Task Two Reading

The purpose of curriculum is to design the learning that takes place in classrooms. Curriculum is set up as a guide for educators to follow as what students should learn. Some districts have a more strict curriculum guide, a top down approach, where teachers are given curriculum maps to design their instruction on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This is due to to the NCLB mandates that are put in place by the government, and trickled down to the state level, where state officials set up Core Content standards that must be covered for every grade level. At that point, districts set up curriculum maps for teachers to follow that include state standards and their own ideas of best practices.

Teachers have seem to have less control over the curriculum with more control over the actual instruction in the classroom. Again, some districts have stricter guidelines for what type of instruction goes on in the classroom. Last year, in my school, most teachers felt like we had very little control over anything that was going on with our students. This year, we have been given more curriculum timelines to follow, however we are working more in teams to try to design classroom instruction that is best for the kids.

In my district, teachers have very organized curriculum maps guiding our instruction for Math, Reading, Science and Social Studies; and we have been told Writing is on its way. While I think there must be a some sort of guide to help design curriculum and instruction for math and reading that is age appropriate; I believe that if a school uses a program like Everyday Math, which is a research based program, then teachers should be able to follow the program instead of having to chop it up and make it disconnected. This goes with Science and Social Studies as well... these subjects should be able to be taught in alignment with Reading, creating a more meaningful connection to students' lives. Discussion is not always organized, students thought process may not always be organized. I don't want to feel guilty if we are having a rich, meaningful discussion which is not pre-documented in my lesson plan!

I believe as teachers, our role is to take the curriculum guides as we receive them, and create our instruction in a meaningful way for the students to understand. At this point, I agree with the quote Scwartz provides that "As McCutcheon (1988: 198) reminds us: Teachers are the filters through which the mandated curriculum passes. Their understanding of it, and their enthusiasm, or boredom, with various aspects of it, colours its nature" (p. 449). For my classroom, I am working hard towards a backward design approach; "the curriculum enacted in classrooms differs from the one mandated by administrators or developed by experts." I also believe this should be done as a grade level team, a professional learning community. We should sit down and decide as a team what we want the students to understand at the end of the unit. Then, we should design assessments to reflect what students should understand. At that point, designing curriculum and instruction which provides a inquiry-based, bottom up approach where the students are creating discussions and meaningful inquiry to create solutions to problems or questions they are presented with.

I have been meeting with fellow grade level teachers every week this school year, trying to implement all of the new ideas I am learning about. I do still provide direct instruction at the beginning of every lesson, and it seems especially so in Math and Reading, however, I am also using many hands on, group activities for both subjects in correlation with the direct instruction. The children are getting to inquire on their own and try their own strategies to solve answers or problems in the activities. It has been really great to see a shift in my teaching this year. I feel good about what I am doing and I am eager to provide more experiences for my students.

While there are some things that must be achieved in a skill and drill approach like math facts, or sight words, there are many other ways in approaching a curriculum based on understanding and not such a rigid, memorization, teaching to the test method. In reading about Backward Design, it shows that teachers can provide different strategies for different groups of learners in the classroom. While some students may need repetition, even students with disabilities may be given inquiry based instruction through lots of appropriate teacher scaffolding. I have been pleased with the way my students are really thinking this year, given thought provoking questions and activities with my scaffolding. I am very impressed at what they are able to do so far, and I am excited at the things I am learning, and able to try with them in my classroom.

I couldn't agree more with Wiggins statement that "The mission of high school is not to cover content, but rather to help learners become thoughtful about, and productive with, content. It's not to help students get good at school, but rather to prepare them for the world beyond school—to enable them to apply what they have learned to issues and problems they will face in the future." Do I feel that high school prepared me for this? NO- I was very lost when I first started college. I hadn't had to really think or inquire into anything in my K-12 experience. School was always so easy, when I hit college, it took me a good year to really get on track and figure out how to study! How to inquire and think about what I was being asked and how I needed to find an answer or solution. I think that the government is starting to rethink current curriculum design, and if what we are learning in our Master's classes are any indication of what is to come, hopefully more federal and state officials in charge of standards will take current theory into mind when designing our mandates.