ICI International Conference║Professor Lyu Lijie: Discussion on the Curriculum Potential of Textbooks Under the Background of New Normal

Professor Lyu Lijie

Northeast Normal University

Title: Discussion on the Curriculum Potential of Textbooks Under the Background of New Normal

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We publish this report with the permission of Prof. Lyu Lijie for the use of scholarly communications only.

The topic I would like to share today is “Discussion on the Curriculum Potential of Textbooks Under the Background of New Normal”.

01. What kind of talents do we need under this new normal background?

Under the context of globalization, we find that we need to change our literacy to adapt to the changing world. We need the capacity of innovation, the capacity of learning and the capacity of transference. If we want to maintain a certain balance with the world, it is like stepping on a bicycle, only if we keep moving, can wes keep balance. Under the context of globalization, we are all familiar with another topic. Sociologists have such a saying that a globalized society is also a risk society, and the source of risk is rational regulation rather than ignorance and recklessness. We are always eager to perfect the control of the nature, however, science and technology may do harm to our society.

Thus, people will find that the globalized society is actually a risk society. From this point of view, the knowledge economy is a risk economy, and the knowledge society is actually a risk society. In the world full of risks that become risky because of interdependence, our future learners should learn to trust each other and respect each other. Under the context of new normal, we realize more about the value of core competencies.

The 2018 version of core competencies from OECD mentions digital competency, financial competency, computational thinking and so on, which certainly remind us of how 2030 social citizens meet the challenges of globalization. However, there are much more connotation in it, such as cooperative ability, respect, trust, empathy, conflict resolution, global ability, and so on, which have been predicted in such a risk society. Therefore, some of the core competencies we originally mentioned are also applicable to the requirements of human development in the context of the new normal.

02. The goals need to be transformed into teaching materials

First of all, the form of competency should be transformed into the form of content, the form of curriculum content should be transformed into the form of problems by teachers, the form of problems requires classroom interaction, which would help to realize the task of cultivating people. Thus, we can say that the form of problems should be transformed into the form of activities in the classroom.

What we discuss today is the form of content, how we present core competencies, how we do teaching design in the future. Therefore, in recent years, we advocate integrating the content of curriculum through big idea. The big idea here definitely refers to the general understanding of those factual knowledge extracted on the basis of factual knowledge. If students acquire big ideas, they will certainly have a deep understanding of the original knowledge of the problem, which will enable students to explain and solve problems.

03. Textbook design needs to pay attention to the potential of curriculum

A question we are going to discuss today is how to provide enlightening guidance on the basis of the factual knowledge provided in the textbook, which will enable students to have a deep understanding of the knowledge.

Big ideas need to be “obvious” “exist” and also be “potential”, Schwab named it “curriculum potential”, which is contained in subject content.

Curriculum potential requires curriculum designers to lay the groundwork and design when designing teaching materials. At the same time, there is another dimension, for teachers, they need to make use of these potentials designed by curriculum designers, and expand these potentials at the same time. Thus, there are things that textbook designers did not take into account. However, for the teacher, they can still make use of the situational material of the textbook themselves and use the information provided by the textbook to extend the potential of them. If the curriculum potential can be presented in textbooks, it would be better for teachers to make use of it. Only in this way, can we finally achieve competency objectives.