Reflection-Oriented Curriculum: A Discourse for Developing the Concept of 'Teacher Awareness' within the Framework of Narrative Inquiry

Introduction: Teachers are considered the main axis of achieving educational goals in the classroom, and their efficiency determines the effectiveness of the educational system. In this regard, reflective thinking and self-directed action of teachers in dealing with educational issues provide the conditions for preparing curricula according to the needs of the learners. Teachers with reflective thinking are always reviewing and improving teaching methods and trying to make personal knowledge feasible in order to apply it within the curricula. Through reflective questions as a vital tool for professional reflection and learning, they emphasize systematic critical reflection and, as a result, professional learning and growth. Teachers' reflective activities in the curriculum provide greater freedom for teachers to make decisions at all levels, including curriculum changes, selection of teaching materials, and classroom methods. In fact, promoting a culture of thinking is the goal of reflective curriculum and is an appropriate strategy for shaping curriculum resources and implementing them through deeper and reflective interaction that leads to coherent curricula with teacher support. Reflective activity helps teachers organize and manage the curriculum and provides a platform for scaffolding curriculum content and improving the quality of students' learning and addressing their curriculum challenges. Lived experiences and acquired awareness contain curriculum knowledge. Through exploring these experiences, the curriculum researcher can achieve curriculum knowledge and transform curriculum practice into a reflective action.
Research questions: Research on the concept of reflection and its potential role in modifying and improving teachers' classroom activities and curriculum implementation quality was proposed to map the quality of teachers' reflective actions for continuous review and processing of programs, determining mental patterns of activity for implementation in practice, identifying and extracting educational elements and their relationship in line with the operational system within the framework of educational programs, and the necessary criteria in the process of teachers' awareness with the nature of the components of the reflection-based curriculum were identified and explained. Therefore, the present study seeks to answer the question of what components do teachers' activities in a curriculum with a reflective nature have and how do they affect the process of forming teachers' awareness? So that educational actions lead to improving the quality of the content presented in the classroom.
Methods: In this study, the conventional content analysis method with thematic analysis technique was considered for the concept of reflective curriculum. The participants were elementary and secondary school teachers, 15 of whom were interviewed semi-structured through purposive sampling of the index type. The interview process with teachers was individual. Their personal views were described regarding the importance of reflection in modifying and improving classroom activities and curriculum implementation quality. This was done to determine the indicators of reflective curriculum that are effective in the content structure of the programs. The process of designing interview questions was the argumentative nature of the whole excerpt, in that first general questions about the research topic were raised and then more detailed and precise questions were asked from the participants in accordance with the interview process. In the data analysis stage, using the theme network, the role of teachers' reflective activities in the formation of reflective curriculum and the quality of network interactions between these components in order to understand meaningful ideas were determined. To validate qualitative data, techniques such as researcher self-review and peer review were used, to ensure transferability, rich data descriptions and cross-case analyses, and to ensure the reliability of findings, continuous comparison was used.
Results: The results of this study show that by identifying and extracting 125 basic themes and 20 organizing themes, 9 overarching themes were obtained, including narrative creation, feedback, conceptual discourse, personalization of knowledge, intellectual self-regulation, curriculum innovation, intellectual property, cognitive empathy, and performance research. These elaborate on and explain the nature and dimensions of reflective curriculum. Reflective curriculum is a context in which teachers' awareness finds the opportunity to enrich and continuously rethink in order to display a newer face of how to live in the curriculum by evolving and strengthening their cognitive beliefs and feelings. Therefore, a two-way interaction exists, aimed at enhancing reflection and curriculum awareness. This interaction can improve program quality through a cycle of cognitive absorption and adaptation in teachers' minds. As a result, teachers, when faced with the curriculum content again, have a higher level of processing in providing activities and learning opportunities for their audiences.
Discussion: Valuing a new identity for the curriculum in which teachers' cognitive experiences shape its scientific structure requires deep reflection and thinking by teachers individually and in accordance with their educational ecosystems through various components that lead to the formation of a reflective nature of the curriculum and enhance the level of teachers' awareness. These features include:
Identifying personal meanings in the curriculum and highlighting them in line with the centrality of ideas derived from cognitive experiences as an indicator of recognition and explanation of curriculum propositions
            Awareness of the consequences of cognitive actions and efforts to improve and modify existing procedures in the reflection process through standard-based evaluation
Creating a mental space in line with conceptualizing the curriculum and expanding intellectual discussions and proposing new thoughts with the aim of providing flexible adaptation opportunities
Developing individual capabilities in dealing with curricula and their scientific management
The power of intellectual maneuverability of teachers and their sequential examination in relation to each other for an integrated understanding of curriculum concepts
Creative power in expanding concepts and paying attention to neglected dimensions in the semantic scope of the curriculum by creating an innovative sense of personal ideas
Attracting curriculum ideas in line with teachers' personal recreation to direct educational flows and determine the why and how of the concepts discussed in classrooms
Knowledge based on curriculum facts and eliminating interfering factors in understanding curriculum meanings
Promoting conceptual solutions in implementing curricula and deep involvement of the outcome of this reflective process in programs