Curriculum 300 word

profileLiz2013

 

Modified:5/25/2016 10:42 AM

 

Hello folks,

 

 

 

Curriculum is how I'd like you to title this thread.  Also, be sure to use the default font of Arial 3, without changing it, making it bigger or smaller. My eyes aren't what they used to be so I think this particular Arial 3 font works best for all.

 

 

 

It's a very good idea to quote and cite the assigned reading. Keep it to one direct quote per paragraph using the assigned reading from the assigned text, where applicable, and follow APA rules at all times.  Direct quotes provide ideas, indirect are more for background info, so practice on direct quotes and ref lists makes perfect

 

 

 

Please do not respond to the starter threads I posted here. These are part of the thread and I like to keep this part of the classroom nice and clean.

 

 

 

I'd very much appreciate it. :) 

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Dr. Kay

 

 

 

Curriculum

 

Curriculum is a broad term that refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a specific course, program, or school. It also refers to the materials that students interact with. It can also be viewed as everything that a student learns in school.  Curriculum is guided by questions that educators want students to be able to answer and operates on multiples levels where the needs of various learners are being met.  Because curriculum is complicated, our text provides 10 Axioms to guide our thinking about curriculum. Select one of the ten axioms listed in Chapter 11 and summarize its key points. Then, discuss how that axiom addresses learning and teaching. 

Note: Be sure you address all three items:

 

  1. Select an axiom from Chapter 11 and summarize it in your own words.
  2. Discuss how this particular axiom impacts learning
  3. Discuss how this axiom impacts teaching.

 

Initial responses should be a minimum of 300-words.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

WHAT IS CURRICULUM?

 

When asked how she would describe the relationship between curriculum and assessment, Mrs. Floyd answered,

 

Good assessment is based on the curriculum and shapes the implementation of that curriculum. I pretest my students to gauge their current level of understanding. This shapes my instruction.

 

 

 

I always use investigation, direct instruction, and peer teaching within a given unit, but the pretest allows me to decide how much of each is appropriate for my students. The informal formative assessment that takes place within my direct instruction lets me know if my students are ready to move on or if we need to spend more time practicing. Sometimes it lets me know that I need to change my approach entirely, shifting my focus to more investigation or peer teaching than I had initially planned to use.

 

 

 

When I was a student I thought that the chapter or unit test was the end of my learning on that topic. As a teacher, I see things completely differently. For me, summative assessment is one more opportunity for the students to learn. I allow my students to make corrections to missed problems, through an in-depth process I adapted from a “Teaching Mathematics” article I read in 2001. It helps build students’ metacognitive skills by walking them through the missed problem—What did you do incorrectly? If you don’t know what you did incorrectly, or you guessed, what about the problem confused you? I coach them through the correct problem-solving process. The last step is for them, in their own words, to explain how to work through the problem.

 

 

 

Curriculum is as old as any education institution. It is a dynamic field, complex and sometimes messy. Descriptions of curriculum range from “everything that happens in a school” to “a set of performance objectives” (Oliva, 2009, p. 3). Oliva also provides a list of 13 ways curriculum can be described, as well as a quote from Madeline R. Grumet, who labeled curriculum as a “field of utter confusion” (1988, p. 4). Perhaps the field of curriculum is a bit less chaotic today with the advent of easy to understand and follow national and state standards and benchmarks. Curriculum is essential to standards and benchmarks, for without curriculum standards lack movement. While standards and benchmarks create the goals for education, it is curriculum that provides the various paths, avenues, and highways to reaching these goals.

 

Perseverance, knowledge, effort, and skill can help teachers overcome any hurdles standards and benchmarks might pose.

 

Curriculum is one of the key concerns of schooling in the United States. Excellent schools for the future cannot be created without an understanding of curriculum theory and practice. McNeil (2003) says that curriculum is the teacher’s initiative. When teachers become active participants in determining the curriculum and the instructional practices that translate it into action, there is a greater chance that excellence will be achieved. Hilda Taba wrote, “All curricula, no matter what their particular design, are composed of certain elements. A curriculum usually contains a statement of aims and of specific objectives; it indicates some selection and organization of content; it either implies or manifests because the content organization requires them. Finally, it includes a program of evaluation of the outcomes” (Taba, 1962).

