Curriculum Design and Development Grant Proposal

Executive summary

The proposal shows a detailed focus on ways through which our district schools can incorporate technological curriculum in their education systems. The targeted categories are the elementary and secondary schools. The incorporation is facilitated by reviewing the existing curriculum offered to accommodate services fueled by a federal body, the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grant. The district is requesting for assistance from this body to enhance universality with other districts. The proposal also takes into account the procedural inclusion of the community in curriculum review process. All the steps followed in designing and developing a curriculum is followed (Samuel, 2000).

District education overview:

The district's mission is to administer education by ensuring that students and the community are satisfied with the prevailing education system. In addition, the district education committee is fully committed in ensuring that the schools' are acquainted with the latest curriculum to gather for their missions and implementation. The District is located at the North-west parts of the Pennsylvania state. The district is currently facing economical challenges to introduce the long-awaited information technology on its school curriculum. Unlike the other districts, our district has lagged behind in terms of embracing technology. This is attributed to the delay in requesting EETT grant assistance. However, the schools within the district offers different curriculum to gather for the state and the community needs. After the last AGM, the committee decided to seek EETT funding to boost education in the local schools which are not in positions to support themselves.

Review committee:

The process started upon getting the EETT grant application form retrieved from the concerned program headquarters. The basic document used was the curriculum guide obtained from professional curriculum design and development experts. This is a fully structured document that provides executive relationship among the key educational pillars i.e. instructional resources, objectives, learning experiences, assessment and the general goals. The Information Technology guide used traversed through all sections which students should know and do from the new curriculum.

The committee was constituted by the school principal, teaching staff, and representative from non-teaching staff, officials from state's education department, selected parents and the community members. All of them were selected appropriately. Amongst them; the community was given priority in the process. This is because the community plays a major role in school as the main stakeholder

The planning committee was allocated slots to include the parents and community leaders. The parents suggested the ways through which their children should be subjected to the technology. They gave the scope they preferred to be included by the new while the students gain access to information to avoid the misuse by their children. The leaders were able to guide the process to ensure the resulting program will not violate the community's governance and ethics.

The process took a period of 6 months were after the AGM, the committee decided that several forums be organized at the grassroots. Community members under the coordination of their leaders held open discussion within their local schools. Students were also given room to express their expectations in the new system. There this proposal we are directing to you totally took community in mind while the committee came up with it.

Focus of the curriculum:

The main focus of the curriculum is to equip both the schools and the community with the information technology which is currently perceived as one of the trends towards future development (Judy, 2003). The curriculum also intends that students be taught all the technology application packages and the basics of computer technology. This will be a good preparation for students going to pursue their careers in the same field. The curriculum further demand that be allocated at least 10 hours a week to recover the wasted time due to earlier witnessed sluggish implementation.

Another aim of the curriculum is to take advantage EETT grant to prepare some teachers in our local schools to become technology experts who will then help other teachers to get acquainted also. They will then pass it to their students to allow them arrive at the top of academic standards known to challenge many. The curriculum will also yield long-term advantages to the school and the community as it advances to become the main means of communication.

The primary beneficiaries from the grant will be the students. They will be able to; learn; access and acquire the facts and knowledge regarding the IT field. As a result, they will not incur any further costs in acquiring the skill outside the school as they do at the moment. Performance is also expected to rise as our student had poor motivations as the neighboring districts' student disregard them as the "unlucky" (Judith, 2007). This quite evident as put across by psychologist that "morale is the building blocks of success, and the morale comes from privileges" (Phil, Sue & Phil, 1995).

Parents as part community and the whole community are going to benefit also as the program suggests some joint classes during weekends. The tutors will be able to combine students and some community members during some of the classes.

Terminal Learning Objectives:

Our terminal learning objective is based on the optimal learning the students will acquire by the end of the successful IT learning process (Judith, 2007). We intend to grade our students basing on the examination series. Community grading will be based on completion upon which the members will be awarded certificate of pursuance. We intend to offer recommendation to students to allow them pursue the next field in Information Technology.

Scope of Teaching:

Our curriculum is designed to cover only the relevant sections of the technology. Student's scope of understanding will be the major determinant. However, the scope will not be fixed but teachers will be able to adjust it basing on class analysis and performance. The curriculum will provide secular and neutral scopes free of any ideology. Finally, the scope will cover the focus of the curriculum based on the EETT grant regulations. The draft guideline is as follows:

Elementary level recommendation

Secondary  level recommendation

Community (part time)

Basic IT principals

Over 7 hours/week

Preparatory syllabus

(advanced course)

4 hours depending on specialization

Not recommended, informing parents only

Formative and summative assessment:

Summative assessments will be done to students in their respective schools. This periodically done through choosing of a random time and the teachers will know what students know or don't at that particular time. This will be done in classrooms/district to show accountability and will be used for general grading.  . They will be subjected to 3 series of exams with each gathering a maximum of 30% the actual marks. Average will be done and they will be assigned each mark X out of 30%. However, the third exam can be complemented with periodic summative and formative assessment. Then follows a group project graded all over 20%. At the end a full examination paper will be done out of 50% then all are summed out of 100%. Grades will be distributed with the lowest being an F (40%) which will amount to refer. From then, grades will be increased at interval of 10 marks with the highest being grade A (90-100%). Excellent students will be recommended to pursue the career. Other exams still under consideration are: state assessments, end-of-unit exams, district benchmark exams and others expected to emerge.

Formative exams will be included in instructional processes. This will allow the teachers to adjust their teaching. This will be expected to be prone as the curriculum will be new to students. Students will be also included as their own assessors to boost fast learning (Phil, Sue & Phil, 1995).

Evaluating the curriculum:

This will be done based on how students will pick up and their performance. This begins with identification off decision makers, specifying the purpose and objectives, select the indicators of success, developing data gathering materials and finally collecting the data about the curriculum. The indicators here will be quantity and quality of knowledge gained by students (process indicators) and quality and quantity of outcome from the students (outcome indicators), the process is intended for adjustment (Phil, Sue & Phil, 1995).