As the world develops and transitions, so must the educational curriculum. This cyclical process is essential to teaching students and preparing them for the future, cultivating resilience and adaptability beyond the classroom. It involves adjusting to global integration, incorporating technological education and evolving with changing worldviews. However, it is also a difficult task to implement a new curriculum and make changes within an established institution.
Many research studies show that curriculum change is a difficult and time-consuming process with high rates of failure to sustain long-term change (Beyer & Liston, l996, Kallen, l996, MacDonald, l995). One of the main reasons for this failure is that many efforts at implementing a new curriculum lack an understanding of how teachers and school-level leaders experience and respond to change. CICF facilitates a holistic approach to understanding these experiences and responses by asking both teachers and school-level leaders about their feelings, what’s giving rise to those feelings, and the nature of their use of curricular materials.
The interview data revealed that respondents had a variety of concerns regarding the curricular design elements proposed in the study. These included faculty insecurity about their ability to teach and assess student learning given the curricular emphasis on learner-centered approaches. Faculty also expressed concern about the amount of work required to implement the proposed curricular elements. They emphasized the need for support, professional discussion and consistent opportunities to review the curricular revisions. In addition, they emphasized the need for in-district expertise to supplement the current reliance on out-of-district opportunities.