Open Collections

A case study of curriculum leadership and development with a global perspective

University of British Columbia

In April, 1990, a team of teachers at General Wolfe Elementary School, Vancouver, B.C., began the planning and design of an interrelated curriculum with a global perspective. The implementation of the interrelated grade 6 and 7 curriculum, named "Wolfe's E.Y.E.S. (Elementary Youth Earth Studies)", commenced in September, 1990. During the 1990-1991 school year, the teaching team concentrated its efforts on cross-curricular approaches to develop a practical infrastructure that significantly connected skills and content from the various curricular domains. Their eclectic reworking of the school's existing curriculum models to include a global perspective provided opportunities for the team to gain professional knowledge within the context of their own classrooms. The problems addressed in this study are: What does the infrastructure of the global curriculum look like; and what were the roles of the practitioners in the context of this curriculum development? This study is a unique-case description of a site-developed curriculum initiated by a team of elementary teachers. This recording of their first year of collaboration is derived from their planning notes, day-books, unit plans, files, yearly previews, journals, photographs and audio and video tapes. The purpose of this document is to present evidence of curriculum leadership and development in global education. This study consists of descriptions of the global curriculum and the team's leadership roles, followed by a two part comparative analysis using elements indicating effective curriculum leadership and development. The study concludes that indicators of effective curriculum leadership and development are present, that the team's work has influenced the school's culture, and that practising elementary teachers can assume leadership in initiating curriculum change.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2008-09-10

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1798

Science Education

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace