INTRODUCTION

Curriculum, or the content of teaching, may be designed to encourage learning processes such as memory, attention, observation and cognitive skills, as well as the acquisition of specific information, such as the names of the letters of the alphabet. The teaching strategies or methods used in implementing the curriculum are the arranged interactions of people and materials planned and used by teachers. They include the teacher role, teaching styles, and instructional techniques. The aspect of pedagogy, which might be thought of as cognitive socialization, refers to the role that teachers in early childhood settings play, through their expectations, their teaching strategies, their curricular emphases, in promoting the repertoire of cognitive and affective characteristics and skills that the young child needs to move down the path from natal culture to school culture to the culture of the larger society.

Curriculum, from the Latin for ‘course’ is the content or subject matter that is taught. Pedagogy, from the Greek words for ‘boy’ and ‘guide’ refers to the art or science of teaching or the techniques used to teach students. The notion of a teacher guiding students through a course of study has more contemporary relevance than the content driven, ‘drill and skill’, approaches that characterised schooling until the last few decades of the 1900s.

Curriculum and pedagogy if the definitions are clear, the separation of the two in classrooms is not. While the curriculum is the content that education departments mandate must be taught, classroom teachers have significant responsibility for, and control over, how the curriculum is presented and delivered. In practice, an inspired and talented teacher can energize dull content and find ways to link it to real life while a mediocre or unmotivated teacher can compromise the appeal of the most relevant and imaginative curriculum by poor delivery. The research at Flinders University by Slade and Trent indicates that boys are aware of and reactive to what they view to be irrelevant curriculum and poor teaching. Boys see curriculum and pedagogy as inseparable from each other and from other aspects of schooling.

            Curriculum and pedagogy, is an important sense, pedagogy is the overarching concept. It refers broadly to the deliberate process of cultivating development within a given culture and society. From this point of view, pedagogy has three basic components; curriculum, or the content of what is being taught; methodology, or the way in which teaching is done and techniques for socializing children in the repertoire of cognitive and effective skills required for successful functioning in society that education is designed to promote.

1.0)        ROLE OF CURRICULUM IN STUDENT’S LIFE            

                 Curriculum plays a major role in the school culture but can often go unconsidered when developing a vision around that culture. At first glance, curriculum and culture may seem to be separate issues, but when you look deeper, curriculum can be a foundation for the culture because it's representative of how students are interacting with learning on a daily basis. To that end, creating a positive school culture requires that students play a part in curriculum design and implementation.

                   Involving students in curriculum development sounds challenging, but as a teacher, I found small, easily executed steps that help build a culture where students feel heard and engaged about what they are learning. Here's an example of what worked for me. After I had designed the major portion of the curriculum for a new unit, but before starting it with my class, I would hold a "Curriculum Lunch." I invited students to bring their lunch to my classroom, where I would present a preview of my plans for the next project. I shared the standards and learning objectives as well as the projects I was preparing for the students to work on, and then asked for their input and feedback.

                  At our curriculum lunches, students were positive about upcoming projects and mostly gave feedback on how to make them more interesting, engaging and in some cases, challenging. Student feedback, even if I couldn't use all of it, helped me refine my curriculum in student-centered ways. What's more, these curriculum lunches also helped create a buzz of excitement for upcoming projects. Students who attended the curriculum lunches would often hype up the project to their classmates, which in turn helped create positive morale going into a unit. Students were excited about the next thing they were going to learn.

                    Student interests can hook students into a topic that might not normally interest them, but project-based learning allows us to engage students at deeper levels, with challenging content. For example, Zombie-Based Learning, in the zombie apocalypse because it was a topic kids talked about with great interest. I tried to think about what would connect with the most disengaged students, and surviving a zombie attack was a perfect fit. To truly engage all students, however, interests need to be integrated beyond a surface level. So, I asked myself, "If I were in a zombie apocalypse, how would I actually use geographic concepts?" For example, in one of the projects, students have to choose the best location for their group to settle after the zombie apocalypse. Students study the physical characteristics, resources, and local migration patterns of a location before reporting back on their decisions. This curriculum puts national geography standards and student interests at the core and allows students to apply newfound knowledge and concepts with depth, using project-based learning, to survive in their everyday albeit fictional world.

