ST 1 SPIRAL PROGRESSION IN SCIENCE : A New Feature To The K To 12 Curriculum
THE SPIRAL CURRICULUM
The spiral approach is a technique often used in teaching where first the basic facts of a subject are learned, without worrying about details. Then as learning progresses, more and more details are introduced, while at the same time they are related to the basics which are reemphasized many times to help enter them into long-term memory. What is a spiral approach?
ROLES OF SPIRAL APPROACH IN TEACHING: A sequencing strategy. A teaching strategy.
x Basic idea behind the spiral progression approach : - to expose the learners to a wide variety of concepts /topics ,skills and attitudes that are deemed of “continual concern of everyone “until they are mastered.
A spiral curriculum design is one in which “key concepts are presented repeatedly throughout the curriculum, but with deepening layers of complexity.”
After a mastery of the initial topic, the student “spirals upwards” as the new knowledge is introduced in next lessons, enabling him/her to reinforce what is already learned. In the end, a rich breadth and depth of knowledge is achieved.
With this procedure, two purposes are served : The previously learned concept is reviewed hence improving its retention The topic may be progressively elaborated when it is reintroduced leading to a broadened understanding and transfer of learning.
The spiral curriculum was proposed by BRUNER,1996. In structuring a course, certain prequisite knowledge and skills must be first mastered which in turn provides linkages between each lesson as the students “spirals upwards” in a course of study.
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The Learning Spiral Is a curriculum design framework which will help science teachers construct lessons, activities or projects that target the development of thinking skills and dispositions which do not stop at identification , instead facilitate implementation of the desired performance.
Is a curriculum design tool which will help develop concrete and practical thinking-centered lessons that make students performances of understanding explicit .it may be used to structure an entire project which can readily fit into the regular curriculum and can help design thinking centered lessons..
Learn with focus on the learners, and learning in a real situation as the teachers facilitate their students to learn from experience, activities and work, leading to the development of learners in all aspects , physical, mental, emotional, social and intellectual. The learner- centered approach is characterized by:
In adopting the spiral approach, the teachers will be enriched with varied experiences in preparing every science lesson and curriculum a proper blending of concepts, skills and values from the natural and physical sciences and appropriately sequenced from a start upward according to the level of difficulty.
One should always remember that one keeps moving upward, but keeps returning to the fundamentals through reviews but adding more.
His idea was that transfer of thinking processes from one context to another required students to learned the fundamental principles of subjects and to explore ideas on a deeper level rather than just mastering facts and rote learning procedures. BRUNER emphasized the gains that can be acquired by developing students powers of analysis ,judgment and memory in order to increase capacity to transfer learning into new students.
In the spiral progression approach, the first basic facts of a subject are learned without worrying about details. In spiral teaching , teacher moves upward but keeps returning to the fundamentals.
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