 

Even though schools look pretty much the same today as they did at the turn of the 19th century, the present never exactly mirrors the past. Curriculum has gone through some major changes since the first schools were established in the Plymouth Colony nearly 400 years ago. From schooling in Colonial America to the present day, concerns with teaching reading and equal access for all students to learn, as well as the intensity of debates among educators, politicians, and the population in general about what should be taught and how it should be taught has never faltered.

 

Students will always be expected to know the basics, which might include, in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, how to conduct a search on the Internet or create a media presentation. When Bob Dylan wrote that “the times they are a-changing,” school curriculum was no doubt not in his thoughts; but he was right on the mark. Curriculum has been the conduit through which educational ideas and goals become evident in practice and programs. There has always been an ebb and flow to school curriculum as it reacts to the pull of American life. In the beginning, the waves of curriculum reform were gentle, while the undertow was hardly noticed. As American society and the American system of education grew in tandem, the pull of new ideas and novel educational practices became stronger and was, in turn, resisted with ever greater force. Curriculum always changes, but a useful and purposeful curriculum is never far removed from the students and society it serves.

 

Characteristics of Curriculum

 

To understand the nature of curriculum it helps to have a framework for thinking about curriculum. Oliva (2009) offers a view of curriculum through 10 different lenses he terms “axioms.” These axioms provide guidelines for educators seeking ways to improve curriculum and solve curriculum problems. In the following, we have directed your thinking to something you may have experienced that reflects the intent of each axiom.

 

Axiom 1: Change is both inevitable and necessary, for it is through change that life forms grow and develop.

 

Though change is never easy, it is a fact of life. Some of the changes in American education occurred because of social issues, some because of philosophical debates, and some because of new inventions. Think for a moment of the problems a school you are familiar with has faced due to societal or technological influences. Consider any philosophical differences that have risen in the community you are familiar with. Then, ask yourself, in light of these changes, what curriculum changes might benefit the students in the school as well as the larger community?

 

Axiom 2: A school curriculum not only reflects but is a product of its time.

 

Something happens, then something else happens. Stuff happens. Events overlap. Societies change. People move. Scientific innovations, pandemics, war, and the media change the way we perceive the world. Consider the changes in technology, the environment, and population shifts that have occurred in your lifetime. Did any of these shifts cause a change in the school curriculum?

 

Axiom 3: Curriculum changes made at an earlier period of time can exist concurrently with newer curriculum changes at a later period of time.

 

You’re probably familiar with educational reform being likened to a pendulum. School curriculum swings from one extreme to another, back and forth—from learning basic skills in math to “new math” concepts and back, from emphasis on direct instruction to classrooms that are student centered and back, from phonics to whole language and back. Ideas fall out of favor at some point in time and then later are embraced as exactly what is needed. Teachers who have been trained in one method of instruction often resist the newer methods being promoted. New teachers are often eager to try the latest innovation. No doubt you have been aware of some of the back and forth swing of curricular ideas in your own history of schooling. Ask your grandparents or parents what curriculum was important when they went to school. Is it similar to what you experienced? Dissimilar?

 

Axiom 4: Curriculum change results from changes in people.

 

Alice Miel, in Changing the Curriculum: A Social Process (1946), wrote: “To change the curriculum of the school is to change the factors interacting to shape that curriculum” (p. 10).

 

Teachers enact curriculum. They translate words on a page into meaningful lectures, demonstrations, or projects for students. Reading the curriculum for Sesame Street and seeing the curriculum come to life through Big Bird and the Muppets are two very different experiences. When educators want the curriculum to be changed they must also help the teachers who will translate the curriculum into changing their instructional practices. Sometimes it is even necessary for parents and the entire community to change their attitudes and beliefs about what should be taught and how it should be taught. Anyone involved in creating changes in curriculum must themselves change. Are you aware of any curriculum changes in your high school? If there were changes, how were they received by parents and the community?

 

Axiom 5: Curriculum change is effected as a result of cooperative endeavor on the part of groups.Teachers, professional planners, and curriculum developers must work together to effect positive curricular change. Significant curriculum improvement comes about through group activity.

 

Margaret Mead’s famous quote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” can be applied to groups of people who come together to develop a curriculum that will meet the needs and expand the learning of students in any specific time or place. Hilda Taba’s idea for a curriculum based on key concepts, organization, and facts was practiced and perfected by groups of educators who saw Taba’s ideas as a way to teach critical-thinking skills in social studies to K–8 students. In 1969 this was a positive change in teaching the social studies curriculum, and it was made possible by a “cooperative endeavor on the part of groups” (Oliva, 2009, p. 33). Consider how groups of people may have made changes in the curriculum you experienced as a student.

