-5) reports that India offers five guiding principles for curriculum development:

·         Connecting knowledge to life outside the school

·         Ensuring that learning does not rely on rote methods

·         Enriching the curriculum to provide for children’s overall development rather than remaining textbook-centric

·         Making examinations more flexible and integrated with classroom life

·         Nurturing an overriding identity informed by caring concern within the democratic polity of the country

How does your present classroom curriculum compare to these goals?  Rate yourself on a 5-very high to 1-low scale?  

How can you use technology to promote these goals in your classroom? Have you connected your classroom learning to life outside the school through emailing outside “experts” or videoconferencing to interview people? Have you changed to project base learning that requires higher level skills such as helping the community save a wetland by document it with a digital camera?   Do your students go behind the textbook by using Internet resources? Are your exams ones in which students produce things such as designing a city as part of your social studies class instead of taking a multiple choice test about cities? Do you involve your students in civic actions to better the country such as sharing ways to save money at home?

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