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Nigel Coutts

Shaping the Curriculum - Exploring Integration - The Learner's Way - 11 views

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    After two days of talking about curriculum, integration, STEM, STEAM and HASS I am left with more questions than I started with. In some respects, the concept of curriculum integration is simple. It is after all something that Primary teachers almost take for granted. But for Senior and Tertiary educators the question of curriculum integration is inherently complex. At all levels questions emerge of what curriculum integration might achieve, what purposes it serves, what it could and should look like and how it should be supported by curriculum planners. In the current climate, with its debate around the role of education within an innovation economy, shaped by technology and confronting demands for a STEAM enabled workforce the shape of our curriculum is under pressure. 
David McGavock

CITE Journal - Editorial - 21 views

  • A classroom that has successfully integrated technology into the curriculum would be one where you would not really notice it because it would be so second nature. The teacher would not have to think up ways to use whatever tools were available, but would seamlessly use them to enhance the learning of whatever content was being covered. Technology [would be] used to assist in acquiring content knowledge, and the acquisition of technology skills [would be] secondary. Contrast this depiction with what the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S; ISTE, 2002) say about technology integration: Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting….Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools.
  • his urging to shift the focus from the learning tools to what is being learned and how that learning happens still needs to be heeded—almost 20 years later.
  • Integration is defined not by the amount or type of technology used, but by how and why it is used.
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  • many of these technology-specific studies did not explore more fundamental issues in technology and education
  • what needs to be further developed, examined, and shared
  • particular curriculum standards-based instructional strategies that are appropriately matched to students’ learning needs and preferences
  • understanding the processes and interim results of how and why specific tools can and should be appropriated
  • help students with distinct needs and preferences to achieve identified learning goals.
  • the STaR Chart
  • According to the national StaR Chart, then, technology use in what is typically described as “constructivist” learning is preferable to technology used to “reinforce basic academic skills.”
  • Constructivists view people as constructive agents and view the phenomenon of interest (meaning or knowledge) as built instead of passively “received”
  • curriculum-based integration of educational technologies – defined in Education and Technology: An Encyclopedia (Kovalchick & Dawson, 2004) as “the effective integration of technology throughout the curriculum to help students meet the standards and outcomes of each lesson, unit, or activity”
  • As discerning educators and researchers, we should question why teachers’ roles “must” change to integrate technology effectively into K-12 curricula.
  • the technologies themselves do not require this shift
  • Though teachers in the nationally representative sample they studied acknowledged that computers helped them to change instructional practice over time, they cited experience, organized professional learning, and school culture as the primary factors provoking instructional changes.
  • In districts in which teachers’ academic freedom is preserved—at least in part—aren’t the pedagogical approaches to be used the result of decisions that each teacher makes, preferably rooted in a well-informed knowledge base of both students’ learning needs and preferences and corresponding methodological alternatives?
  • Can it really be assumed that a particular approach “works best” in all teaching, learning, school, district, and community contexts?
  • perhaps a new approach is warranted at this point in time—one that genuinely respects pedagogical plurality and honors teachers’ academic freedom.
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    A classroom that has successfully integrated technology into the curriculum would be one where you would not really notice it because it would be so second nature. The teacher would not have to think up ways to use whatever tools were available, but would seamlessly use them to enhance the learning of whatever content was being covered. Technology [would be] used to assist in acquiring content knowledge, and the acquisition of technology skills [would be] secondary. Contrast this depiction with what the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S; ISTE, 2002) say about technology integration: Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting….Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions-as accessible as all other classroom tools.
Nigel Coutts

Learning with the New Science & Technology Curriculum - The Learner's Way - 3 views

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    In the final weeks of 2017 a new Science & Technology Curriculum for Kindergarten to Year Six slipped into the schools of New South Wales. What does this new curriculum bring and what does it reveal about the nature of learning as we approach the year 2020?
Nigel Coutts