 

Axiom 6: Curriculum development is basically a decision-making process.

 

Choices have to be made—what content should be included or excluded, what curriculum best serves the needs of the local society? Decisions about instructional methods need to be made. (How did you learn to read?) The types of programs that will exist in the school must be determined. How will classes and grade levels be organized? How will the teachers work to assure that all students have an equal opportunity to learn? “What knowledge is of most worth?” is a question Herbert Spencer asked in 1909, and that question has echoed through American education as policymakers, school administrators, and teachers wrestle with what students should know and be able to do.

 

Axiom 7: Curriculum development is a never-ending process.

 

Once you’ve got it the way you want it, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Curriculum planners must constantly monitor the curriculum they have developed to make sure it is fulfilling its original promise and is not creating unforeseen problems. As you read in Chapter 7, there have been good ideas in teaching and learning and ideas that were not so productive. Keeping track of what a curriculum poses to accomplish and the final results in student learning from that curriculum is of utmost importance in determining if the curriculum should be modified or not. Students constantly ask teachers, “Why do I need to know this?” When curriculum is well developed, the answer should be easy.

 

Axiom 8: Curriculum development is a comprehensive process.

 

Curriculum planning should not be piecemeal, patching, cutting, adding, plugging in, shortening, lengthening, or troubleshooting (Taba, 1962). If one aspect of the curriculum is out of whack, the whole curriculum can be a disaster. Every aspect of the curriculum must be taken into consideration—Oliva advises curriculum planners to be aware of the impact of curriculum development not only on the students, teachers, and parents directly concerned with a programmatic change but also on the innocent bystanders, those not directly involved in the curriculum planning but affected in some way by the results of planning (2009). Can you think of an experience in your education when a curriculum seemed confusing or irrational?

 

Axiom 9: Systematic curriculum development is more effective than trial and error.

 

Having a final goal in mind, just as state-established core standards aim for a final result, will direct curriculum development to a productive end. The whole picture should be apparent from the beginning. In the same way that a talented sculptor sees the form inside a block of stone, curriculum developers must be able to see through the existing curriculum to envision something more meaningful, effective, and purposeful, and then follow a specific set of procedures to achieve the desired goal. Results from curriculum changes do not happen overnight or at the rapid pace school administrators would like, so changes in curriculum may occur more often than would benefit any long-range systematic plan. How often did you see curriculum change in your own educational journey?

 

Axiom 10: The curriculum planner starts from where the curriculum is just as the teacher starts from where the students are.

 

What has come before should not necessarily be tossed aside. Preexisting ideas and modes of delivery may have some merit that will fit into new ideas for curriculum. Perhaps all that is needed is a reorganization of current practices and future goals. If a spiral curriculum for the development of math skills has been carefully developed, then it will not make sense to eliminate one section of the spiral and expect students to move forward through the curriculum with all the required skills and knowledge. Most drastic changes are caused by trauma. Young students and their teachers do not need to experience the stress that could result from a poorly conceived curriculum.

 

Viewing curriculum as one side of a coin and instruction as the other side can help you understand the close relationship between the two. One cannot exist without the other.

 

 

 

Teachers Making Curriculum Come Alive

 

A very talented teacher you met in Chapter 7, Diane McCarty, is especially able to weave different strands of curriculum through multiple forms of delivery and make learning fun for the students. She uses “Travel Bears” to help her students develop skill and knowledge in language arts, mathematics, social studies, art, and science as they track the travels of their chosen stuffed bears. Another integrated curriculum project she developed sent her students off on a virtual bike ride to learn the history, geography, political boundaries, and unique characteristics of their state. Both projects require the teacher to preplan extensively and garner a wealth of resources. The lessons are fun and memorable for the students, but more important, they set an example for the students of enjoyable ways to learn, to investigate, and to solve problems. It’s likely that the students who participate in these projects learn to be aware of indicators of their own knowledge base and how it is acquired. Translating curriculum into action is similar to writing a lesson plan, though the perspective is not so much on objectives as it is on making ideas come to life, to be intriguing to students, and to motivate them to learn what is required.

