Cycle Four: How Should Curriculum Be Generated?
Generating,
creating, and revising curriculum can be a daunting task. There are many factors to consider such as
what backgrounds are associated with your students, the level of understanding
the teachers have of the objectives, and the many decisions associated with the
organization of the curriculum. It is a
necessary evil, as without a quality curriculum, the students will surely fall
behind.
I must begin
by saying that underlying agendas should not be part of developing a
curriculum. It should never be about the
agenda of the adults, but about the students themselves. Private agendas such as the recent topic in
Texas dealing with religious viewpoints should be saved for church and home
environments, not public schools. When I
say this I am not stating that religion should not be taught. I believe public schools should teach all
religion and in an appropriate manner.
This would entail not leaving certain information out or only focusing
on certain people in history. One of my
favorite high school classes was Global Studies because we learned about
religions I had never heard before and what their practices were. I went from only knowing one way of life, to
understanding and discovering what else is out there and could embrace the
diversity of religion.
To restate
the question at hand, we are studying how curriculum should be generated. I believe it is important to take into
consideration your students, their home lives, backgrounds, and interests. Surveys should be sent to families and
teachers should survey their students at the beginning of each year. Yes there are core objectives to be taught,
but you can teach an objective in many ways.
One example is how I taught mean, median, mode, and range this
week. I have an athletic class who
thrives on sports and competition. I
timed 15 students in the hallway for how fast they could run from one door to
the other. We then calculated the mean,
median, mode, and range for the set of data collected. The objective was to calculate the mean,
median, mode, and range of a set of data.
My students were able to do this after not only competing with one
another, but also running in the hallway.
You can imagine the excitement.
Next year, I could have kids who hate running and therefore would pull
another bag of tricks out of my teacher hat.
The point being, pay attention to the students and what will stimulate
and engage them in order to provide learning experiences with the desired
outcome.
When it comes
to curriculum, how it is organized is high important. I believe the vertical and horizontal
relations are important. Each year
should go into more depth of the previous year.
This year 4th grade learned how to identify, add, subtract,
and multiply fractions. Next year they
will divide fractions, begin working with mixed numbers, etc. The next year they will incorporate fractions
with algebra concepts. It is taking a
concept and going into more depth, which will deepen their understanding. Horizontal relations are of equal value. Last week the students were studying vocabulary
terms from a government unit in Social Studies.
The term discussed was treason. I
explained what it meant and provided examples, but yesterday while reading a
story about Nazis and the Holocaust they read an actual example of what treason
was involving Adolf Hitler. It was like
27 light bulbs going off in the classroom.
Not only were they excited that one subject had to do with the other,
but they translated that term from one thing and deepened the understanding of
it in another. Curriculum must also be
reiterated throughout the year. If you
teach one topic in November and never refer to it again, how can you expect
students to remember it? This leads into
another concept for curriculum known as workshop. I believe math, reading, and language arts in
elementary schools should have scheduled workshop where the students are
independently working with multiple forms of material such as manipulatives,
pencil paper, etc. This should give them
that time to apply what they have learned from a previous lesson. During this time the teacher should also be
working with small groups on areas they have not reached mastery on. This will help maximize learning because
students are getting more one on one attention as well as having continuity of
concepts. You can have your students
practice long division, which they may have learned 3 months ago, but they are
getting continued practice with it.
Another
important concept in generating curriculum is how to evaluate what has been
retained. When it comes to the year as a
whole. Students should be evaluated at
the beginning, middle, and end. They
should be evaluated on each subject area.
The North Western Education
Assessment program which my school calls NWEA test is helpful in this
component. It tests students in the
fall, winter, and spring. I am given
data for Math, Reading, and Language Arts and Science. Unfortunately it does not assess Social
Studies. The data I am given helps me
see what areas my students need help on in each subject which are broken into
dmaller categories. Math is broken into
Measurement, Geometry, Data and Probability, Numbers and Operations, and
Algebra. I can then find what objectives
in those categories to work on with my students. The students are given scores after being
tested and receive goals to reach by the end of the year. They are given
incentives for reaching their goals. I
know there are flaws as this is only one kind of appraisal and it is all
computer. You have students whom are
poor test takers and other factors, but I do think it is good that it tests
them and allows the teacher to gage where his/her students are at throughout
the year. As far as evaluating the lower
levels of organization such as units, pre assessments should be made, formative
assessments should also be done throughout the daily lessons in the unit, and
then a final assessment should be made.
