Education Administration and Management - Essay Example

The goal of an effective education administration and management is to meet the needs of students and teachers in the school. In an educational institution, the development of a curriculum is necessary. Several organizations have difficulty in implementing the right curriculum. Beyond doubt, the teacher is the most important person in the curriculum implementation process. School administrators and principals have to ensure that they provide the best experience for learners in their school. The paper focuses on ways an institution can overcome resistance to change, improve their curriculum implementation, and the criteria used for selecting content in the curriculum. Additionally, it discusses the importance of teacher involvement in the curriculum and the ways to engage teachers in the curriculum process.

Based on my experience, an education institution that needs change is Gateway High School in Oregon. The school is an alternative school, which serves students in grade 11 through 14. Despite the idea that change is implemented due to unpredictable environmental conditions, many organizations resist change due to many reasons. Some of those causes include fear of the unknown, economic implications, loss of freedom, limited resources, and the type of organization structure. Evidently, change has a noteworthy impact on individuals in any organization. Most institutions underestimate the influence of change, and they continue with their usual activities. Gateway High School can use many methods to overcome resistance to change the procedure in childcare. Foremost, educators need to realize that the curriculum is important to learners. Additionally, the curriculum ought to have strengths to increase the learning experiences of students. The first method, which the institution can use to overcome resistance to change, is to build trust. Armstrong (2011) affirms that trust is an essential ingredient for building cooperation and buy-in. The author articulates that strategies for building trust include open communication, development of a coalition to lead changes, willingness to compromise, and building a reputation for integrity. The second method is to come up with a clear change vision. The author states that educators should establish a message that creates urgency for direction of the change. The third method is to ensure a strong and consistent implementation. The author avows that implementation should include strategies such as professional learning, how often it will be provided, and the type of resources, materials, and equipment will be available. The fourth method is support with follow-through. The author states that when changes are in progress, innovators ought to use actions to build credibility and ensure that staff change efforts are permanent. On the other hand, Yilmaz & Kilicoglu (2013) affirm that a successful implementation of change requires an affirmative action from the school principal and administrators who would provide an effective approach of resistance to change. As they explain, participation and involvement are an effective method of overcoming resistance to change. The authors affirm that allowing people in the school to help in the planning, designing, and implementing would contribute to ideas that lead to change. Another method, which the authors provide are education and communication. They affirm that it is important because it provides individuals in the school organization with information and explain to them the logic for the need for change. The other strategy, which the authors mention is facilitation and support. They assert that emotional and material help would assist school administrators to have an enjoyable environment for the change process. More to the point, explicit and implicit coercion are another method to overcome resistance to change (Yilmaz & Kilicoglu, 2013). They explain that change initiators ought to incorporate force to make people in an organization to accept change. However, they explain that if change agents have power, then it is acceptable for them to use the method. Apparently, the immense pressure on most educational organizations to change has made them to exhibit different responses towards the change.

In my institution, curriculum implementation can be improved by incorporating all aspects that are important for growth and development. The first way is to engage all stakeholders. Through that, the quality of the curriculum content will be better for learners. In fact, their engagement would generate support and enthusiasm, review progress, approve plans, and promote results. The second way to improve curriculum implementation is to form a teacher committee to assist in the procedure. The committee will help in proper implementation and assist students to move gradually form one grade to the next. The third way to improve the curriculum implementation is to keep accurate records of past contents. Through that, teachers will manage to know which subject matters were of significance to their students in the past. The criteria for selecting curriculum content should be critical. From a personal perspective, the first criterion for selecting content is validity. The reason is that the subject matter ought to be authentic. More so, the topics selected for the curriculum have to be logic. The second criterion is learnability. The content in the curriculum should be easy for students to learn. Additionally, it should be within their experience. Teachers should ensure that they present and organize subjects in the curriculum to maximize their learning capacity. The other criterion is interest. Teachers should consider their students interests when selecting content. The reason is that students learn best when the subject matter is meaningful and logical to them. Some students fail in particular subjects continuously because teachers create curriculum content without considering students interests. In fact, some schools have difficult novels in their curriculum, which students are unable to understand. The other criterion is consistency. The content in the curriculum should be consistent with students learning experiences especially in social realities. For example, teachers should select subject matters, which relate to students social and cultural needs as well as their belief systems. Another criterion is utility. The content should be beneficial in a manner that students can use both theory and practice into their daily activities. The subject matter should be profitable for students in a way that they can easily acquire necessary skills, knowledge, and help them during problem solving. More to the point, the other criterion is self-sufficiency. Learners should manage to attain a maximum self-sufficiency. They should have a collective autonomy in a way that makes it easy for them to carry out experiments and field studies based on their curriculum. The last criterion is significance. The content in a curriculum can be significant is its selection, organization, and development help learners o achieve maximum knowledge. More so, the content has significance if it incorporates learning domains such as emotional, cognitive, and physical skills. Additionally, it is significant if it is consistent with the learners cultural background and race.

