Build Your Own Curriculum (BYOC): Evaluating a K--12 online curriculum management system.

摘要

Education is the focus for a great deal of attention at the local, state, and national levels. The majority of this attention centers around school improvement initiatives designed to provide better quality control of the educational process while enhancing educational opportunities. The development of local content and performance standards aligned to state and national standards must be combined with the process of curriculum management to ensure linkage to classroom instruction. This study evaluated the extent to which Build Your Own Curriculum (BYOC), a web-based curriculum management system, met the eight goals articulated for the curriculum process in a PK--12 school district.; The research site was the Menasha Joint School District, a 3,600 student PK--12 school district located in the Midwest. The district articulated eight goals for their curriculum management process. The goals are instructional validity, curricular flexibility, easily updated curriculum, public engagement, curriculum alignment, instructional leadership, best practice facilitation, and curricular engagement.; The study used multiple data collection techniques including quantitative survey data from teachers and administrators, focus group data from users of the system, and document analysis for triangulation of results. The focus group and survey participants consisted of users who had experience with traditional methods of curriculum management as well as using the BYOC system.; The findings indicated that the BYOC system met the goals of instructional validity, curricular flexibility, easily updated curriculum, curriculum alignment, instructional leadership, best practice facilitation, and curricular engagement. It could not be determined if the system met, or did not meet, the goal of public engagement. A major implication of this study is that a technology enhanced process is necessary and beneficial when considering alignment of classroom instruction to local, state, and national standards. Another implication is that instructional leadership by administration is an important part of any curriculum management process.