Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Reform: When and how?

It was very refreshing to read this article since it gives a new perspective to researchers. Even though i am pro multicultural education, differentiated instruction and inclusion i somehow felt that different aspects were being left out in reform articles that focused on various aspects of education.
The framework provided by William Tate seems to cover the three most important aspect of education : time, quality and design. Upon reading each aspect I could identify how models outlines by Talbert and McLaughlin and Spillane are integrated in some ways as well. I feel that sometimes its the external factors that inhibit various reforms. Tate's framework is open-ended yet structured well enough to explain for various external factors that could determine teacher and student success/responses in a classroom with respect to reform.
Its amazing how we get bogged down with the process without understanding the factors that might limit us in implementing reform successfully. Kitchen (2003) emphasizes the importance of being able to understand and analyze specific contexts in order to be able to be successful in implementing reform that supports equity. The article shows that by understanding and investigating the problems that affect “time and quality” we would automatically reform the design as a result of this understanding. Design , which the third component of the framework relies on the first two and it would be crucial for us factor in all the possible limitations and the reasons for it , which obviously would be context specific and then develop a system that better supports the teacher as well as the student in that particular context to overcome these limitations.

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