Promoting teachers’ collaborative exploration of a new science curriculum: the case of a Singapore learning study

^†Certain parts of the research work for this article were carried out at Office of Education Research, The National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Abstract

Through a case study, we explore how four Grade 9–10 biology teachers in Singapore experienced their collaborative approach to curriculum and addressed challenges associated with newly prescribed science curricula, such as the perceived lack of clarity and pressure to complete teaching curricular content. With the teachers participating in a variation theory-framed learning study as part of their professional development, we employed a thematic analysis of the data corpus, focusing on teacher interviews and reflective journals to elucidate the teachers’ experiences of approaching curriculum. Themes constructed included teachers drawing on prescribed curriculum as an ‘enabling constraint’ to promote increasing clarity, developing greater coherence in curriculum interpretation, integrating variation theory, and drawing on different resources to enhance their approach to curriculum. We further reflected on these findings to reveal notions of teacher empowerment and to urge for teachers’ more powerful ways of approaching curriculum, as we cautioned against the potential danger of the rhetoric of teachers moving away from technical implementation of curriculum. We also emphasized closing the gap between prescribed curriculum carefully conceptualized by the central authority and its subsequent implementation by teachers, in order to avoid ‘wasting’ the deliberation efforts of the central authority when teachers implement curriculum unreflectively.

Keywords:

• variation theory
• learning study
• teacher professional development
• curriculum interpretation
• curriculum approach
• curriculum reform

Notes

^† Certain parts of the research work for this article were carried out at Office of Education Research, The National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.