                    Curriculum and school culture cannot be incongruous with each other. We cannot reach for a positive culture where students feel represented and then ignore the students as we develop their learning experiences. Curriculum design is a perfect opportunity to include students. Consistently engaging every student will improve the morale of any classroom and also cut down on the later need for corrective classroom management. By considering and involving the students throughout the development and implementation of curriculum, you will end up with better curricula and more engaged students, contributing to a positive school culture.

                    When we think of student engagement in learning activities, it is often convenient to understand engagement with an activity as being represented by good behavior for example, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement. This is because students may be behaviorally or emotionally invested in a given activity without actually exerting the necessary mental effort to understand and master the knowledge, craft, or skill that the activity promotes.

                   In light of this, research suggests that considering the following interrelated elements when designing and implementing learning activities may help increase student engagement behaviorally, emotionally and cognitively, thereby positively affecting student learning and achievement.

1.1)        BENEFITS OF CURRICULUM

1    1)    Make It Meaningful

In aiming for full engagement, it is essential that students perceive activities as being meaningful. Research has shown that if students do not consider a learning activity worthy of their time and effort, they might not engage in a satisfactory way, or may even disengage entirely in response. To ensure that activities are personally meaningful, we can, for example, connect them with students' previous knowledge and experiences, highlighting the value of an assigned activity in personally relevant ways. Also, adult or expert modeling can help to demonstrate why an individual activity is worth pursuing, and when and how it is used in real life.

2)     Foster a Sense of Competence

The notion of competence may be understood as a student's ongoing personal evaluation of whether he or she can succeed in a learning activity or challenge. Researchers have found that effectively performing an activity can positively impact subsequent engagement. To strengthen students' sense of competence in learning activities, the assigned activities could:

·         Be only slightly beyond students' current levels of proficiency

·         Make students demonstrate understanding throughout the activity

·         Show peer coping models and peer mastery models

·         Include feedback that helps students to make progress

      3) Provide Autonomy Support

We may understand autonomy support as nurturing the students' sense of control over their behaviors and goals. When teachers relinquish control without losing power to the students, rather than promoting compliance with directives and commands, student engagement levels are likely to increase as a result. Autonomy support can be implemented by:

·         Welcoming students' opinions and ideas into the flow of the activity

·         Using informational, non-controlling language with students

·         Giving students the time they need to understand and absorb an activity by themselves

4  4)  Embrace Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is another powerful facilitator of engagement in learning activities. When students work effectively with others, their engagement may be amplified as a result, mostly due to experiencing a sense of connection to others during the activities. To make group work more productive, strategies can be implemented to ensure that students know how to communicate and behave in that setting. Teacher modeling is one effective method for example, the teacher shows how collaboration is done, while avoiding homogeneous groups and grouping by ability, fostering individual accountability by assigning different roles and evaluating both the student and the group performance also support collaborative learning.

   5)   Establish Positive Teacher-Student Relationships

High-quality teacher-student relationships are another critical factor in determining student engagement, especially in the case of difficult students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. When students form close and caring relationships with their teachers, they are fulfilling their developmental need for a connection with others and a sense of belonging in society. Teacher-student relationships can be facilitated by:

·         Caring about students' social and emotional needs

·         Displaying positive attitudes and enthusiasm

·         Increasing one-on-one time with students

·         Treating students fairly

·         Avoiding deception or promise-breaking

6 6) Promote Mastery Orientations

Finally, students' perspective of learning activities also determines their level of engagement. When students pursue an activity because they want to learn and understand, rather than merely obtain a good grade, look smart, please their parents, or outperform peers, their engagement is more likely to be full and thorough. To encourage this mastery orientation mindset, consider various approaches, such as framing success in terms of learning rather than performing. You can also place the emphasis on individual progress by reducing social comparison and recognizing student improvement and effort.

2.0)        HOW TO ALIGN CURRICULUM WITH STUDENT INTEREST?

