Hobsons Edumate recognises that a curriculum is much richer than “textbooks and tests.” In fact, we see it as the best platform for schools to achieve what matters most – to them! A school’s curriculum is the one place where teaching, learning, professional practice and school goals all meet, so it makes sense to take advantage of this opportunity. Edumate: Design is an engaging and easy-to-use tool that guides teachers and leaders to design a customised curriculum that readily meets compliance requirements, but more importantly, draws focus on achieving the school’s unique vision of student success.
So what’s included? The list below highlights some of the main features included in Edumate: Design
Meeting Mandatory Requirements
All school’s curriculum must comply with at least one framework of standards or outcomes. We see this as the starting point, not the end goal, for curriculum development. Using Edumate: Design teachers easily identify which standards are addressed in a unit by choosing pre-loaded items from a list. But more than allow easy selection of the standards, our software also provides real-time feedback on how the curriculum elements are integrated into teaching and learning activities and assessments as teachers design their units. Empowered with such a tool, meeting the demands of compliance is a shared professional responsibility between teachers, faculty heads and school leaders.
Creating a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
A “guaranteed and viable curriculum” can be the foundation on which schools build their academic achievement. “Guaranteed” means that all students have the opportunity to engage with the same quality learning goals enjoyed by other students at the school. Edumate: Design makes this both easy and powerful through a cascading set of school-designed templates that prompt teachers to create and share unit plans.
The second aspect focuses on why some teachers skip aspects of the mandated curriculum: they run out of time! Achieving viability requires professional discussions where teachers prioritise aspects of the curriculum so that the intended learning goals can be achieved in the allocated time. Edumate: Design facilitates this process by letting teachers “tick and select” required standards which are packaged into units that are then sequenced into the school calendar.
Embedding “What Matters Most” into all Units
Complying with mandatory requirements and providing a guaranteed and viable curriculum are important obligations for schools, but what about the unique things that make your school special? Edumate: Design prompts teachers to embed school-wide initiatives and approaches directly into each unit plan. A collection of over 20 curriculum strategies come pre-loaded but it’s simple for schools to add their own strategies related to things like teacher practices and student-centred approaches. Integrated analytics highlight how these “value-added” initiatives are used across the curriculum. As a vehicle for enriching the curriculum by empowering teacher professional expertise, Edumate: Design is invaluable.
Curriculum Development as a Design Process and Work Flow
In Edumate: Design the unit design process is divided into an engaging workflow where learning and strategic intentions are followed by Evidence of achievement before people Design detailed learning activities. Such a “backward design” approach prompts teachers to reflect on how student success will be defined and measured before classroom activities are envisioned. The curriculum design process is where schools begin to “close the loop” by directly linking Intentions with student outcomes as achieved through classroom activities. In this way Edumate’s intuitive design flow and interface helps schools embed their best intentions into daily teaching and learning.learning and strategic intentions are followed by Evidence of achievement before people
Online Learning Space: Integrated and Aligned!
Online learning is a growing feature in today’s academic landscape, yet most digital spaces suffer from a disconnect. This is a failure of using separate software solutions, relying on teachers to carry what they do in one system to the other. In Edumate: Design, all teaching and learning approaches, resources and assessments that are designed for the unit are available in its integrated online learning space. Thus rather than begin with a blank canvas, teachers start with all the great teaching tactics they have already developed and simply choose how they want to bring them to life with blog posts, journals, glossaries and rich media. Such an online environment, integrated with a clear vision of student success, can deliver truly personal learning based on a rich curriculum.
Continuous improvement
Edumate is all about constant improvement focused on student success. This is achieved by “closing the loop” between school goals, curriculum designs, teaching activities and student learning. With such a closed-loop, how students actually perform provides clear evidence of where the curriculum succeeds and where it can be improved. So just as our students can keep learning more and getting better, so too can a school’s teachers and their curriculum, ultimately helping all students achieve their very best.