It is essential to involve teachers in the curriculum process. The reason is that it will make the curriculum development to be effective and schools to become successful. An effective curriculum should meet all the learning experiences, goals, objectives, and needs of students. Alsubaie (2016) affirms that teachers are central to any curriculum development because they have a better knowledge, experience, and competencies. The author affirms that better teachers support better learning because they have a better knowledge of the teaching practice and are responsible for introducing the curriculum in the classroom. Additionally, the author affirms that even if another party has already developed a curriculum, teachers have to make an effort to understand it. More so, the author asserts that the teachers opinions and ideas must be incorporated in the curriculum for it to be developed. As she explains, the teacher brings out a meaningful and successful development of the curriculum. Teachers have a big role to play in the curriculum development. For example, they have a responsibility of creating lesson plans and syllabus that meet the needs of the students. As it is known, teachers enjoy when they teach their students in their interest areas. More so, teachers know and understand their students better than other people in the school. The second role of teachers is to ensure that they work collaboratively and effectively to compose content and arrange materials and textbooks. Teachers from different grade-levels work to identify the appropriate skills, which their students need at each level to ensure that it meets their standards to move to the next grade. More to the point, teachers have a role to gauge if any activity specified in the curriculum is fit for students and makes them more engaged in the learning process. As a leader, I would involve teachers in the curriculum making by providing them with the appropriate knowledge and skills. Alsubaie (2016) affirms that the necessary knowledge and skills would help teachers to contribute to the curriculum development operation effectively. More so, I would provide them with training methods. The author affirms that training and workshops lead the teacher towards professional development, which would help them to contribute to the curriculum making effectively. Moreover, I would involve teachers in the process by sanctioning them. The author articulates that when a leader empowers teachers in the processes of curriculum making, they will manage to be autonomous and have more experience. If teachers fail to implement a curriculum properly, there is a high risk that students will be unable to acquire as much knowledge as they can during class. Most importantly, teachers should design a strong curriculum that will be flexible and enable them to fix other contents to meet their students needs.

In summary, in school settings, principals and educators should be vigilant to ensure that the change process turns smoothly. In fact, when they notice that students in their school perform under average, they have to incorporate changes in their institution. Education systems evolve over time because of their volatile environment. As well, teachers ought to devise a curriculum, which fits students needs. Efficient administration and management in schools should be a top priority to ensure that learners have the best experience when they are at school. Overall, schools have to focus on implementing the appropriate curriculum for their students to achieve best results.

References

Alsubaie, M. E. (2016). Curriculum Development: Teacher Involvement in Curriculum

Development. Journal of Education and Practice, vol. 7, no. 9.

Armstrong, A. (2011). 4 key strategies help educators overcome resistance to change. Tools for

School. Retrieved from https://learningforward.org/docs/tools-for-learning-schools/tools1-11.pdf

Yilmaz, D., & Kilicoglu, G. (2013). Resistance to change and ways of reducing resistance in

educational organizations. European Journal of Research on Education, 1(1), 14-21