What if? Reflections from the ACSA Conference - The Learner's Way - 1 views

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    Last week I spent three days thinking about curriculum and all that it means to teaching and learning thanks to the Australian Curriculum Studies Association's biannual conference. It was three days of deeply thoughtful conversation and learning with just the right mix of academic research and ideas for grounded practice straight out of innovative classrooms and schools. With keynotes by Alan Reid, Dan Haesler, Bob Lingard, Robert Randall and Jan Owen combined with Masterclasses from some of Australia's leading educators there was much on offer. The biggest challenge was deciding which workshop you would attend when every session offered such outstanding opportunities.
Nigel Coutts

Moving beyond linear plans for learning - The Learner's Way - 9 views

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    An important part of the role of any educator is that of planning learning sequences. Perhaps you are tasked with designing curriculum or more likely you are translating a mandatory curriculum into workable units of learning. The task is complex and there are multiple arrangements. The goal is to design units that connect students with learning in ways that are meaningful and relevant. A well-designed unit of learning fits seamlessly alongside other learning opportunities and the overall sequence of learning should match the learners developing expertise. As we plan units of learning we must consider a great variety of factors which impact the learning we design. Our knowledge of our students and where they are with their learning is crucial and a strong place to start. We also need to know what it is we are required to teach and have a grab bag of pedagogical moves that bring this content alive.
Nigel Coutts

Educational Disadvantage - Socio-economic Status and Education Pt 3 - The Learner's Way - 7 views

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    Pedagogy and curriculum that engages students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and is deemed personally relevant to the lives they live, are seen as important factors towards equality of outcome by Wrench, Hammond, McCallum and Price (2012). Their research involved designing a curriculum and pedagogy that would be highly engaging to students of low-socioeconomic status. 'The interventions involved curriculum redesigns that set meaningful, challenging learning task(s) (culminating in high quality learning products); strong connection to student life-worlds; and a performative expectation for student learning.' (Wrench et al 2012 p934)
kabir mo

ZIIEI - INNOVATIVE PATHSHAALA- APP FOR TEACHERS - 0 views

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    ZIIEI Innovative Pathshaala App is designed to encourage and promote an experiential learning environment in the classroom. This platform serves as an everyday classroom companion to the teachers who can refer to the innovative ways of teaching different lessons through these zero-investment ideas. IP App is a digital leap of Innovative Pathshaala that is a series of books serving as a readymade teaching tool for all the teachers. This free learning App is a one-stop junction for subject-specific teaching tools mapped with all educational boards like C.B.S.E, I.C.S.E, Uttar Pradesh Board, Bihar Board, MP Board and many more. Teachers have access to innovative and experiential learning concepts, based on the existing school curriculum, applicable to any grade, multi-grade, and inclusive classrooms. The zero investment teaching tools available on this educational app can be of great help to govt. school teachers, private school teachers, tutors and to all kinds of educationists.
Sheri Edwards

