Curriculum Collection

What is the Curriculum Collection? | Resources in the Collection | Children's Literature
Tropicat | Borrowing | Points to remember | Journals | Other Resources

This guide is designed to help you find resources in the Curriculum Collection. If you have difficulty in locating material please seek assistance from InfoHelp or the Curriculum Librarian.

The main collection is at Douglas, with a smaller collection in Cairns. Students may borrow items from either campus.

What is the Curriculum Collection?

The Curriculum Collection is a collection of materials representative of the range of resources usually found in preschool, primary and secondary school libraries. Its purposes are:

• to support curriculum studies taught in the School of Education and associated curriculum-based assignments;
• to provide resources which students can evaluate and use during professional experience placements;
• to provide materials in a range of formats to allow for a variety of teaching strategies;
• to provide a current and retrospective collection of curriculum materials.

What resources are in the Collection?

Teachers today use a range of resources when implementing the various school curricula. The Curriculum Collection therefore contains a variety of materials, including the following:

• Textbooks used in the classroom;

• A selection of schemes and printed kits for use in the classroom;

• Teachers' handbooks or manuals which are used by teachers to support students' resources, for example, handbooks accompanying reading schemes;

• Curriculum materials which contain resources to be used by the teacher in preparing units of work for the classroom;
  - N.B. Books located in the Main Collection may also provide lesson ideas;

• Children's nonfiction;

• Reference materials designed for use by school-aged students, such as encyclopedias, atlases and dictionaries;

• Nonbook or audiovisual materials such as videos, CD-ROMs, audiocassettes and kits.The majority of these may be borrowed. There are also VCRs, DVD players and audiocassette players available in the audiovisual room on the ground floor;

• Big books, which are catalogued according to subject matter and located throughout the collection.
  List [Word97]

The above materials are catalogued in the same way as the Main Library Collection, with different types of materials intershelved. Items in the Curriculum Collection have the location prefix C in front of the call number.

In addition there are other resources available as follows:

• Illustrations are housed in the collection on separate racks and given a running number, e.g. C ILLUS 1220. They also have a full entry in the catalogue, Tropicat. The subheading -- Illustrations is included in the subject heading.

• The Theme Index is an online alphabetical listing of themes at early childhood and primary school level taken from a range of journals held in the Periodical Collection. A number of URLs (Web addresses) are also included. Ask at InfoHelp if you have difficulty locating material for themes or topics.

Children's Literature

• The section containing children's and young adult fiction includes literature representative of the best available, and is also designed to support reading programs and other curriculum areas.

• The emphasis is on literature written in the English language, for example:

  American literature	C 810
  British literature	C 820
  Australian literature	C 820.94

• Books for all ages are intershelved, from picture books for young children to young adult novels.

• Subject access is possible to many titles via subject headings on Tropicat. More information on children's literature can be found in the guide Children's Literature: Select Bibliography Series, or by contacting the Curriculum Librarian.

• The Source is a searchable bibliographic database which is " a guide by subject to children's fiction, poetry and short stories from around the world with an emphasis on Australian books "

Tropicat: Tips for finding curriculum entries

• A keyword search can be limited by Curriculum -- see an example [to be written]
• Material with certain subject headings is often located in Curriculum.
  Examples of subject headings and subheadings:
  • Creative activities and seat work
  • English language -- Study and teaching
  • Mathematics -- Study and teaching (Early childhood)
  • Art -- Study and teaching (Primary)
  • Science -- Study and teaching (Elementary)
  • Social sciences -- Study and teaching (Secondary)
  • -- Juvenile Fiction : = Children's literature / fiction
  • -- Juvenile Literature : = Children's nonfiction

Borrowing

• Catalogued items are borrowed in the same way as Main Collection material, and staff and students may borrow up to ten curriculum items in addition to the normal Main Collection loans. Ask at InfoHelp if you need to borrow items from the periodicals.

• Cairns students may borrow materials from Townsvile, and vice versa. Place a hold in Tropicat on the item required, or see staff at InfoHelp if help is needed to identify appropriate titles.

• Borrowed items are not to be used by school students in the classroom.

• When borrowing kits which may contain a number of items, the onus is on the borrower to check the contents; report any missing items at the Loans Desk before borrowing. You could be asked to replace items missing when the material is returned.

• If a number of items needs to be used on campus for tutorial or workshop purposes, please contact the Curriculum Librarian as early as possible. Help may be given with identifying suitable items for a special loan.

Points to remember

• Queensland curriculum documents which are held such as syllabuses and guidelines are shelved in the Reference Collection at R 375 QUE. There is also a web page called Curriculum Documents on the Web with links to Australian syllabus documents

• The collection, as representative of the range of resources found in Queensland schools over the years, contains not only good quality items, but also some items of poorer quality, and older material as well as newer. Resources may also reflect a variety of attitudes, philosophies and viewpoints. It is expected that after evaluation of the available items, careful selection of appropriate resources will take place when required for lesson planning.

• Selection Criteria for Curriculum Material

• See also Education Queensland's Learning Resource Selection Guidelines for Schools

Journals

• Many journals contain ideas for lessons, both subject-specific and cross-curricular, at early childhood and primary level: General Titles.
  There are also a number of subject-specific journals available in the Library collection for both primary and secondary level, accessible by searching for subject headings on Tropicat, e.g.

  Science -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals

• It is recommended that students browse through these periodicals to gain an idea of their usefulness. Note that most are held, not in the Curriculum Collection, but in the periodical collection. Material may sometimes be borrowed on special loan if necessary. Please ask at InfoHelp.

• Access to topics covered in these journals is available in individual journal indexes or in the Theme Index.

Other Sources

The Curriculum Collection should be your first source when looking for teaching materials, however there are other good resources available.

• Schools
  When on professional experience, the school resource centre or library may be able to provide materials you need. Ask the teacher/librarian if you would like advice.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Resource Centre
  Located at 26 Burt Street, Mundingburra. Phone 4775 6055. Monday - Friday 8.30am - 4.15pm.

• Public Libraries
  The children's fiction and nonfiction sections of the public libraries may provide you with further resources.

• The World Wide Web is increasingly becoming a source of material on many topics. There are sites which provide school-level resources in all subject areas. There are various ways of accessing these. The Education Librarian / Curriculum Librarian's homepage has a selection of links both to sites with specific information and to other homepages with their own links. See URL http://www.library.jcu.edu.au/Educ/index.shtml, and go to Teaching Resources or ask at InfoHelp.

Please contact Helen Hooper if you have any comments, suggestions or additions.

If this information is inadequate, incorrect, or can be improved in any way, please let us know

Published 07-Oct-2007.
Copyright 1995 to 2008, James Cook University. All rights reserved.
Feedback Terms of use Privacy statement
CRICOS Provider Codes: Queensland:00117J, New South Wales:01965E, Victoria:02153M
ABN 46253211955