You should always know where your students are. If 80 percent of students have reached
mastery then the teacher can move on, however if it is less than 80 percent I
believe re-teaching must occur. These
are all imperative points of evaluation.
Who should
be involved in all of this?
Everyone! If 4th grade
teachers have no clue of what 3rd grade teachers are doing then we
have a major disconnect. You can’t build
deeper connections if you don’t know what the prior grade has done. I also couldn’t agree more with the point
that was made regarding how teachers all need to be on board when it comes to
clearly defining the objectives and how they are to be expressed and
evaluated. It cannot be about me it has
to be about we. For the students are
everyone’s responsibility from kindergarten until 12th grade.
Sources
This article discusses ways of engaging students and the
importance of this in curriculum. This
goes along with the theories of the second reading we did where the author
discusses how important it is for students to be involved and engaged in
learning experiences.
This article discusses a school that is in need of
redeveloping their curriculum to align with state standards. In relation to this cycle, it deals with the
fact that teachers need to teach the actual objectives and have an
understanding of the objectives. To
often do teachers find lessons that seem interesting, but have no tie in with
objectives/standards needing to be taught.
This blog was found on Education Week. I found it interesting in it’s relation to my
post as well as our reading in that it emphasizes the importance of developing
highly qualified standards in which are engaging. One form of engagement mentioned was to use
primary source documents. This, to me,
engages students because it gives a visual as to a glimpse at history in
various times. I have seen this in
Michigan standards and am glad it is being used.
In my blog I mentioned the use of the NWEA test at my
school. There are many useful pieces of
information to get a better understanding of what this assessment program
is. I have found it helpful for me but
please keep in mind I am not a fan of only using a standardized test to gage
students academic success.
I referred to having workshops in class daily. This website is useful for implementing writing
and reading workshops in the classroom.
It provides ideas, duration, and many other useful tips. I recommend it!
Hi Jessica!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I particularly appreciated how you distilled curriculum theory into classroom practice. I loved reading how you turned a math lesson into a sprint down the hallway and back. And I loved the example of the kids connecting the word “treason” from one subject to another. Personally, I know how thrilling those moments are when I connect learning from one area to another. It’s doubly rewarding seeing students make those connections!
I was not familiar with NWEA and looked up your link to learn more. I found it intriguing that their acronym doesn’t use the term “assessment”, but rather “evaluation”, perhaps as a way to avoid being associated with standardized testing and to put the focus on the assessments as a tool for guiding teaching, rather than as a performance grade. I gathered from your description of the assessment that you have found it to be a helpful evaluative tool, particularly as it is given three times a year. Ralph Tyler’s writings on evaluation affirmed that “it is not enough to have only two appraisals in making an educational evaluation because some of the objectives aimed at may be acquired during an educational program and then be rapidly dissipated or forgotten” (1949, p. 106). I recently observed a first grade classroom using DIBELS (also computer-based) as an assessment and incentive program for reading. The teacher admitted that the program created extra stress for the first-graders, but that it produced results. I was concerned that the program taught students that the goal of reading was to gain points, rather than to learn something new or for an emotional connection—giggles, laughs, and tears. I really liked your Vito Perrone quote at the top of your blog; I copied it into my files. How do you integrate the concept of his quote with the NWEA assessments? I understand that Dr. Perrone opposed standardized testing. He asserted that tests caused stress and prevented teachers and students from time spent on authentic learning. What are your thoughts on that? Do you feel that the assessments become the curriculum? On the other hand, I noticed that the NWEA assessments are advertised as individualized. The website states that the test adapts to the student; depending on how the student responds to questions, the test adjusts up or down in difficulty. It’s amazing what technology can do! So that makes it a more accurate and valuable tool than a standardized pencil-and-paper test. Based on Tyler’s statement that “since evaluation involves getting evidence about behavior changes in the students, any valid evidence about behaviors that are desired as educational objectives provides an appropriate method of evaluation” (1949, p. 107), would you consider the NWEA assessments an appropriate method of evaluation? What do you think about student portfolios and projects as a tool for measuring learning?