Education Week: Backers of '21st-Century Skills' Take Flak - 0 views

  • Unless states that sign on to the movement ensure that all students are also taught a body of explicit, well-sequenced content, a focus on skills will not help students develop higher-order critical-thinking abilities, they said at a panel discussion here in the nation’s capital last week.
  • Array of Skills In the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ vision for K-12 education, the arches of the rainbow depict outcomes, while the pools represent the resources needed to support those outcomes. But critics contend that states implementing this vision might focus too heavily on discrete skills instruction, at the expense of core content. SOURCE: Partnership for 21st Century Skills
  • Ten states have agreed to work with P21 to incorporate a focus on technology, analytical and communication skills into their content standards, teacher training, and assessments.
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  • “We’ve been having this curriculum war for years.”
  • Mr. Kay, in contrast, painted the P21 vision as one that transcends this debate. The partnership tries to encourage states to be more deliberative about how they help students learn the skills,
  • “[But] the liberal arts movement, which we embrace, has not been as purposeful and intentional about the skill outcomes as we need to be.”
  • Mr. Willingham argued not only that the teaching of skills is inseparable from that of core content, but also that it is the content itself that allows individuals to recognize problems and to determine which critical-thinking skills to apply to solve them.
  • Students become proficient critical thinkers only by gleaning a broad body of knowledge in multiple content domains, he said.
  • Those techniques include student-directed methods such as project-based learning, which requires students to work in groups to solve a specified problem, relying on teachers for guidance rather than for explicit instruction.
  • “Teachers will rise to the challenge given the kind of supports they need.”
  • “If [curriculum] is just picking up a manual, or a series of nonconnected or nonsequenced experiments in science or literary works with no connection and no background knowledge, it’s not going to help our kids think any better,” she said in an interview.
  • Academics like Ms. Darling-Hammond said that setting forth a clear understanding once and for all about what students should know, and which teaching methods best help students engage that content in depth, will be crucial to putting such debates to rest.
  • The highest-scoring countries on international exams, she said, undertook efforts to outline such goals specifically 20 to 30 years ago. “When you really think about delivering a rich curriculum, it takes a very skillful type of teaching,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said. “It can be done badly; we have to acknowledge that. But we don’t really have a choice, if we want to join other nations.”
  • Meanwhile the critics go about squawking while promoting their own panaceas
  • he majority of kids just go right on tuning out, dropping out, or just getting by
  • I challenge what I read by looking at source material. These are timeless skills. It's the technology that is 21st century.
  • As for the topics we are unfamiliar with, the poster just before me rightly points out that the Internet is out there for just that purpose. Real teachers are also learners, and should be constantly seeking to know more.
  • Many recent studies have concluded that the current system is broken beyond repair and that point solutions like those being advocates above cannot fix it. We know that people learn best when they teach others so small groups that encourage peer-to-peer mentoring should be encouraged. Those same small groups require the students to learn and use the high-performance skills advocated by P21. At the same time, there is a body of knowledge that has been determined to be important to a student's future - represented by the state academic content standards. Robust, in-depth discussions of academic content help achieve the mastery of academic content. To ensure the content has meaning, it is best learned in a multi-disciplinary environment. By embedding a selected set of content standards from a variety of disciplines into a realistic setting/project the students get the opportunity to use the knowledge and go beyond the standards as their interest leads them.
  • The fact is, while "experts" pore over the fabric of pedagogical delivery methods, online teaching and learning is quietly replacing classroom environments globally. Educators better make some quick adjustments or the very definition of what an "education" means nowadays will make many of these folks irrelevant.
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    What do you think? How do we envision the future and teach for it?
Tero Toivanen

Musical sensibility can help shape teaching, research education - 10 views

  • Liora Bresler, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the U. of I. College of Education, says that the inherently performative and improvisatory aspects of teaching, along with the temporal, polyphonic aspects of scholarly research, compares favorably with musicianship.
  • "When you teach, you have a lesson plan, but you're not bound to follow it. You play, follow up, improvise and adapt, as the situation dictates. It's intellectual engagement, and you want to be engaging. So having a real, live audience makes a difference." Bresler said that the commitment to a third-party audience helps the teacher "see, perceive and make sense of what they're trying to communicate on a very different level."
  • Teachers have to act in real-time, in the moment, and have to make a lot of decisions on-the-fly.
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    Liora Bresler, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the U. of I. College of Education, says that the inherently performative and improvisatory aspects of teaching, along with the temporal, polyphonic aspects of scholarly research, compares favorably with musicianship.
Jeff Johnson

Content used to be king (learning in an online world) - 0 views

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    There was a time when books, newspapers, magazines and journals were the prime source of content and information.  It was always your move! navigating the authority maze,  enjoying slow reading of (limited) information sources in order to gain a knowledge base that matched a particular curriculum outline. This was when content was king and the teacher was the sage on the stage. Now communication is the new curriculum, and content is but grist to the mill that churns new knowledge. Why?  I came across a few good reads this week that set me thinking and wondering about the changes that we must support in our teaching and in our library services.
Paul Beaufait

