Page 16 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2020

Communication Technology (ICT). The curriculum focused on 9 subjects within an integrated
thematic approach. The subjects were Agricultural Science, English Language Arts,
Mathematics, Physical Education, Science, Social Studies, Spanish, Values, Character &
Citizenship Education and Visual & Performing Arts. The curriculum specified seven broad
themes for each level and was further divided into subthemes. A study conducted in 20 schools,
which included 20 principals, 42 teachers and 343 students measured the teachers’ abilities to
implement the curriculum effectively, engaging both quantitative and qualitative methods in
implementing the new thematic, integrated curriculum. The study indicated that 91% of
teachers felt that they met the students’ needs in the experimental group, while only 73% of
teachers felt that they met students’ needs in the control group. Prospective teachers received
instruction to implement the new curriculum perceived that they met the needs of students. As
such findings of the study stated 98% of the prospective teachers in the experimental group
reported that student engagement increased. In total, 88% of the prospective teachers in the
experimental group perceived that they met the needs of their students while demonstrating
knowledge of the integrated thematic curriculum. Majority of the teachers felt that the thematic,
integrated curriculum empowered them to integrate all subjects and use literacy and numeracy
across the curriculum. They helped their students understand and make connections. Using
the new curriculum encouraged them to differentiate instruction and students experienced
many different ways of learning as well as allowed teachers to integrate technology in their
lessons. The teachers were of the view that it takes time and much practice, a change in mind-
set, a necessity to adjust to their belief system and an extensive amount of professional
development to include practice in the use of constructivist-oriented pedagogy. (John, Yvonne,
2015) Wall, and Leckie (2017) have written in their article Curriculum Integration: An
Overview in the Journal of the National Association of Professors of Middle Level Education,
that curriculum integration is a tenet of middle level education and they advocate for
curriculum that is exploratory, relevant, integrative, and meaningful for young adolescents.
Teachers can integrate curriculum across content areas by anchoring units of study in issues
and themes that are determined along with students. They looked at research on curriculum
implementation and cited Grant and Paige (2007) who conducted a study within a course
designed to prepare pre-service teachers for curriculum integration. Teams of pre-service
teachers observed and gathered information about their students to determine themes for units
of study. They then developed essential questions to guide planning and provide a framework
for pre-service teachers to identify the learning outcomes within the unit. Pre-service teachers
described greater curriculum understandings after the projects (p. 33).
Curriculum integration by various schools around the world, indeed has great value for
children’s holistic development. Petrash (2009) spoke about one such education, the Waldorf
education, invented by an Austrian philosophical genius, Rudolf Steiner who believes that
human possibility is infinite. Understanding that children need to be engaged in these three
distinct ways, through head, heart and hands, forms the primary educational paradigm at a
Waldorf school. Rather than to simply focus on the educational work solely around the
objective of acquiring knowledge, creating a meaningful learning process itself becomes the
focus. Through multi-faceted, multi-sensory learning experiences, teachers and students use a
variety of intelligences to develop three distinct capacities – for thinking, for feeling, and for
intentional, purposeful activity (p. 24). He further reiterated in his book that the ability to
observe, compare, analyse, and synthesize helps young people better understand the world they
are inheriting and at the same time, prepares them for finding their place in the world. Because
Waldorf education requires inner responsiveness on the part of the students, graduates leave
school with a clearer sense of who they are and what they believe to be important, making it
possible for them to give direction to their own lives (p.86).

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