Chapter 2

Curriculum Design in Mathematics Teaching

Curriculum design may range from the design and planning of a single lecture or tutorial to the production of a completely new undergraduate programme. In all cases however there are some basic issues that we need to consider when sitting down to plan any aspect of the curriculum. Teaching is a complicated activity involving intellectual, organisational and administrative challenges, all bound up with the complexities of human interactions. In Chapters 3-5 we will be looking at the main teaching activities for the average mathematics lecturer - giving a lecture, running a tutorial class and assessing students. Each of these has many component activities, and different practical features, yet they share similar principles of learning and all require a general overview of the entire teaching activity. So, whether you are preparing a whole degree programme, a single course, or an individual lecture or tutorial class, there are large number of things to think about, most of which can be summarised in the apt acronym MATHEMATICS.

Apart from the all important issue of resources(from materials to (wo)manpower to time) available to you, the main things we need to consider when planning and preparing teaching can be summarized under the following headings:

Mathematical content

Aims and objectives of the curriculum

Teaching and learning activities to meet the aims and objectives

Help to be provided to the students - support and guidance

Evaluation, management and administration of the curriculum and its delivery

Materials to support the curriculum

Assessment of the students

Time considerations and scheduling

Initial position of the students - where we are starting from

Coherence of the curriculum - how the different components fit together

Students.

The rest of the chapter can be found here.