 

In Chapter 13 you will read about some of the curriculum Jason Choi and his colleagues have created for the middle school and high school students in the Tarrytown School District in New York. Teachers who incorporate engaging curriculum projects and then share them with other teachers are following Hilda Taba’s plan for curriculum development. Teachers may be handed a curriculum guide when they begin their careers, but the lessons they create to help students meet standards and benchmarks can only be produced by spending time with learners, knowing their abilities and interests, and knowing the content. Diane McCarty and Jason Choi are teachers who share their own enjoyment of learning with their students by making curriculum come alive. Read more about Diane McCarty’s curriculum projects in NCTM’s Teaching Children Mathematics (February 1998) and, with coauthor Maribell Betterton, “Scientifically Speaking: Connection to the Past, Present and Future,” in Teaching K–8 (March 1999).

 

Read about a problem-solving curriculum aligned with standards.

 

Accountability Measures Through Standards, Benchmarks, and Curriculum

 

Schools and, to a greater extent, teachers have always been held accountable in some manner of form for student learning. Accreditation agencies, local school districts, and state and national departments of education demand some sort of evidence of teacher effectiveness before initial licensure and tenure of teachers. In the past, evidence of teacher effectiveness was based mainly on supervisory reports conducted by administrators and standardized tests of teacher competencies. In the future, evidence of student learning based on accountability measures identified through standards and curriculum goals will also be used to determine teacher effectiveness.

 

Value-Added Assessment of Teacher Effectiveness

 

That teachers are accountable for student learning is a reasonable claim. However, crediting student learning to a specific teacher’s actions over a specific period of time is difficult to pin down. The variables that determine student academic achievement comprise physical, mental, and emotional aspects that might be, at any given moment, unrelated to a teacher’s actions. In value-added assessment of teacher effectiveness, statistics are used to determine an individual student’s potential results on standardized tests. In any year that a student’s results exceed his or her potential, the teacher is viewed as contributing to the student’s academic growth (i.e., being effective). Such statistics can be used by school district administrators and departments of education to determine teacher retention and merit pay for teachers.

 

The effort to determine the effect of teacher behavior on student academic achievement has been around since 1971. In 1996, Sanders and Rivers stated that effective teachers could be distinguished from ineffective teachers through rigorous research methods. In 2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation released initial results from a yearlong study indicating that value-added assessments could determine teacher effectiveness. Some school districts have adopted the practice of value-added assessment for teachers. Click here to learn about the Chicago Public Schools approach to value-added assessment for teachers.

 

Learn more about value-added assessment of teacher effectiveness.

 

Using statistical analyses and the results of student test scores has never had unanimous support. Teachers often respond to claims that test scores can be used to determine their effectiveness by countering that test scores can be influenced by time of day, noise level, hunger, and even the weather. It seems likely that the debate on ways teacher effectiveness can be determined will continue throughout your professional career. Whichever way the debate unfolds, it is in your best interest to recognize the professional standards by which your effectiveness might be judged.

 

School Accountability

 

Schools are evaluated on student achievement; when student achievement is low, and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is not met, schools are sanctioned and may be forced to undergo some form of restructuring. The existing faculty at a school may be let go and new teachers hired in an attempt to “turn the school around.” Visit the TurnAround Schools Institute website at http://www.turnaroundschools.com to become familiar with some of the strategies common to the turnaround school process.

 

When accountability is not met through standards and curriculum, policymakers must examine current practices and find some way to change or improve existing practices. In 1955, Rudolf Flesch published Why Johnny Can’t Read. This publication forced curriculum developers to examine current instructional practices in reading. In 1983, Flesch published a second attack on instructional practices in reading, Why Johnny Still Can’t Read. That same year President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Such publications did much to heighten professional and public awareness that standards and accountability were necessary in order for the nation’s educational programs to improve. As concern over problems in the education system increase so will efforts to hold teachers and schools accountable through establishment of standards and benchmarks.

 

 Learn more about school accountability.

 

Accountability is not an evil construct with which to badger schools and teachers. If we are not held accountable for our actions and for the result of our actions, then what is the value of our efforts? Education is the great leveler in the field of life. Standards that can help students navigate this field successfully should be embraced. Standards that help teachers become more effective and a greater force in student learning should be met. Standards that can help schools be shining examples of American education should be integrated into every phase of the school curriculum. Accountability is nothing to worry about when standards, benchmarks, and curriculum are designed for student success and are followed with the creative flare only teachers can bring to translating them into instruction.

 

 

 

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