Designing a mathematics curriculum
by : Lee Peng Yee
In this journal, there are several things that considered in designing the mathematics curriculum according Lee Peng Yee:
- A curriculum is a good curriculum only when we have implemented it successfully. Tobe successfully, it has to be in connection with teachers, students and many other determining factors.
- Before design a curriculum, the teacher must move be better so that training of teachers become an important in the implementation of a curriculum like workshops that the common practice for train the teachers and hopefully that is the teachers get new content knowledge within a short period of time.
- For every reform, we need new textbook. The production of the textbooks became another important component in the successful implementation of a syllabus.
- We must look the habit of the students and profile of the student to become the top priority in designing a curriculum.
- We should to follow developed of the students and learning habit of our students is important as selecting the topic to be included in syllabus.
- Can make the students love to learn mathematics and up to certain level and assume the students need to learn mathematics.
- Make students can be creative in learning to think and make students be self-learning person.
- Use the context and to emphasize on the process. It means to design curriculum of teaching must look of learning experience and the other knowledge requirements.
- Use the model or bridging to help students learn mathematics.
- Examination that can drive learning and also drive change in learning so examination definitely plays a role in the design of a curriculum.
- We should explore the positive aspect of examination system.
INTRODUCTION
PMRI stands for Pendidikan Matematika Realistik Indonesia or Indonesian Realistic Mathematics Education. A decade of PMRI in the classroom in the some of primary schools in Indonesia. Syllabus often called as official document which describes what to teach in the schools. And that said the mathematics syllabus in Indonesia didn’t change, it’s curriculum has changed under the movement PMRI. Now, syllabus has a size of a book, spelling out in the detail what to teach and how to teach.
DESCRIPTIVE VERSUS PRESCRITIVE
There’re two types of syllabuses that is descriptive and prescriptive. By descriptive, that mean the syllabus is brief. It leaves a lot of space for teachers to interpret the syllabus, to manage and designed the syllabus. Another types of syllabus is prescriptive, sometimes to the extent that item to be excluded would be clearly stated in the syllabus that have many problems that relation with teaching and one latest trend is introduce a new element in the syllabus so that processes of teaching can be made explicit and can be evaluated. There are the strands in a syllabus. A common list are numbers, algebra, geometry and statistics. Some of syllabus have more than four strands. And if the syllabus can’t give solving a problem with solution using a method it doesn’t belong to any specific strands. Most of the syllabus are spiral in the sense that a topic may be introduced at the lower grade but in higher grade it will revisited again. One topic under discussion recently is randomness. It suggested that if it’s important enough, w should to introduce it as early as possible. if we go the recent research in the mathematics, randomness is already an important concept. A syllabus spells out what to teach, how to teach but we never teach what we teach.
TEACHER FACTOR
A change can move if only the teachers can be move early. Hence the training of teachers be important to implementation a curriculum. During the math reform, workshops was common practice that the aim to train teachers. And this workshops had been done until now without there’s question whether that is a good way to teacher become better. And for every reform, we need textbooks. The production of textbook can be another reason to successful to implementation a syllabus. Textbook should be interpreted syllabus. During the 80s, after ten years of the calculus reform in the united state spent many millions of dollars to teach the graphically, numerically and analytically. Every reform takes the time to complete a full cycle. Normally, teachers more received to change and reinforce their way of teaching than replace it. And the changes be difficult go to progress, the teacher prefer chose the original way than new way of teaching.
New approach in teaching is intervention is one way to promote the teachers. Hopefully that way can interested the teacher to change the habit of teaching in the classroom. It sometimes hard and sometimes doesn’t like fashion that it can come and leaves without lasting effect.
the lesson learn to us from the fast so that is can prepare the teachers before any changes in the curriculum.
STUDENT PROFILE
Habit in society now different. Example, the older people like listen the radio and read news where as the younger people prefer watch television than read than books. The older people write with hand and younger people write on the computer. Students in the end of teaching process, it make the environment give effect to their learning. Queenna lee-Chua et al (2007) in their research identified ten best practices in the student learning. Top of the list is learning habit or more precisely discipline. Hence, important for us to know the students, their habit to design a curriculum.
In the past, people sent their children to be educated. And want them have skill to get the job, whereas that job need people that thinking person and be stand alone. So from that, mathematics not only teaching about mathematics. With mathematics, we can be creative and to reach it sometimes should us to teach out of syllabus. So with this problem, it adds a heavy responsibility to design mathematics curriculum.
In the fast, there were more fractions and less decimals. Now we still teach simple fractions, and go on quickly to decimal then back to fraction again. Computation of fractions is gradually replaced by decimals. It’s caused the student use calculators. Habit of student change give effect that design of a curriculum should also change. But often student isn’t be the top priority in design curriculum. Learning habit of students is a important for select the topics included in syllabus.
DIFFERENTIATED SYLLABUSES
Issue of mathematics for all discussed at the international conferences in the 90s. the topic was that all of student should study mathematics and up to a certain level. The question were are how to help them and whether they really need it. This is problem in education generally, not only mathematics education. The practice of differentiated syllabus or differentiated curricula isn’t new. School Mathematics Project (SMP) of Southampton, England, produced a series of secondary school textbooks during in math reform. The first series were numbered 1,2,3 etc. then a second series was labeled as a,b,c etc. This was differentiated curricula. The second series was completed the main series which was the first series. But, 30 years later, the textbooks gradually shifted back to something more traditional. It be kind of practices that can more loves to stay on. Assume that every students needs to learn some mathematic. In relation with the design of a curriculum, a solution could be differentiated syllabus or differentiated curriculum.
ASSESSMENT
Assessment was meant to be “ assessment of learning” that means “ we assess what we learned”. Then people started advocating assessment for learning that means “we learn from what is assessed. Assessment as learning means “assessing is a way of learning”. Its means whether the third version of assessment will work as good as the first and second version of assessment. Teaching always come before learning. Few people reach the top with self-learning. There is nothing wrong to teach for examination. By examinations, we mean public examinations. We can use positive of examination. if examinations can drive the change of learning so it means play a role in design of curriculum.
MODELLING
Teach in content and emphasize on processes in the classroom is the latest change. At 2010, one Asian country and one European country introduced independently a new element into their revised syllabuses, and announced in 2011 that is learning experience and the other knowledge requirement. The idea make explicit the process of learning for the topics in syllabus. This is new matter in some way to formalize the common practice in the classroom. Algebra dominates in the school mathematics now after we lost the geometry with proofs and mechanics were two important subject in the school. In the words, we lost two rich traininggrounds to teach thinking process and to teach applications.
Another way to compensate for the situation is to incorporate modeling into the curriculum. Many countries have done it, for example, Australia and Germany. Singapore in 2010 organized a school out-reach event on modeling trying to introduce modeling into the curriculum. And the success or not of the modeling project depends on how participants play it.
CONCLUSION
A curriculum called good if we have implemented it successfully. And to be successful, it has to be connected with teachers, students, and many other factors.
Mathematics is the core and not how to teach it, a reform can move only as fast as teachers can move, train the students for the work place different from our own, needed to cater to students of different abilities, explore the positive aspect of the examination system, make explicit in a syllabus teaching in context and emphasis on processes.
When we review syllabus, we look around other countries and compare with them. Perhaps we should also look back in time. Find out what we have done right and what we have done wrong. In order to do that, we need good documentation of the past events or institutional memory. Activity-based teaching of PMRI may have made in-roads into the classroom in Indonesia. It will be the design of a locally-produced curriculum that will lead the movement of PMRI to become a main stream in the reform of mathematics teaching, in particular, and education in Indonesia.
Mathematics Corner 