Share Your Opinion with Alberta Education
You have a great opportunity to provide input to Alberta Education on guiding principles for future curriculum. ACEE has participated in this process since its inception, and we believe there are real opportunities to ensure that future Alberta students receive more environmental education.
Now is your chance to add your voice! PLEASE visit the link below and tell the government what you think about new curriculum. Hopefully you’ll wear your ‘environmental educator’ hat as you do so!
We have already provided a response – it appears below. You are welcome to refer to it as you comment on this survey.
Please note that this survey won’t ask you about the specifics of environmental education – the process is still too general for that. Rather, you’ll be asked about more general ‘guiding principles,’ so that you can comment on the broad characteristics of the sort of curriculum you’d like to see. We need to ensure that these guiding principles create the conditions necessary for excellent environmental education to take place, keeping the door open to allow the topics and approaches you’d like to see in future Programs of Study, such as the Elementary Science curriculum.
You have until December 1, 2011 to complete the survey.
The format for the survey (it can be done quickly):
- seven draft guiding principles – provided by Alberta Education – there are four agree to disagree choices for each one with the option to add comments
- three new guiding principles – you can add up to three new ones with a rationale
Click here to go to the survey
ACEE’s response to Guiding Principles for Curriculum Design
Draft Guiding Principles provided by Alberta Education:
1. Curriculum evolves in response to emerging student and societal needs.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- This ensures flexibility and adaptability that can be responsive to local and changing societal/environmental circumstances.
- Curriculum that is linked to the needs of the community enables community-based and place-based education
2. Curriculum enables student-centred learning.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- Helps create ‘ethical citizens’, particularly for students that wish to help make a difference in the world.
- Helps students engage in real-world project-based learning that is guided by their interests and relevant to their lives.
3. Curriculum enables broad exploration and deep understanding.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- The learner needs time to “drill down” in the content and this will also allow teachers and students to engage in relevant and meaningful learning.
- Permits the learner to ‘unpack’ complex issues, clarify values and apply their learning
4. Curriculum enables the development of competencies for living, learning and working.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- This attribute of curriculum is ‘necessary, but not sufficient’.
- Curriculum should enable the development of the whole person: it should promote health, happiness, quality of life and a sense of meaning, purpose and interconnectedness in the world.
5. Curriculum enables ways of learning – acknowledging that students have diverse needs and preferences for learning.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- This accommodates students’ multiple intelligences, including the ‘Naturalist Intelligence’ and ‘Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence’ that are best addressed through outdoor education
6. Curriculum enables ways of knowing – recognizing that one’s knowing is influenced by personal identity, experiences and culture.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- This supports inquiry-based pedagogy that “involves serious engagement and investigation, and the active creation and testing of new knowledge”
7. Curriculum enables learning through flexible timing and pacing in a variety of learning environments.
Agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Disagree
Comment:
- Agree with this statement if learning environments includes out-of-school learning environments as well (e.g. outdoors, local community, etc.).
Additional Guiding Principles:
1. Curriculum enables multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary learning.
Rationale: Exciting, relevant and meaningful learning occurs where disciplines overlap. Connections between subjects/disciplines are very important to ensure that interconnections are made. For example, teaching about climate change in science helps students understand climate change – but addressing climate change in the context of social studies allows them to understand the dynamics of how society responds to this issue.
2. Curriculum empowers students to engage in the democratic process and develop their citizenship competencies.
Rationale: This guiding principle supports Alberta Education’s stated goal of creating ethical citizens whose competencies include social, cultural and environmental responsibilities. Students who have had the opportunity to engage positively in the democratic process are more hopeful about the future, more proactive and more more committed to practicing active citizenship.
3. Curriculum enables systems thinking that helps learners understand the complexity of world issues from a variety of perspectives.
Rationale: The world is connected by systems – whether personal, the natural world or constructed and we are part of all of these systems. Curriculum that supports learning in a way that looks at systems helps deconstruct a very complex world and allows them to increase their locus of control as they intervene or influence the system.
ACEE encourages everyone to take a few minutes to provide input on the guiding principles as this will be used as the underpinnings of the standards and guidelines for future curriculum design including programs of study, assessment and learning and teaching resources. If the guiding principles are not embracing ways for environmental education to be included then it will be that much harder to see environmental education in programs of study.
Please send ACEE a quick note to let us know your thoughts – or even let us know that you have responded.
