1. Introduction to SLO (Netherlands Expertise Center for Curriculum Development) Harma Evers Loes Stadhouders Presentation for EdReNe, Ljubljana, 4-5 March, 2008

2. 2 SLO from 1975 till now Founded by the government in 1975: –to co-ordinate fragmented curriculum work by many different committees and institutes –to stimulate overall quality and coherence of curriculum development –for primary, secondary, special and vocational education –for all subjects Current status: –profile as expertise center –increasing emphasis on evidence-based improvements –increasing international orientation –network organisation –core staff of about 150 curriculum experts –not part of Ministry, but close working relation (and major funding)

3. 3 Central tasks of SLO Designing and validating national curriculum frameworks via examination programs, core objectives/standards Designing and evaluating examples of elaborations, at the levels of school, subjects, lessons Promoting (horizontal and longitudinal) coherence of curricula Co-ordination of developments Interaction between CD and: –teacher and school development –test and examination development –inspectorate –development of textbooks and other learning resources Expertise development on CD International orientation

4. 4 Levels of Curriculum (Development) international, comparative national (system) frameworks school, programme classroom, group, teacher learner, individual SUPRA MACRO MICRO MESO NANO

5. 5 Curricular spider web Time Rationale Content Teacher role Materials & Resources Grouping Location Assessment Aims & Objectives Learning activities (Van den Akker, 2003)

6. 6 SLO Organization Five Subject Divisions  Languages  Mathematics, Science & Technology Education  Social Studies  Physical Education & Art Education  Vocational Subjects Five Knowledge Groups  How to determine the core of the content?  How to address differences between pupils?  Curricular challenges of new learning sources and environments  School-based curriculum development  Teachers and curriculum development Seven Departments  Primary Education  Special Education  Lower Secondary Education  Upper Secondary Education  Vocational Education  Research & Consultancy  Learning Resources Learning Resources

7. 7 Target: supporting the process of choosing new learning resources and keeping track of the latest developments Learning resources: teaching packages, textbooks, thematic materials, educational software and other learning materials Data on the internet: www.leermiddelenplein.nl ~ overview overview ~ basic information ~ extensive information extensive information ~ comparitive information not yet a repository! Edurep > national tool for finding learning objects on the internet SLO uses national and international standards for metadata (OAI PMH, IEEE LOM, SRU-SRW)

8. 8 Edurep Database Portal Users

9. 9 Towards an Expertise Center for Learning Resources 2012 Research and collaborate Rebuilding and extending our website: www.leermiddelenplein.nl ~ offering social metadata ~ offering ‘tools for schools’ ~ showing latest developments ~ uploads of learning materials > building a repository? New kid on the block: how to deal with rights?