Aligning Curriculum Materials with the Australian Curriculum: What Is Happening in the Field and What Needs to Be Done?
Author: Watt, Michael
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Curriculum Development,Alignment (Education),Educational Practices,Instructional Materials,Multimedia Materials,Publishing Industry,Case Studies,Curriculum Implementation,Delivery Systems,Content Analysis,Media Selection,Questionnaires,Professional Associations,Hypothesis Testing,Mail Surveys,Statistical Distributions,Electronic Publishing,Online Systems,Research Reports,Class Activities,Change Strategies,Educational Assessment,Educational Indicators

The purpose of this study was to inform the deliberations of a policymakers' working group by investigating what key actors in the materials' marketplace are doing to align digital and print-based materials with the Australian Curriculum and what steps need to be taken to deliver aligned materials to schools. Content analysis method was used to review research literature about the materials' marketplace, the publishing industry, and the procurement, selection and use of materials. Survey method was used to investigate the experiences of a sample of publishers in aligning their products with the Australian Curriculum. Case study method was used to study the backgrounds, current status and environmental interactions of the Australian Curriculum Connect and the Curriculum into the Classroom projects. The results of the study showed that four key attributes characterize the materials' marketplace. The marketplace is dominated by a small number of foreign companies, but small publishing companies play an important role as niche publishers. The adequate supply of materials is dependent on whether individual schools use book-list, book-hire or class-set systems as a basis for procuring new materials. Selection procedures are decentralized, highly differentiated, unsystematic and dependent on demographic characteristics affecting individual schools. Teachers depend in their instructional practice on using teacher-developed resources derived from photocopying print-based materials. Within the interactions of publishers' production and marketing strategies, the Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing, established by the Australian Publishers Association, have enhanced publishers' role in developing high quality materials, and publishers are using a range of techniques to align materials with the Australian Curriculum. The Australian Government has invested funds in developing a repository of digital materials, delivering the materials by means of an online platform and conducting an extensive series of studies to evaluate students' use of learning objects. The Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment has developed and implemented various digital materials in the Curriculum into the Classroom project as the principal means for implementing the Australian Curriculum in Queensland schools. The delivery chain, however, is impeded by the lack of a comprehensive and effective means of providing evaluative information about the alignment of digital and print-based materials with the Australian Curriculum to help teachers make informed decisions in selecting materials. The conclusion sets out recommendations referring to the roles of key actors in a plan to improve delivery of materials as they proceed through a complex set of interactions between publishers' production and marketing strategies, selectors' decision-making processes, and consumers' patterns of use. The following are appended: (1) Sample of Australian Publishers of Curriculum Materials; and (2) Survey of Publishers of Curriculum Materials.