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Is curriculum integration really possible in our test-oriented or subject-ended education system？

Curriculum integration has been prevalent all over the world for years, but its practices are still far way from the ideal plan of its related theories. So, Is curriculum integration really possible , especially in those test-oriented or subject-ended education systems, like China's?

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Topics: education revolution teaching
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    Scott Armstrong 50+

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    May 8 2011: I think it is the assessment systems that hold back the curriculum.

    The great flaw in most education systems is that the method of assessment has been the focus of too much attention, even more so than the students.

    Current assessment methods require a prescribed curriculum and even a prescribed delivery of that curriculum.

    In a time when everything can be personalised and customised to the individual's wants and needs, current assessment practice fails to do this in any way.

    There remains an insistence by ministries and governments to gather data to be standardised for the purposes of governance. This does a huge injustice to the students and the communities that are striving to teach them.

    • Zheng Lei

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      May 8 2011: Assessment system in China, especially our BIG National Examination has been to blame for all the bad things happening to students for more than 10 years, but it can be so hard to reform it under our complicated circumstance. Our society need both a efficient assessment system and a effective integrated curriculum. It seems there is no way to incorporate them well.
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        Scott Armstrong 50+

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        May 8 2011: This is a very difficult problem to resolve. My feeling is that we need to forget about the assessment methods we have relied on in the past and reinvent them. This will require politicians and ministers who are willing to do this.

        I am a great believer in student self-assessment. They are the best person to judge their learning and it will also teach valuable skills and, hopefully, lead to self-knowledge.

        I think that we need a consistent approach to assessment but we should also have faith that the people within the education systems will do their best to overcome the flaws that exist in the system itself.
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