edu 555 assignment 5

Curriculum Inception

School District of Philadelphia

Geographical Location

This is the school district that houses all the public schools in Philadelphia, it is one of the largest school districts in The United States, in terms of enrollment because it is has enrolled over 200,000 students. This school district operates over 214 schools in the city, whereby there are almost 300 schools. The high schools are 49 in number, the middle schools are 16, and the elementary has 149 schools. The other schools are run independently by charter schools that directly report to the School District of Philadelphia.

Demographics of Student Population and Cultural Influences

The enrollment in Philadelphia district schools by the year 2013 was 131,362, which currently the number is at 200,000. There are 107 languages spoken by the district students in the schools other than English. The most significant group students speaking another language than English is the Spanish speakers that amount to almost half of the total number of students in the school district. The other languages include Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Khmer, Creoles and pidgins which are English and French-based, Ukrainian, Bengali, Albanian and other 80 languages.

State Policies and Practices Related to Curriculum Development

There are various state policies designed to improve curriculum development; such as a curriculum audit; a curriculum audit assists the school district in establishing if the curriculum in place aligned to the objectives of the sates and if the curriculum is adopted in a class by the teachers (Partelow & Shapiro, 2018). The curriculum is vital to the education that the students receive hence, establishing what and when they are taught is essential, in the sense that a curriculum that is of high quality will positively reflect on the student. This policy is on the same page as evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum and not just alignment, which helps in the development of the best curriculum.

Specific Discipline and Grade Level for Pilot Curriculum

The discipline for the pilot curriculum is the K-12 Science Education, which is a broad discipline and exciting at the same time. It is essential to understand that the science curriculum Science education goes with instruction, assessment and teacher development. Science education is the field in education that is involved with sharing of science process and content with individuals, mostly students that are not considered to be part of the science community. In this case, the learners might be college students, children or adults that are among the general population. The science education field encompasses works in science process that is the scientific method, science content, teaching pedagogy and social science. There are standards for science education that provide the basis for the development of proper understanding for the students the entire K-12 education course and other levels of education. The conventional subjects in the standards are life, physical, earth human sciences and space.

K-12 being the level that this pilot curriculum is focusing on it is also essential to describe it, K-12 is a used educational technology and education in Canada and the United States in addition to other countries (Rouse, 2019). It is somehow a short form for the school grades that are publicly supported that come before college. The publicly-supported grades include the (K) that stands for Kindergarten and the twelve grades that go from 1st to 12th grade (1-12). Whereby after the 12th grade follows is, college and hypothetically speaking the first year of college would be the 13th grade if this system was to extend to college. Also, something to note is that modern information technology is provided at the K-12 level in our communities that use the K-12 model.

Rationale That Proposes Three benefits to The Students

The alignment of the framework of this K-12 curriculum, there are other aspects outside the curriculum, that could be considered and at the same time not addressed in the framework. Through the elements of the science curriculum, there are specific areas such as discussion and reflection, which are part of the curriculum. Through this aspect's students can come and establish the fact that scientific inquiry encompasses some values. These values will then benefit them in future even if they are applied in a scientific field, for instance;

Respect for the Importance of Logical thinking; this is an aspect that is spread through the science units. Through the experiments and historical evaluations of the branches of science. Logical thinking it is something that is required for nay individuals, which is a good thing that this curriculum can develop this at the K-12 grade level while the students are still young.

Open-mindedness; this is a crucial factor in our current society with the various issue with gender, politics and other societal topics. Hence the development of such skills through the curriculum will be necessary for the students, as they will develop this from the class to real life situations such as when they join college, and suddenly everything is not the same.

Honest report findings; this is another beneficial aspect that the students can get from the science curriculum. In the sense that in some way, it will develop individuals with integrity, which is a vital factor for the next generation as a lack of integrity is what ails our current age.

The science-education curriculum is supposed to consider the students, mainly because the curriculum in place is not sufficient for their development through the K-12 grade level. Hence the above three benefits are some of the benefits the students will get from the pilot-curriculum program.

Four Instructional Goals of the Curriculum

Albert Einstein said education has the goal "to produces independently thinking and acting Individuals." Science education, on the other hand, has the aim to produce capable individuals that evaluate and understand information that is or claims to be scientific and therefore creating motivated and skills future scientists in every field (Forman et al. 2015). The curriculum was based on this principle, and consequently it has Instructional Goals which are to produce proficient students in Science;

That has the knowledge, utilise and interpret the natural world's scientific Interpretation. Meaning that they have the extensive scientific experience, that can be established through reading lessons, to at least have a clue about the various science units such as the earth, plants and human sciences. The general scientific knowledge is the first step that each student is anticipated to have in this pilot curriculum.

Who can evaluate and generate scientific explanation and evidence; this can be achieved through the experiments that are set aside for the practical lessons. The main aim of the practical lessons is to give the students the feel of scientific tests aimed at getting scientific evidence.

That can appropriate the development and nature of scientific knowledge and at the same time, participate proficiently in scientific discourse and practices. In other words, the curriculum is designed to ensure that the students enjoy science as a subject; of course, it is not for every student. But it will propel those interested in having enthusiasm about science. This is because students who interest and passion in the subject have a better shot at being productive in scientific practices.

Works Cited