#DESIGN2ALIGN CURRICULA TO NATIONAL STANDARDS
Participants at a workshop during UNESCO Mobile Learning Week (Mar 2018) and the San Francisco Hackathon (Oct 2019).
The process of curriculum alignment is the organization of a diverse set of learning resources to fit the structure and learning objectives of the local curriculum standards in a given country. Without curriculum alignment, educators find it difficult to navigate, discover, and use learning resources. Facilitating alignment to curriculum is an essential prerequisite for making globally-produced educational resources usable and relevant for local contexts, but the lack of time, personnel, and tools dedicated to this process is a limitation. In response, Google.org, Learning Equality, Vodafone Foundation, UNHCR, and UNESCO have been leading a multi-stakeholder collaboration to create a set of tools that can automate the mapping of digital learning resources to national curriculum standards in an effective and efficient manner.
This process continues to be informed through consultations with domain experts, with engagement with individuals of various backgrounds: curriculum designers to machine learning experts to curricular bodies. Through a series of convenings and related reports, these efforts continue to push this initiative forward in developing this set of semi-automated alignment tools. This includes:
- Understanding of the needs for a learning platform in emergency and crisis contexts, including the need for aligned curriculum, at a Mobile Learning Week 2017 strategy lab in Paris, France hosted by Google.org, UNHCR, UNICEF, and Learning Equality (Read the blog post and the report)
- Investigating digital Arabic resources, including some of the core characteristics of digital learning resources at a 2017 WISE Summit workshop in Doha, Qatar co-hosted by Google.org, and Education Above All (Read the report, list of Arabic content and survey to contribute)
- Evaluating whether aspects of curriculum alignment can or should be automated at a UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2018 workshop in Paris, France hosted by Google.org, UNHCR, and Learning Equality
- Designing a process to make learning resources more readily discoverable during a design sprint, following UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2019 in Paris, France hosted by Google.org, UNHCR, Vodafone Foundation, Learning Equality, and UNESCO (Read the report and follow-up #design2align blog series)
- Prototyping a set of tools to support the automation of curriculum alignment at a hackathon at Google’s offices in San Francisco, U.S. hosted by Google.org, UNHCR, Vodafone Foundation, Learning Equality, and UNESCO (Read the report linking to various projects and GitHub repositories, watch the video, and learn about participants’ reflections)
- Proposing a centralized, dynamic hub to coordinate curriculum alignment, which could generate additional data for an automated alignment tool, developed by Learning Equality, and EdTech Hub (Read the proposed concept note)
- Outlining the process of curriculum alignment on a webinar co-organized by Learning Equality, UNHCR, and EdTech Hub on the process of curriculum alignment (Watch the recording and learn more about an experience of alignment in a low-connectivity context)