I really resonated with your strong conclusion that curriculum generation has to be about “we”—that teachers must make it a collaborative effort if it is to bring maximum benefit to the students. What do you think is the role (if any) of parents and students in curriculum development? Thanks, it’s been a pleasure reading and thinking alongside you!
Works Cited
Tyler, Ralph W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with you that the personal agendas of adults need to be left out of the curriculum generating process. You are right that many of those agendas have different avenues, such as religious, home and other community environments. The challenge that arrises nonetheless is that we teachers also have a “personal” agenda to educate our students to the fullest and in the broadest sense to expand their thinking beyond that sometimes vary narrow religious, home or community environment. As a result, it can be argued that our liberal (for lack of a better word) agenda to educate students beyond their current borders clashes with the agendas of particular community members that would prefer to keep students closed-minded and obedient to their particular cause, whatever it may be. You shared an excellent personal example of how you enjoyed learning about different religions in your high school Global Studies course. In some communities, however, teaching about other religions would be misconstrued as promoting them at the expense of the community’s favored religion. I, like you, believe that it is possible to teach about other religions without preaching or promoting them, though unfortunately their is so much ignorance and narrow-mindedness among the adult population in our country that would not tolerate such a liberal teaching of different religions to their children.
You mentioned the necessity of taking into consideration one’s students, their home lives, background, and interests. I wanted you to say more about how you think students’ home lives should be taken into consideration when generating curriculum. I ask you this because I struggle with the discrepancy between the previous district I worked at and my current district, which only 30 miles apart are nonetheless radically different in rigor and quality due to the vast difference in socio-economic status and home life. I had felt that the students in the poorer districted deserved an even more rigorous curriculum than they were receiving precisely because they had less opportunities, however this was not the case.
You illustrate well your students’ ability to transfer the concept of treason from the situation in which you taught it to an entirely new context. By having vertical and horizontal curricula that connect and refer back to concepts and skills previously learned, you are able to provided multiple opportunities for transfer, which will deepen and solidify your students’ learning. And, as you conclude, by having all of the teachers on board across the grade levels, you are able to ensure that such a curriculum is created.
I envy your ability to incorporate workshops into your elementary teaching. They appear to offer the necessary space for individual student practice and group collaboration. Thanks for sharing the workshop source that you use for reference.
ReplyDeleteIt’s unclear from the “Cradle of Innovation” article that you cited whether the Secretary wants teachers to be more innovated or to have students doing more innovated things. While he is right that students shouldn’t just “be learning by rote or sitting in rows”, my observation has been that many schools and teachers have already moved away from that old “banking” model of education.
Two good points came out of the Wilton article: 1) the Common Core Standards are a one-size fits all, and 2) the standards aren’t the ceiling, but the foundation. I am also weary about the first point concerning yet another wave of standards that force districts to overhaul the curriculum that they had in place, even if it had been working well. And while the second point is a valid way to think about these uniform standards in a positive light, it is unfortunate that in practice these standards actually become the only thing that is taught because schools and teachers are so frantic to have their students master them (and only them) on the state tests. I think very few districts get past the “standards as foundation only” step in their struggle to meet AYP.
The Education Week blog you found about the poor state of Civil Rights teaching in our country is disconcerting. I appreciate that the Southern Poverty Law Center gave some really valid ideas about how to better teacher Civil Rights history, by having students “identify essential knowledge, engage deeply with primary-source documents, and make explicit connections between the civil rights movement and current events”. These are great strategies for teaching any humanities or history-related topic.
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog post this cycle really interesting for a few reasons. The first reason was that your response to the question for this cycle (How should curriculum be generated?) was so different from mine. I gathered from the content of your post that you have had significant experience as a teacher/educator. This definitely shines through in your writing and your thinking about this question.