Curriculum21 - Clearinghouse - 31 views

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    Resources in dozens of categories: "21st Century Skills, Android Apps, Art, Arts, ASCD 2012, Assessment, Audio, Blogs, C21 Webinars, Career/Tech Ed, Chemistry, Chess, Common Core State Standards, Curriculum Mapping, Dictionary, Digital Literacies, Digital Storytelling, Digital Tools, Early Childhood, eCoaching, English/Language Arts, ePortfolios, Film, Games, Global, Global Education, Global Partnerships, Government, Grades 3-5, Health, Heritage, High, High School, History, Humanities, Images In the Classroom, Infographics, Interdisciplinary, Issues, iPad/iPhone Apps, K-2, Languages, Library-Media Literacy, LiveBook, Math, Media Arts, Middle School, Mobile Learning, Music, New Forms, News, Open Learning, Physical Education, Podcast, Professional Development, Provocations for Professionals, Reading, Repositories, Science, Social Networking, Social Studies, Sustainability, Technology, The Arts, Theatre, Uncategorized, Videos, Webinars, World Languages, [and] Writing" (2012.08.29).
Nigel Coutts

A curriculum built on the fundamental questions of our disciplines - The Learner's Way - 6 views

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    As we make plans for how we will engage our students in their learning the decisions we make become fundamental to how they will grow to understand the purposes of learning. How our learners approach the curriculum and the disciplines is fundamental to the outcomes we may achieve for them. One path will set them up to view learning as the acquisition of information the other to see it as a process of asking and exploring questions of significance through the many unique lenses.
Nigel Coutts

Confronting the fear and challenge of a new curriculum - The Learner's Way - 6 views

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    Our learners will never now a world where Digital Technologies are not the norm. Using solutions developed within this space and with this mindset is already their normal. Unless they are to be slaves to this technology we must also empower them to be creators of digital solutions. To do this we must begin with recognising the challenges that a curriculum built around mastery of Digital Technologies brings to our teachers and seek to understand the supports they require.
Nigel Coutts

Might curriculum overloading come from "Idea Creep" - The Learner's Way - 6 views

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    I would like to propose that one cause of curriculum overcrowding is a phenomenon I refer to as "Idea Creep".
Nigel Coutts

Might now be the time rethink our curriculum? - The Learner's Way - 4 views

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    Perhaps the disruption of a global pandemic will prompt a rethinking of how education might be framed to best serve the needs of those who rely on it most? Perhaps now is the time to rethink the curriculum?
Carlos Quintero

