Dosier - Tema 5 - 12/12/17 and 14/12/17

We started Tema 5 with a pyramid discussion about the three most important aspects of didactic programming.  This was followed by another round of Kahoot.  Unfortunately, my team did only a little better this time around…

During the following session we discussed the “fontes” or sources that make up the curriculum.  Firstly, the fonte didáctica refers to documents elaborated by the centres, such as PEC (Plan educativo de centro) and RRI (Reglamento de Régimin Interno).  These are based on the legislation such as laws, decrees, orders etc. 

The fonte psicolóxia refers to psycho-evolutionary characteristics of the students.  In this area, adaptations to the curriculum to suit the necessities of the students are key.  The fonte sociolóxica refers to having an understanding of the socio-economic profile of the students and their surroundings.  Finally, the fonte epistemolóxico refers to the specific contents of the subject to be taught and the types of methodology to be used. 

Our next task was to analyse a curriculum published by the department of English at IES Santa Irene in Vigo.  I hadn’t analysed a curriculum before and it was interesting to see how the theory is put into practice.  First, using the Resolución do 20/7/2017 da Direción Xeral de Educación, FP e Innovación Educativa, we went through the curriculum checking that all aspects that should be there were in fact present.  We then checked to make sure they made reference to the ‘fontes’ outlined below.  While our program contained most of the elements necessary, it was very short compared to others that our classmates analysed.  It was very general and didn’t go into much detail at the level of units or tasks.  What struck me was how it explained how important it is for students in Bachillerato to have a good level of English but then explained why this might not be possible because of the characteristics of the students.  It seemed to me a bit of a cop-out and it seems they are setting themselves up for failure right from the beginning. Not exactly the correct attitude in my opinion.  The curriculum also made reference to continuous assessment which sounds like it might mean that the students progress with be assessed over the course of the year through different tasks, but disappointingly, it simply refers to exams at the end of each term rather than at the end of the year. 

For the next task we followed the same procedure but looked at the program for English in the EOI of Coruña.  I hadn’t realized that the LOMCE does not yet apply to the EOIs and so their levels are not yet mapped to CEFR and their curriculum doesn’t include standards of learning.  I was surprised that the final exam counted for so much in EOI, but I suppose given the profile of the students, who may not be able to commit to coming to classes all the time, it makes sense.  One other thing that stood out for me was the minutiae of detail to the contents.  I find them unnecessarily long-winded and make the document very non-user-friendly and too cerebral.  This is perhaps a cultural difference, as a quick aside, it’s interesting to note that in the UK, most government and council documents follow the principles of the Plain English Campaign, which lobbies to remove “gobbledygook, jargon and legalese” in all communications with the public.  I’m definitely not suggesting that these documents are “gobbledygook” but in the interest of communicating with the public, it could be a lot clearer. 

For the final part of the session, we watched some videos that explained in greater detail how to evaluate standards.  This was extremely useful, as most of us were still quite unsure on the difference between evaluation criteria and standards of learning.  More on that in the Diario!