| Summary: |
Curriculum contextualization has gradually assumed as a central theme in discussions about teaching and learning. Understood as a way to bring closely the teaching-learning to students' reality, contextualization appears as a prerequisite in addressing the content and organization of activities to be undertaken in the classroom. By helping students to relate the educational tasks with their knowledge and everyday experiences, curricular contextualization facilitates the linking of theory and practice. Furthermore it allows students to give meaning and value to what they learn in school. Contextualizing knowledge at school is, therefore, a process that aims to produce a meaningful curriculum for students identified with James Beane (1997) termed coherent curriculum. Hence the timeliness and relevance of both thematic analysis and the research project we want to achieve, whose central purpose is to study the ways in which school subjects have contextualized their knowledge, including its nuclear knowledge, without which they lose their identity, as well as methods and reasons how and why they have done such contextualization effort. Furthermore, curricular contextualization results from a continuum of decisions made on different contexts and by different actors during curriculum development process. Is that so a study such as this becomes relevant whether by this issue recognition as a way to improve educational system quality, both for the contributions that research can provide to schools and the community. This relevance becomes clear when one endorses the idea of teaching and learning that emphasizes the construction of knowledge by actors involved. It requires a permanent reflection of related curricular practices as allows political decision-making sustained upon collected data. Thus it is considered that, in Portugal, this project proves to be full of opportunity, since the formal curriculum has evolved from a design focused on scientific truth and / or univ  |
Summary
Curriculum contextualization has gradually assumed as a central theme in discussions about teaching and learning. Understood as a way to bring closely the teaching-learning to students' reality, contextualization appears as a prerequisite in addressing the content and organization of activities to be undertaken in the classroom. By helping students to relate the educational tasks with their knowledge and everyday experiences, curricular contextualization facilitates the linking of theory and practice. Furthermore it allows students to give meaning and value to what they learn in school. Contextualizing knowledge at school is, therefore, a process that aims to produce a meaningful curriculum for students identified with James Beane (1997) termed coherent curriculum. Hence the timeliness and relevance of both thematic analysis and the research project we want to achieve, whose central purpose is to study the ways in which school subjects have contextualized their knowledge, including its nuclear knowledge, without which they lose their identity, as well as methods and reasons how and why they have done such contextualization effort. Furthermore, curricular contextualization results from a continuum of decisions made on different contexts and by different actors during curriculum development process. Is that so a study such as this becomes relevant whether by this issue recognition as a way to improve educational system quality, both for the contributions that research can provide to schools and the community. This relevance becomes clear when one endorses the idea of teaching and learning that emphasizes the construction of knowledge by actors involved. It requires a permanent reflection of related curricular practices as allows political decision-making sustained upon collected data. Thus it is considered that, in Portugal, this project proves to be full of opportunity, since the formal curriculum has evolved from a design focused on scientific truth and / or universal values (as scholar subjects were the repository) to new concepts. Changing converge with the idea of providing students with meaningful learning as ways to produce their personal and social identities. The analysis of a broader theoretical framework both national and international, sustain the theoretical basis for research project we want to achieve. In this context, main research object, that shall guide study design, compels us to apply both quantitative and qualitative methods, materializing a mixed model of collecting and analyzing data. An important dimension of research is to conduct case studies in several schools, scaled to data collection on a set of specific scholar contents such as Portuguese, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, Natural Science / Biology, and History. However, study's focus is, to a broader level, an analysis of assessment tools produced by teachers of those subjects, as well as national examinations tools and correlated results obtained by students. Although case studies provide perspectives focused on concrete realities and they are not capable of generalization, they allow complementary readings and crossing analysis with quantitative data collected. In addition case studies illustrate practical curriculum which is not visible just by results' analysis. In short, it is intended that project contributes, first, to clarify curricular contextualization's place in educational policies and, second, to understand the ways as such policies are interpreted and materialized in curriculum practices. Underlying this intent is the project applicability which we think may have effects on the policy-making,namely concerning teachers' training, as stated, but also by setting new guidelines and evaluation procedures. The project brings together researchers from various universities in Portugal - Porto, Minho, Aveiro and Lisbon - with recognized research experience in curriculum theory and curriculum development field. Project lasts for two years beginning on October ,1st ,2010. |