Effective Educational Programs: Planning and Development

Posted on Jan 24, 2025 in Primary Education

Educational Programs: Planning, Development, and Evaluation

Educational programs are the specific instruments for planning, developing, and evaluating each of the curricular areas. They make concrete the objectives, content, different elements of the methodology, and the criteria and procedures developed for evaluation by each teacher, team, application, and cycle.

Development schedules consistent with the educational project, coordination, and balance of your application between the different groups of the same educational level will be guaranteed, as well as the continuity of student learning throughout the distinct courses, courses, and curriculum stages. This autonomy will enable schools and their teachers to make decisions to carry out an education suitable to the diverse needs of students.

Key Components of Educational Programs

Educational programs must include:

  1. The formulation of cycle objectives for each of the areas, contextualizing the official curriculum established according to the characteristics of students.
  2. The organization, distribution, and sequencing of the contents of each of the courses that make up the stage, in order to facilitate attention to diversity.
  3. General decisions about teaching methodology for the first approach to reading and writing.
  4. The organization of time, groupings, and spaces.
  5. Incorporation strategies of new technologies at work in the classroom.
  6. The selection of textbooks and other materials.
  7. The organization, distribution, and sequencing of evaluation criteria for each of the areas that make up the infant stage to help each student overcome difficulties and learn better.
  8. The determination of basic learning skills that students need to achieve a positive evaluation.
  9. The procedures and tools for student learning evaluation, qualification criteria and recovery, as well as the indicators, criteria, procedures, timing, and evaluation responsible for the EA process, in accordance with the provisions of the internal evaluation plan of the center.
  10. The measures of reinforcement and attention to students with specific needs for educational support.
  11. Complementary and extracurricular activities designed to meet the objectives and content of the curriculum, whichever reflect the space, time, and resources used.

Addressing Diversity in Educational Programs

To enable a response to the reality of diversity, the following should be considered in its elaboration:

  1. Intentions or Objectives

    A balance between areas should be ensured. Capabilities should be prioritized, or those developed as a result of insufficient opportunities should be reinforced, as well as providing contexts that allow optimal development of capabilities. Minimum necessary to achieve clearly should be defined, as well as offering the possibility of working on other optional or free characteristics.

  2. Content

    An appropriate balance between conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal content should be sought, interrelating the contents of one or several areas, as well as common procedures, and emphasizing cross-curricular themes.

  3. Teaching Methodology

    Decisions about teaching methodology should keep in mind the methodological principles that support the need for attention to diversity in children (safety and trust, non-replacement, globalization, significant learning, motivation, creativity, playful activity, didactic use of routines, individualization, and socialization). Coordination and collaboration between all involved professionals are essential to creating a collaborative environment, promoting personal effort, individual responsibility, designing activities to detect background knowledge, using multiple resources, and designing activities to strengthen and expand learning.

  4. Evaluation

    Decisions on evaluation should address concepts, skills, abilities, attitudes, values, and habits, discovering the subject’s own progress. The initial, continuous, and final evaluations should be specified. Different instruments should be used in the service of evaluation, and each type of information should specify the criteria of the findings and the criteria for promotion.

All these actions are made operational in each group and for each individual student through the daily work of the professional tutor, support specialists, and others, through the development and implementation of learning units, project work, corners, and games, trying to meet the diversity of each and every one of the students that make up the classroom.