Innovate: Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software - 0 views

  • Web 2.0 has inspired intense and growing interest, particularly as wikis, weblogs (blogs), really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, social networking sites, tag-based folksonomies, and peer-to-peer media-sharing applications have gained traction in all sectors of the education industry (Allen 2004; Alexander 2006)
  • Web 2.0 allows customization, personalization, and rich opportunities for networking and collaboration, all of which offer considerable potential for addressing the needs of today's diverse student body (Bryant 2006).
  • In contrast to earlier e-learning approaches that simply replicated traditional models, the Web 2.0 movement with its associated array of social software tools offers opportunities to move away from the last century's highly centralized, industrial model of learning and toward individual learner empowerment through designs that focus on collaborative, networked interaction (Rogers et al. 2007; Sims 2006; Sheely 2006)
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  • learning management systems (Exhibit 1).
  • The reality, however, is that today's students demand greater control of their own learning and the inclusion of technologies in ways that meet their needs and preferences (Prensky 2005)
  • Tools like blogs, wikis, media-sharing applications, and social networking sites can support and encourage informal conversation, dialogue, collaborative content generation, and knowledge sharing, giving learners access to a wide range of ideas and representations. Used appropriately, they promise to make truly learner-centered education a reality by promoting learner agency, autonomy, and engagement in social networks that straddle multiple real and virtual communities by reaching across physical, geographic, institutional, and organizational boundaries.
  • "I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create” (2000, 216). Social software tools make it easy to contribute ideas and content, placing the power of media creation and distribution into the hands of "the people formerly known as the audience" (Rosen 2006).
  • the most promising settings for a pedagogy that capitalizes on the capabilities of these tools are fully online or blended so that students can engage with peers, instructors, and the community in creating and sharing ideas. In this model, some learners engage in creative authorship, producing and manipulating digital images and video clips, tagging them with chosen keywords, and making this content available to peers worldwide through Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube
  • Student-centered tasks designed by constructivist teachers reach toward this ideal, but they too often lack the dimension of real-world interactivity and community engagement that social software can contribute.
  • Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning (Exhibit 2).
  • Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning
  • Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by: Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas; Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; andLearning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.
  • Instructors implementing Pedagogy 2.0 principles will need to work collaboratively with learners to review, edit, and apply quality assurance mechanisms to student work while also drawing on input from the wider community outside the classroom or institution (making use of the "wisdom of crowds” [Surowiecki 2004]).
  • A small portion of student performance content—if it is new knowledge—will be useful to keep. Most of the student performance content will be generated, then used, and will become stored in places that will never again see the light of day. Yet . . . it is still important to understand that the role of this student content in learning is critical.
  • This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts
  • This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts. In so doing, learners generate their own personal rules and knowledge structures, using them to make sense of their experiences and refining them through interaction and dialogue with others.
  • Other divides are evident. For example, the social networking site Facebook is now the most heavily trafficked Web site in the United States with over 8 million university students connected across academic communities and institutions worldwide. The majority of Facebook participants are students, and teachers may not feel welcome in these communities. Moreover, recent research has shown that many students perceive teaching staff who use Facebook as lacking credibility as they may present different self-images online than they do in face-to-face situations (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Further, students may perceive instructors' attempts to coopt such social technologies for educational purposes as intrusions into their space. Innovative teachers who wish to adopt social software tools must do so with these attitudes in mind.
  • "students want to be able to take content from other people. They want to mix it, in new creative ways—to produce it, to publish it, and to distribute it"
  • Furthermore, although the advent of Web 2.0 and the open-content movement significantly increase the volume of information available to students, many higher education students lack the competencies necessary to navigate and use the overabundance of information available, including the skills required to locate quality sources and assess them for objectivity, reliability, and currency
  • In combination with appropriate learning strategies, Pedagogy 2.0 can assist students in developing such critical thinking and metacognitive skills (Sener 2007; McLoughlin, Lee, and Chan 2006).
  • We envision that social technologies coupled with a paradigm of learning focused on knowledge creation and community participation offer the potential for radical and transformational shifts in teaching and learning practices, allowing learners to access peers, experts, and the wider community in ways that enable reflective, self-directed learning.
  • . By capitalizing on personalization, participation, and content creation, existing and future Pedagogy 2.0 practices can result in educational experiences that are productive, engaging, and community based and that extend the learning landscape far beyond the boundaries of classrooms and educational institutions.
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    About pedagogic 2.0
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    Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software Catherine McLoughlin and Mark J. W. Lee
Tero Toivanen

Finnish educator offers suggestions for American schools - Marin Independent Journal - 17 views

  •  
    "Marin County educators gathered this week to imagine a world without standardized tests, one in which teachers would teach less and students would study less - yet score near the top on international tests of math, reading and science. Teaching would be a highly regarded profession in this world, and decisions about curriculum and other aspects of education would be made at the school - rather than the state or county level. The "achievement gap" between rich and poor schools would be unknown, as all schools would provide their students with a high level of education, along with free meals, counseling and health care. This mythical world of teachers' dreams has a name: Finland."
Dennis OConnor

CyberSmart! - 0 views

  • Two free resources support daily teaching. The free CyberSmart! Student Curriculum empowers students to use the Internet safely, responsibly, and effectively. The free CyberSmart! Educator Toolbar puts 21st century skills into practice every day, with just-in-time 24/7 access to annotated essential resources to support student learning.
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    Free k-12 Curriculum featuring Information Fluency/literacy issues. Professinally prepared, available by grade level in pdf format.
Ruth Howard

Welcome to BetterLesson - 1 views

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    (Beta) BetterLesson is a free organizational tool and curriculum development community that helps educators connect and share high-quality resources, best practices, and ideas. Use BetterLesson to: * Organize and share your complete, 180-day curriculum * Connect and collaborate with innovative educators in your field * Tag and search lessons using state standards * Access your files and instructional content from anywhere * Control who sees your curriculum
Nigel Coutts

Bringing Computational Thinking into the Primary Classroom - The Learner's Way - 4 views

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    Primary teachers in New South Wales (NSW) are this year and next integrating a new Science & Technology Curriculum. It brings with it a number of challenges and opportunities and while it has much in common with the existing curriculum, it will require some significant changes.
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