The title of the section is interesting - "How Should Teaching be Appropriately Depersonalized". I think teaching is very personal BUT I think the authors are saying it is "not all about me" - as "me" as the "teacher" the ONLY expert working alone in my "space at the mall". Love the "nothing personal but...." idea mentioned (it's hard to get past the personal though...like when people start with "don't take this personally" but of course, I would...
Many of the ideas presented under "what we would find if the principle" were honored are in the control of curriculum and development - for example the professional development opportunities, surveys, assessment creation (we have essential questions framing the curriculum and units), etc.
The student involvement in their own learning is an area I think we could get teachers excited about (Principle 3) Many great ideas are presented in this chapter and it gives good examples on how to depersonalize teaching - I think it is a lot harder to do then to write about -
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Schooling by Design - "How Should the Curriculum be Re-Fromed"
The "Ten Curriculum Components" identified in Schooling by Design are really a good guideline for curriculum writing. In the next curriculum cycle it would be great if we considered the components during the design and writing. It stresses me out a little to read the components because we don't really have them...we have 2 (Understandings and Essential Questions) BUT it is hard to have strong and relevant EUs and EQs when they were not really mission based as our current district mission was more of a motto than a mission.
For example, the mission related critical thinking goal and related information is fabulous. But we did not link our essential questions to anything like that - I'm not going to be overly critical of the work because we did a great job based on knowing what we knew. Though every page I read causes me to question the work we accomplished YET I know it is better than what we have. The text has incredible history standards that could be incorporated into our curriculum during the next writing. The challenge will be getting the right people at the table to write the curriculum.
I think the advice by the authors at the end of the chapter is very important, "SO take heart: think big; act small; work smarter, not harder." Because the task ahead does seem daunting - the ideas for action also are helpful and heartening...
1) Major curriculum reforms will take 5 - 10 years to fully implement
2) Start small - follow the curriculum cycle (though I think we can begin to include common rubrics)
3) Need for a team
Monitoring Curriculum Progress (Figure 3.25) is a good source to use with the curriculum committee to look at current reality in the social studies curriculum.
For example, the mission related critical thinking goal and related information is fabulous. But we did not link our essential questions to anything like that - I'm not going to be overly critical of the work because we did a great job based on knowing what we knew. Though every page I read causes me to question the work we accomplished YET I know it is better than what we have. The text has incredible history standards that could be incorporated into our curriculum during the next writing. The challenge will be getting the right people at the table to write the curriculum.
I think the advice by the authors at the end of the chapter is very important, "SO take heart: think big; act small; work smarter, not harder." Because the task ahead does seem daunting - the ideas for action also are helpful and heartening...
1) Major curriculum reforms will take 5 - 10 years to fully implement
2) Start small - follow the curriculum cycle (though I think we can begin to include common rubrics)
3) Need for a team
Monitoring Curriculum Progress (Figure 3.25) is a good source to use with the curriculum committee to look at current reality in the social studies curriculum.
Schooling by Design - "What Should Curriculum Accomplish?"
Wiggins and McTighe in Schooling by Design state, "For it to be a curriculum...it would have to be a plan for achieving performance purposes, for specifying how learners are to accomplish important understanding - related tasks with content, not just a plan for teaching content. (p37)" So, is our curriculum in social studies asking students to "do" the discipline or just learn the content.
A challenge we are facing is we have achieved Stage I but do not require Stage II which would add the performance task into the curriculum - the "doing the discipline" piece. Pages 49 - 51 include an excellent example of a discipline based curriculum from New Jersey. Another challenge - the curriculum may be based on the competencies of the discipline but it may not be implemented based on the competencies.
The ideas for action at the end of the chapter provide some great strategies that could easily be accomplished in our schools (of course - time and talent are needed to create them) - appropriate diagnostic assessments (pre-tests and on-going feedback), cornerstone (peer reviewed) assessment tasks, recurring tasks and rubrics, and "gap" check (of course the key is to have the assessment tasks we need to collect the data for monitoring the intended, implemented and attained curriculum).
A challenge we are facing is we have achieved Stage I but do not require Stage II which would add the performance task into the curriculum - the "doing the discipline" piece. Pages 49 - 51 include an excellent example of a discipline based curriculum from New Jersey. Another challenge - the curriculum may be based on the competencies of the discipline but it may not be implemented based on the competencies.
The ideas for action at the end of the chapter provide some great strategies that could easily be accomplished in our schools (of course - time and talent are needed to create them) - appropriate diagnostic assessments (pre-tests and on-going feedback), cornerstone (peer reviewed) assessment tasks, recurring tasks and rubrics, and "gap" check (of course the key is to have the assessment tasks we need to collect the data for monitoring the intended, implemented and attained curriculum).
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