Education Effective Education: Curriculum Development vs. Instructional

Education

Effective Education: Curriculum Development vs. Instructional Strategies

When comes to teaching students effectively, both curriculum development and instructional strategies are very important. Without curriculum development, students would not learn new skills and ideas that keep up with technology and other issues that continue to change as the world evolves. Without these new skills and ideas, students would not be ready to move out of the school environment and into a work environment where they can be useful and productive.

Without proper instructional strategies, students would not get the full benefit of the curriculum being offered. Students must be able to learn at their own pace and discover new thoughts and ideas in relation to the curriculum that they are being taught. A teacher who has good instructional strategies for helping students learn can teach every student what they need to know, even if a particular student learns at a different pace than the rest of the class, or has difficulty understanding the curriculum.

I believe that instructional strategies are more important than curriculum development. This is because any curriculum, no matter how well developed and up-to-date it is, will not be any good to students if the teacher is not able to get the information across to them properly. This is where instructional strategies come in. The teacher must be good at instructing students, and must have several different strategies in place to help the students that need it most. Without proper instruction, many students would fail, even if the curriculum that they were being taught was very advanced.

Many schools are trying a comprehensive approach to teaching, which works on both curriculum development and instructional strategies (Ogbu, 1992). This is a good idea because both areas of effective teaching are being worked on together. However, it is important to make sure that not all of the emphasis is put on the curriculum alone. The best curriculum in the world will not endure over poor teaching skills and an inability on the teacher's part to get to the information across to the students.

Another reason that instructional strategies are so important is because they must change based on the demographics, background, and other family issues of the students that are being taught. Generally speaking, the curriculum in a specific grade level across many schools, such as in a county or state, is basically the same. The instructional strategies, however, tend to be different (Patrick & Reinhartz, 1999). For example, if an instructor is teaching in a school where children are impoverished and generally have no money and little food, they must adopted an attitude that is somewhat different from the teacher across town who is instructing affluent children in the same grade, because the level of knowledge is likely to be different between these two groups, and their worries, goals, and ideas are also likely to be different (Haberman, 1994).

Curriculum development and instructional strategies need to be the best that they can in order to help children as much as possible. Instructional strategies, however, must change with not only the times but also the school taught, and sometimes the particular class being taught. Teachers must be able to change their strategies rapidly, as many students need extra help or other things that a particular instructional strategy may not be able to provide (Portman, 1993).