               When students feel more motivated to learn when engagement is at a high level, they perform better academically, improve classroom behavior, and gain a higher sense of self-esteem. Unfortunately, data and the direct experience of many of us teachers shows that lack of motivation affects many of our students, and appears to increase each year from middle school through high school. Students can demonstrate this lack of engagement by withholding effort and by "voting with their feet" through rising chronic absenteeism as they get older, and chronic absenteeism is among the highest predictors of dropping-out of school. To use terms first used by Albert Hirschman, it appears that the lack of student motivation is a major contributing cause to many choosing this option of "exit", withdrawal from active engagement over "voice" in academic life.

              When students are engaged in learning, there is movement and laughter and sometimes lots of noise. They are up and out of their seats involved in activities that promote thought, creativity, and discovery. Students are busy, self-disciplined, and best of all, willing to take responsibility for their own learning because they understand that what they are doing is important.

              We need to provide our students with activities that are innovative and challenging as well as purposeful if we want them to be engaged in learning. Although there are many different factors to consider when designing instruction meant to engage students of various ages, there are some easy-to-implement universal strategies that can be used to increase the engagement potential in instructional activities.

·         When students can set their own goals for assignments and then work to achieve those goals, then their work takes on a serious and meaningful purpose.

·         Help students stay on the right track by providing opportunities for frequent self-checks and plenty of other formative assessments to that they can monitor their own progress. Make it easy for students to be aware of how well they are doing, and you will make it easy for them to stay engaged in a learning activity.

·         Create activities and assignments that are challenging but attainable. Students should have to work and think to succeed, but the potential for success should always be clearly evident.

·         It seems obvious, but to engage students be sure to provide the materials, supplies, and other resources needed for successful completion of the work. For example, try to avoid the trap of assuming that students have access to the Internet or a public library when they are not in class.

·         Be positive with your students. Instead of just telling them what is wrong with their work, focus on what they are doing correctly. If you don't believe that they will succeed, then the engagement potential in an assignment will vanish.

·         Offer as many choices and optional assignments as is reasonably possible. Students who have the ability to make sensible choices about their work will find it intrinsically engaging because their choices provide a sense of ownership.

·         Design lessons that call for students to interact with students in other classrooms across the globe, to creatively use technology and other media, and to solve authentic problems. The possibilities for engagement are endless when students can see that what they do in your class can be applied to real-life situations.

·         Don't underestimate your students' delight in having fun as they work. Appeal to their playful natures when you provide assignments that call for them to solve puzzles or problems, play games, watch humorous videos, or write answers on anything other than paper.

2.1)        Here are 5 steps teachers can follow to actively engage the students and help them feel personally connected to their learning:

1)    Connect what you're teaching to real life

One key way to involve students in their learning is to ensure the material speaks to them. These strategies, adapted from Teaching Everyone and Systematic Instruction for Students with Moderate and Severe Disabilities will connect your lessons to students' real-life experiences:

Ø  Choose culturally relevant materials - According to the National Council of Teachers of English, students who do not find representations of their own cultures in texts are likely to lose interest in school-based literacies. Have your students complete a short survey on their outside interests and use that information to assist in building your lesson plans. This will help your students see the connections between what they're learning inside and outside the classroom.

Ø  Use specific everyday examples - An easy way to help students feel personally connected to what they're being taught is to talk about how they can apply the material in real life. In Systematic Instruction for Students with Moderate and Severe Disabilities, Collins suggests teachers demonstrate how students can apply the math concepts they are learning to help them manage personal finances, ensure nutritional sustenance, and schedule daily activities.

Ø  Link routines to learning - Conversely, teachers can promote learning through classroom routines. For instance, a child learning to wash hands during bathroom breaks can also be taught science concepts such as body parts, hygiene and disease prevention, water conservation, reading, antonyms, and math.

2)    Use students' interests and fascinations 

Find out what your students are passionate about and then use those interests as natural motivators to increase engagement. Whether a child is fixated on one thing or has a few areas of intense interest, there are many simple strategies you can use to work those fascinations into your instruction. Abundance of suggestions on how to use student interests to boost learning in key areas:

Ø  Literacy - Allow a child to integrate their most-loved characters and possessions into your classroom reading time. In one case, a student was able to participate in reading circle when his turn came once he was permitted to speak through a favorite puppet.

Ø  History - Find creative ways to adapt standards-based content to the fun things your students are excited about. For example, one US history teacher explained the U.S. role in the UN and its relationship to other nations by drawing an analogy with the Super Friends cartoon characters.

