British Columbia's New Curriculum |
The BC Ministry of Education has redesigned the curriculum that is being taught in BC schools. The roll-out of Kindergarten to Grade 9 curriculum began in the 2016-17 school year, while the redesigned content for grades 10-12 is still in the process of being implemented. For all grades, the new curriculum focuses on both Core Competencies, which are not tied to any one subject and have more to do with the development of each student as a well-rounded individual, and Curricular Competencies, which are subject-specific and comprise essential learning outcomes for students at each grade level.
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The Core Competencies are, to quote the Ministry, "sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need to develop in order to engage in deep learning and life-long learning." These three Competencies are: Communication, Thinking, and Personal and Social. More detail can be found on each of these three areas of Core Competency here.
The Curricular Competencies, on the other hand, are specific to each subject that students study in BC schools. These contain valuable concepts and "big ideas" that educators are implementing in BC classrooms. In my English 12 classroom, several elements of BC's new English curriculum have been part of our focus this year. For example:
Big Ideas:
Curricular Competencies:
Content:
Big Ideas:
- The exploration of text and story deepens our understanding of diverse, complex ideas about identity, others, and the world.
- People understand texts differently depending on their worldviews and perspectives
- Texts are socially, culturally, geographically, and historically constructed.
- Language shapes ideas and influences others.
- Questioning what we hear, read, and view contributes to our ability to be educated and engaged citizens.
- The examination of First Peoples' cultures and lived experiences through text builds understanding of Canadians' responsibilities in relation to Reconciliation.
Curricular Competencies:
- Read for enjoyment and to achieve personal goals
- Recognize and appreciate the role of story, narrative, and oral tradition in expressing First Peoples' perspectives, values, beliefs, and points of view
- Use information for diverse purposes and from a variety of sources
- Evaluate the relevance, accuracy, and reliability of texts
- Select and apply appropriate strategies in a variety of contexts to comprehend written, oral, visual, and multimodal texts to guide inquiry and to extend thinking
- Understand how different forms, formats, structures, and features of texts reflect a variety of purposes, audiences, and messages
- Think critically, creatively, and reflectively to analyze ideas within, between, and beyond texts
- Recognize and identify personal, social, and cultural contexts, values, and perspectives in texts, including gender, sexual orientation, and socio-economic factors
- Construct meaningful personal connections between text, self, and world
- Evaluate how literary elements, techniques, and devices enhance and shape meaning and impact
- Recognize an increasing range of text structures and how they contribute to meaning
- Identify bias, contradictions, distortions, and omissions
- Respectfully exchange ideas and viewpoints from diverse perspectives to build shared understanding and extend thinking
- Respond to text in personal, creative, and critical ways
- Demonstrate appropriate speaking and listening skills in a variety of formal and informal contexts for a range of purposes
- Use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create engaging, meaningful texts for a variety of purposes and audiences
- Express and support an opinion with evidence
- Assess and refine texts to improve their clarity, effectiveness, and impact
- Use the conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation proficiently
- Use acknowledgements and citations to recognize personal intellectual property rights
- Transform ideas and information to create original texts using various genres, forms, structures, and styles
Content:
- Text forms, structures, and genres
- Elements of visual/graphic texts
- Reconciliation in Canada/the legal status of First Peoples' oral tradition in Canada and the protocols related to the ownership of First Peoples' oral texts
- Reading strategies
- Oral language strategies
- Writing processes
- Metacognitive strategies
- Presentation techniques
- Multimodal reading strategies
- The elements of style
- Grammatical usage and conventions
- Citation techniques (MLA)
- Literary elements and devices