Saturday, September 7, 2013
Joana poses an in-depth question about curriculum
Given the present educational climate, what would you consider to be the most critical issues that we, as educators, are dealing with with regard to curriculum? What are you and your with colleagues doing in order to address this/these problem(s) at the school level and, more importantly, how are you dealing with these curriculum concerns within your classroom(s)? I look forward to your comments.
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Managing school curriculum today is a juggling act. It is always helpful to have the curriculum on hand for quick reference or to jot down notes and ideas. However, everything in my district is now via computer, making it difficult for visual learners such as myself. One of the ways I have worked around this issue in my classroom is printing out the curriculum and organizing it in a binder. This enables me to bring it to LAL meetings for quick reference, and to jot down notes in the margins as mentioned earlier.
ReplyDeleteThough I see having to print out the curriculum as a problem, it is not the most critical curriculum issue in education. I think the need to cover the entire curriculum is a problem for some. In regards to covering everything in the curriculum it is impossible. As Tomlinson and McTighe mention, if teachers were to cover the entire curriculum students would need to be in school for an additional 9 years. Teachers (myself included) stress over hitting as much in the curriculum as possible. While at the same time we are differentiating instruction, teaching the whole child, covering required test prep, and trying to manage our own lives and families after the school hour.
There are a multitude of issues regarding curriculum that all educators, K-12, must deal with in both private and public institutions. I believe that Amy's post above echoes exactly the same concerns that my school experiences as well. Largely, these questions revolve around, as our course books have discussed, what we are teaching, how we are teaching, and what is the purpose of what our students are learning. As a history teacher, I deal with the constant issue of what students REALLY need to know. Wanting to impart as much knowledge as I can, I find myself constantly having to narrow down information so I can get to the most important material. Truthfully, if I gave to them everything I wanted them to learn, the course would take three years to cover. The challenge of aligning our courses to the new Common Core standards is another legitimate challenge that all educators are facing. We need to maintain educational standards while at the same time ensuring that students are receiving information in a fashion that gets them to learn and critically analyze what we're feeding them.
ReplyDeleteIn order to address these concerns, we work closely within our department, our entire faculty, and our department supervisors who have more experience teaching than most of us, and eventually we attempt to filter out both what information is necessary and the best way in which to present it. This is not to say we all teach the same way or the exact same material, but we try to achieve some type of uniformity for the benefit and fairness to the students. One final way in which our school attempts to address these problems is to give students out-of-school work that achieves two ends: it helps to fill in the missing pieces of what we cannot cover during the day, and it helps them to critically analyze our material, relating back to Common Core expectations. This work should never be busy work, but if the students are given the opportunity to process material on their own after learning the basics, we see their potential and they begin to trust that we have confidence in their intellectual abilities.
From my experience, there are a few critical issues that I see in the classroom with regards to the curriculum. I believe the first is the biggest issue that many teachers are dealing with. This is the concept that teachers have to teach so much information in a short amount of time.
ReplyDeleteElementary teachers have to educate young students on numerous subjects. As teachers, we have to be able to adapt to change during the day. These changes during the day could lead to us to not completing our goals for that day, week, or unit.
Another issue that is occurring in classrooms, it that the curriculum is to high or low for student's cognitive levels. The students are having a very difficult time or not being challenged enough. According to McTighe and Tomlinson, teachers should cover less topics in order to go more in-depth about the topics that they are required to cover.
Finally, one other issue that comes to mind, it that often schools are not able to provide the learning environment for the students. This puts a huge struggle on the teachers because they have to try to accommodate those students while teaching many other students simultaneously.
This comment is from Donna:
ReplyDeleteCurriculum development is complicated because there is a focus not only on classroom material to be covered but also on standards and assessment, and can seem to be an overwhelming task. The goal of curriculum should be to develop a standards-based curriculum that will increase student learning and promote higher student achievement and prepare students for a life after school, hence the term “college and career ready”. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case because of teachers teaching to the test or the same curriculum is not differentiated to the needs of all students.
At my school, my co-workers and I work on creating a curriculum and units that address the diverse needs of the student population. We also continuously add to a library of resources for teachers to access when they are looking to enable all to learn in the classroom. Finally, what may have become the most valuable tool of all, my co-workers and I have time set aside in our schedule to collaborate both on grade level and by subject area. Grade level meetings involve discussing student behavior and best practices, as well as aligning topics and spreading tests out. By subject area the work is to ensure vertical alignment between the classes so transition between grades is seamless, as well as discussing how to differentiate topics for high achieving as well as high support students.
This comment is from Donna:
ReplyDeleteCurriculum development is complicated because there is a focus not only on classroom material to be covered but also on standards and assessment, and can seem to be an overwhelming task. The goal of curriculum should be to develop a standards-based curriculum that will increase student learning and promote higher student achievement and prepare students for a life after school, hence the term “college and career ready”. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case because of teachers teaching to the test or the same curriculum is not differentiated to the needs of all students.
At my school, my co-workers and I work on creating a curriculum and units that address the diverse needs of the student population. We also continuously add to a library of resources for teachers to access when they are looking to enable all to learn in the classroom. Finally, what may have become the most valuable tool of all, my co-workers and I have time set aside in our schedule to collaborate both on grade level and by subject area. Grade level meetings involve discussing student behavior and best practices, as well as aligning topics and spreading tests out. By subject area the work is to ensure vertical alignment between the classes so transition between grades is seamless, as well as discussing how to differentiate topics for high achieving as well as high support students.