I have had little formal experience as an educator in my life thus far, but I am in a graduate program that I hope will help prepare me to become a teacher in the realm of garden-based nutrition education. I think the fact that I haven't had the experience of actually bringing to life a specific curriculum prevents me from fully understanding the nuances of curriculum generation. That is why your post was so interesting to me, though. Hearing about your experiences teaching lessons that build upon one another and hearing you talk about the disconnect between different teachers of different grades was really insightful for me. I haven't had those kind of concrete, real teaching experiences that I think ground a person in the practice of being an educator. For me, it still all feels very theoretical, almost idealized in a way, and I think that's why my response came out dealing much more explicitly with the social context of curriculum, and not so much the nuts and bolts of how it happens, or does not happen.
That being said I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts because what you said makes a great deal of sense and like I said before, is quite insightful. I liked how you talked about the lesson about mean, median and mode, for example. I thought it was interesting to hear about HOW and WHY you chose that particular method of teaching to fit the needs of your group of students. It made me think about how my post, which dealt more with the differences in students needs based on their social or religious identities, relates to what you said about making sure the students are stimulated and engaged.
(Sorry-I have to continue this response in a second comment because its telling me its too long...)
I think that you are absolutely right that it is important to understand and know where your students are at in terms of the learning at all times. I also think you are right that, as teachers, we have an obligation to make sure the students are as engaged and stimulated as possible. By teaching the lesson the way you did, you were able to start where the student was. By using something they loved, which was running, you were able to make their learning experience more meaningful and relevant. Indeed, you were taking something that I see as being fairly static, and making it come alive.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to say though, that I think that as important as it is to consider what the student likes, in order to engage and stimulate them and produce the desired outcome, it is just as important, if not more to consider the social and political realities that surround each individual student in their daily lives. For instance, if one of your students was physically disabled or overweight, running would not be sufficient as a method of engagement. In fact, it could even alienate or fail to include some students in the learning experience. This is not to say that I think you would chose an activity such as running if you had a disabled student. In fact, from the way you speak about your students, I think it is quite the opposite! But what I am saying is that I worry for myself that it will be easy to get too close to the curriculum and forgetting the social contexts that surround it in everyday life. This is why I get so worked up about religion in the curriculum. I think that it is such a dangerous, volatile idea to put something as hotly debated as religion into a public school curriculum. If the outcome of social studies classes was always a student like yourself, who was interested and respectful of other religions, perhaps this wouldn't be such a problem. But alas, intolerance and ignorance abounds so I have to agree with you that religion should be left for the home and church environment.
Thanks again for your post, it was really interesting and thought-provoking! Look forward to reading more from you.
Terra
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your post, which has generated (again) lots of interesting discussion for your peers!
I share a lot of the responses of your other respondents. When I was a teacher, I never had to use systems like NWEA. I don't know if I would have liked it. But I can see its place. As a teacher, I always felt like I "knew" my students so much better, and that such gauges were likely to distract me from the "whole child" in front of me. I suppose as teachers we can get in trouble by relying too much an informal observation and intuition--that said, I still think a lot of us do it, and I think in a lot of cases, it's a valid way to assess.
I would worry about my own kids being measured in that way (the youngest starts kindergarten next year). Is this just me being too worried as a parent? I feel like the tests might focus on too many discreet items that don't equal growing up into a healthy, happy adult.
So I think Tyler's focus on behaviors is important. We should worry more about what kids do than what they "know" through a test. Or this is what I sometimes feel. But then I think--maybe I'm out of touch. Maybe it's because I worked in secondary education, and didn't have to worry about all of this foundational knowledge in math and literacy.
Anyway, you have that big picture view which is so important. Don't lose sight of it! The tests are our new reality, at least for now. I'm willing to meet their advocates half way. I just want to make sure that schools have an eye on the big picture, and are evaluating themselves by the type of humans that emerge, and not just by the test scores. I want them to pay attention to the test, but also the things that tests can't measure as well.
Right now, both my kids are so excited to go to pre-school each day. They love their friends there and their teachers. I love it when they tell me about things they have learned in school, but I love more the fact that they are happy and enthusiastic about going to school. I hope we as a nation never lose sight of that!
Thanks for your post!!
Kyle