Ø  Math - If you're working on a math lesson, consider asking a student to write a problem, diagram, or pattern that relates to his particular area of interest. Sometimes, the best way to combine academic material with a student's interests may not be immediately evident but your students may see connections that you don't!

3)    Give students choices

Engagement increases any time students are empowered to make their own choices about how they learn material. Here are a few suggestions:

Ø  Group students - Breaking the class up in groups increases the likelihood that everyone will contribute to class discussion and problem solving. Poll your students about their working preference, or experiment with breaking them up in different ways. Divide the students in half, place them in small teams of three or four, or divvy them up in pairs.

Ø  Allow students to set the pace - Let your students choose their own starting point on an assignment, and they'll stay comfortable and challenged. For example, try giving your students tier math problems, with increasing levels of difficulty. From least to most sophisticated, the tiers could be determine the surface area of a cube, determine the surface area of a rectangular prism, determine the amount of wrapping paper needed to cover a rectangular box and determine how many cans of paint you'll need to buy to paint a house with given dimensions. Once students choose a starting point, the teacher can guide them through increasing levels of mastery.

Ø  Try homework menus - Instead of having all of your students complete the same homework assignment, why not offer a menu of options that tie in with your lesson plan? A little variety and choice go a long way toward relieving the sense of drudgery some students experience when completing their homework. Take a look at this math menu for an example of how to give students a choice of homework problems to complete.

4)    Present information in multiple formats

Every student in your classroom learns differently. So it's important to recognize that differentiated instruction isn't just for helping students with special needs, it's the best way to engage all learners.

Ø  Class response cards - Start by distributing pre-made response cards or individual dry erase/chalkboards to each student. Then, instead of having only a few students raise their hands after a question is asked, instruct all students to write their answers on their boards or select a response from the pre-made cards. This is an easy and effective way to get your entire class involved and keep them connected to what you're teaching, instead of waiting for a single student to provide the answer. 

Ø  Rubber stamps - Picture, word, and letter stamps can be ideal for practicing sentence construction, counting skills, and spelling. They're an effective tool for all students, whether they have fine motor problems, struggle with writing skills, or could simply benefit from a fun learning supplement. There are a wide variety of stamps available to meet most of your classroom needs, but you can also easily find instructions online to make your own.

Ø  Human calculator - Add an element of fun to addition and subtraction by making an oversized calculator out of an old shower curtain or large tablecloth and letting students jump to the keys. It's an inexpensive but highly motivating change of pace that combines basic math principles with physical activity.

5)    Teach students self-monitoring skills

An advanced way of involving children so that they stay engaged in their learning is to help them develop greater self-regulation skills. Children sometimes struggle with self-awareness, so they may not even realize when they're straying off task or acting in disruptive ways. When children are taught to regulate their behavior and work independently, they develop habits to help them succeed and you are freed to operate more flexibly in the classroom.

Ø  Self-monitoring of attention (SMA) - Instruct students to evaluate whether or not they've been paying attention at random intervals throughout the school day. This is usually accomplished with an auditory cue like a chime or tone, which prompts each child to reflect on questions like Am I at my desk? And Am I listening to the teacher? Students record their answers on a simple SMA tally sheet.

Ø  Self-monitoring of performance - Students log on a chart or graph whether they've been able to complete a pre-defined problem or task. Viewing an explicit graphical representation of their performance can have a highly motivating effect on students.

REFERENCES

1.National Research Council. (2001). Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Education Assessment. Committee on the Foundations of Assessment. J.W. Pellegrino, N. Chudowsky, and R. Glaser (Eds.). Board on Testing and Assessment, Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

2.National Research Council. (2002). Investigating the Influence of Standards: A Framework for Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education. I.R. Weiss, M.S. Knapp, K.S. Hollweg, and G. Burrill (Eds.). Committee on Understanding the Influence of Standards in K-12 Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

3. http://archive.brookespublishing.com/articles/ed-article-0212.htm

4. Dawes, L. (2001). What stops teachers using new technology? In M. Leask (Ed.), Issues in Teaching using ICT. London: Routledge. Ellis, R. (1997). Second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.