A Study On The School-based Curriculum Development In Northwest Minority Regions Of China

At present, a new round of basic education curriculum reform is being carried out in full swing throughout the whole country under the guidance of the National Outline of Basic Education Curriculum Reform. In the course of this large-scale reform, the school-based curriculum development conduct appears as one noticeable item.In order to take root in Northwest minority regions, the school-based curriculum development conduct, originated from foreign countries, has to take into consideration the duality nature of the minority education, the fact of multi-minorities and multi-cultures in these minority regions and the real existing situations of basic education in these areas, and tries to explore a localized development method which adapts to the characteristics of the Northwest minority regions based on the essential features and basic notions of this conduct.Therefore, a native definition for the concept of the school-based curriculum development is a necessity. Generally speaking, the school-based curriculum development refers to all kinds of curriculum developing activities collaborated either by school headmaster, teachers, students, community members and experts of curriculum or by some non-school organizations and individuals to meet the demand for the personality development of students in school in accordance with the spirit of the National Outline of Basic Education Curriculum Reform. Dependent on schools, individual differences of students, teachers, local schools and community curriculum resources the school-based curriculum development is a continuous and dynamic curriculum producing process. The prerequisite of national and state curriculum.The developing conduct of the school-based curriculum in Northwest minority regions of China to great degree relies on the extent to which some potential curriculum resources such as splendid minority cultural resources and profuse human and ecological resources are developed and taken into practice. The main items to be developed consist of school curriculum resources and community curriculum resources. The formulation and implementation of the School Development Project has been proved in practice an effective method which can be applied to develop and put intoA Study on the School-based Curriculum Development in Northwest Minority Regions of Chinareal use of the community curriculum resources in the Northwest minority regions.In terms of the development and practice of the school-based curriculum resources, the principle of the unity of plurality and singleness, unity of localization and modernization must be followed in the Northwest minority regions besides the five principles concerning learning choice proposed by American curriculum expert Tyler. There are various methods to develop and put into practice the curriculum resources, among which teaching activity is an important one. Thus the significant role played by teachers should be paid enough attention.In order to explore a promising road for the development of the school-based curriculum in Northwest minority regions, based on the case study of the development and practice of the curriculum resources in Gannan Tibetan secondary and primary schools, involving nine topics including society, history, geography, philology, music, dance, painting, Ando Tibetan opera and science, the paper makes an effort in Chapter Four to probe deeply and in full-scale into the way in which the school-based curriculum development conduct is developed and put into use by clearing out, analyzing and synthesizing the brilliant multi-cultural educational resources in this area.In terms of the goals to be achieved, seven principles have to be kept to for the School-based curriculum development in Northwest minority regions, they are: localization, wholeness, gradation, liveliness, workability, human-orientation and practicability. Under the guidance of these seven principles, the goal framework for the School-based curriculum development in the Northwest minority regions can be established like this: f...