Curriculum Ergonomics: A rich task experience from an Asian perspective

Abstract

Curricula in different places of the world are consistently undergoing changes and reforms to meet the capacity needed for citizenship of the 21st Century. Applying the idea of HFE to Curriculum Ergonomics, design of interventions in curriculum should with best efforts aim to fit the users (teachers and students) for creating an optimal enhanced learning environment. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how a curriculum intervention may be designed towards this end via the lens of Human Factors / Ergonomics (HFE). The Rich Task project in Hong Kong was a two-year project involving 13 schools and 27 teachers and 46 lessons. Via an analysis of the nature of interaction in the university team-teacher-student (UT-T-S) artifacts in the project with a participatory approach, the findings showed how the teachers varied different factors in the design process to cater for the diverse students’ ability and the indicators for successful implementation of the “rich task” lessons. Finally, the authors propose to include curriculum ergonomics in the future agenda of teacher education.