The problem that I find in the curriculum is what everyone expects from one teacher (in my situation, elementary). It is taking these young minds finding out what they are interested in to keep them engaged to try and hit every aspect of the curriculum, but I personally do not just want to cover the material I actually need my students to understand the concept. Try accomplishing that with a very short attention span. In order for them to move on in school they have to know the aspects of the curriculum which means I’m looking for a concrete understanding whether they are able to apply the learning or explain what they have learned and for young children that happens when they are hands on and when each lesson has to be touched by their hands to register into their brains and then for them to be able to apply that to personal experiences. It becomes extremely time consuming and sometimes frustrating. Meanwhile, they have only experienced so much personal experiences. Besides the curriculum, the parents and other teachers expect these students to know how to behave and be well rounded. This year is probably the hardest year I will be teaching nevermind, teaching to each student in various ways and thinking outside of the box since each student is unique the common cores have really brought the expectations of what these children should know to a whole other level. I teach 5 year olds and after seeing the new standards and our district’s assessment strategies I know I am doing the first grade teacher’s job. The pressure and expectations from every direction has really made me question why I started teaching in the first place, and then I have to remind myself the reasons why. Normally the answer is I get great satisfaction from seeing a student have that “uhh huh” moment, for that split second where everything for the first time actually makes sense to the student.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I do in the classroom to solve these problems? I breathe and then discuss with my co-workers how we can bring all of the curriculum together. I talk to the teacher in the next grade and get a sense of what she is really going to be focusing on so my children aren’t the ones that are lost, and have never heard of this information before. I try my hardest to create lessons that I hope will encourage a deeper learning and challenge the students to problem solve and think out of the box. I bring in outside resources, that is another problem there is only so much money in the budget per classroom and it’s difficult to predict what will be the best materials for the entire year. I do my hardest not to teach directly to the standards but hope I am doing my job well enough to bring that learning one step further, and really grab hold of their attention so they themselves expand on what I have began a simple lesson with.
There are so many different issues to look at. For instance, as Tomlinson and McTighe mentioned in our reading, teachers have a yearly curriculum that is, in actuality, trying to condense 9 years of information into a 10 month window. We have to start with the decision of what understandings are most important and determine what can be left at the wayside. After we determine that, we spend a majority of our time focused on our lesson planning and how best to present the information to our students. While we all have the best intentions, it is important to remember that our plans are just rough outlines that are adjustable to change. We cannot just force lessons into a certain amount of time; we need to be flexible to adjust our lessons and timing to ensure that students grasp the important concepts that we present. As Tomlinson and McTighe allude to in chapter four, we cannot be so focused on curriculum that we negate our instruction.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I believe the biggest issue that we as educators currently face is the shifting of the curriculum. No longer can teachers focus solely on their specific discipline. From my own experience, I find cross collaboration between colleagues to be very beneficial. With so much emphasis being placed on the core standards, teamwork and articulation with your team (whether in a formal or informal setting) is so important. As with any teamwork, the benefit of cross collaboration is that you get to see other viewpoints and often can be provided with new ways or helpful tips to address certain standards. It gets everyone on the same page, and it helps close up any gaps of missing information that may have previously gone unnoticed.
In regards to curriculum development, I have found that many teachers, including myself, are facing many challenges when dealing with curriculum. I have found that when being introduced to a new curriculum (a grade change), or implementing a new curriculum (such as The Math in Focus curriculum for mathematics), I find that there is never enough information, training, or support. Teachers are basically thrown into the curriculum and just have to "figure it out." Support is limited, since support staff have to take on more work due to budget cuts and are being pulled in all sorts of direction.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Common Core Standards, I have found that it has been a challenge aligning lesson plans and curriculum to pre-k standards that are not even in existence. I find myself constantly going into the Kindergarten common core standards and analyzing and taking apart the standard to better fit my curriculum and lesson plans.
I have found that when dealing with Curriculum, creating curriculum maps have helped me set goals as an educator and maintain them, by focusing on what it is that I need to do and focus on for the month.
Interdisciplinary units have also been beneficial when focusing on a theme and tying it to the curriculum, which then causes a grade level to deeply collaborate together.
Grade level meetings and subject verticals have shown to ease the pressure of curriculum development and the implementation of the common core standards to the curriculum, with a math and literacy coach guiding us every step of the way.
There are many issues that we face when it comes to curriculum. Making sure we cover everything expected of us throughout the year is a big worry. In special education, we are required to use the same core standards as the rest of the students. However, from my experience, it is understood that we will not get through as much as the rest of the classes. In my MD class last year I had to use the core standards as goals in my students' IEP''s but we got through as much as possible through the year. I used progress reports to report on the goals and how they were being met. In special education (and my own opinion), it is more important to make sure my students are truly understanding the concepts I am teaching rather than rushing to meet all the goals I have put in their IEP's for the year. I have to build on the concepts I teach in various subjects to be able to teach the nest so I need to make sure my students understand the lessons to the fullest. I will always reteach and touch on what we have done prior to make sure they are grasping it and if not I sometimes have to start at the beginning for a student. This is where the issue of time management comes in. I had 7 students and I am only 1 teacher. If a student was not getting a concept I was teaching, I had to reteach that students while still pushing the others forward. Differentiating instruction is so important in my classrooms for this reason. I have to be ready with materials for the students who are able to move on to the next concept but also be ready to reteach some with various other materials until they understand the concept. When looking at the curriculum while planning units of study for the year I think it is important to keep in mind the various levels of my students and their various learning styles. I may have a class with children who have are on levels that vary from 1st grade until 6th grade but they are all technically 5th graders. As a special education teacher I need to take the lead on writing in goals fir my students based on the curriculum the school has set in place and their academic levels.
ReplyDelete