What Curriculum Meant to Me Before
I Became a Teacher:
Before
I began teaching if someone asked me what curriculum was I would begin by
stating the different resources or texts that were used to teach mathematics,
reading, writing, science, and social studies. My teaching would be based off of these texts to teach the
students the intended concepts. If
the students mastered these concepts than I would believe that my teaching and
the way I presented the curriculum was a success.
What Curriculum Means to Me Now
That I Am a Teacher:
Now
that I have been teaching for three years, I know that curriculum means much
more than just the resources we use to present material. I strongly believe that teaching
curriculum deals with the teacher being concerned with the subject matter and
the way it relates to a total growth experience!
The
first step in teaching is to really get to know my students. I need to become aware of their
strengths, their weaknesses, their culture, their home lives, their motivators,
and just simply get to know each and everyone of them. However, this cannot happen if I do not
provide a safe and secure classroom environment.
I am a
kindergarten teacher in a needy district where students thrive for
attention. Many of my students
have not had prior education experience before they come to me on the first day
of kindergarten. I believe the first
month of school my job is to create this safe and secure learning environment,
where my students feel respected and have trust in me as their teacher. Like the Donovan article stated, I also
believe that the use of emotion and human connection is key to reaching every
student. Once I have created this
connection with my students I am able to teach the curriculum in a way that the
student’s can most relate with.
Link to the article Curriculum and Teacher Motivation Crucial
for Quality Education
Neupane, Babu Ram. (January 16,
2013). Curriculum and Teacher Motivation Curcial for Quality Education.
The Himalayan Times. Retrieved from:
This article
shares that curriculum alone cannot make students succeed or make students
learn. It is up to the teachers to
take that curriculum and find the way to best motivate our students in order to
get them to understand and learn the curriculum. I strongly agree with this, as I do believe that as a
teacher it is our job to motivate and model what learning looks like and how to
be a successful learner. I also
agree with the article in that curriculum is useless if teachers do not take a
minute to determine what needs to be taught, the best way to present this
material, and reflect back upon how the material was presented. As a teacher, we need to take an active
role in teaching curriculum in a way that our students can best relate to
it. That means teachers need to
use familiar vocabulary and examples in which our students can base new
knowledge off of. This brings me
to the idea that children are not blank slates. Children bring their culture, language and experiences into
the classroom. It is up to the
teacher to provide a quality-learning environment where the students can use
their experiences to motivate new knowledge.
The Purpose of Teaching Curriculum
I
believe that the purpose of teaching curriculum is to make learning an active
process in the student’s lives. I
like how the Child and the Curriculum
article stated that “it is the child and not the subject=matter which
determines both quality and quantity of learning.” (Dewey). This
year in my classroom, I have informally assessed my students learning abilities
by using observations and by keeping anecdotal records. I have documented ways that my
students learn best. Having this
knowledge allows me to teach curriculum in a way that they will be the most
successful.
In my classroom, I
agree with Dewey in that nothing can be developed from nothing (Dewey). I am constantly modeling and
selecting material that will allow my students to gain new experiences, while
making connections to existing experiences. I believe the purpose for teaching curriculum is to keep
these students prior experiences in mind so that the students have a schema to
build on from. This is my
goal everyday in the classroom. I
want my students to be able to relate to the curriculum that is being presented
to them. I strongly believe that
if I can get my students excited about learning, they will be more apt to take
in more knowledge, therefore allowing them to master new skills or
concepts.
Link to the Advance organizers: Activating and Building Schema for more Successful
Learning in Students with Disabilities article:
The article
titled, Advance Organizers: Activating
and Building Schema for more Successful Learning in Students with Disabilities,
presents many visual organizers that can be used to actively tap into student’s
previous knowledge on a concept.
I wanted to highlight one of the visual organizers that I recently tried
out with my kindergarten students.
This organizer is called PLAN. PLAN is a strategy that offers, pre,
during, and post reading tactics.
The steps are:
P: Predict by
previewing the text and creating a concept map. (Use a tree trunk with extending branches, for the visual.)
L: Locating prior knowledge on the map
with checks and new concepts with questions marks. (Put the ideas on the branches)
A: Add new
branches to the map to represent new knowledge acquired while reading.
N: Note: After reading how new knowledge can be
applied to everyday tasks. (May
add leaves to the branch to add how we can apply the new “branch” information
or idea.)
By using this
visual organizer with my students I was able to actively engage my students in
their knowledge about a particular concept. We used this in my classroom most recently with weather as
the topic. It was exciting to be
able to incorporate so many curriculum and standard goals. For just this strategy the students
were involved in asking and answering questions about details in a text, make
connections to events or ideas, identify events, compare and contrast different
weather climates, support their own thinking, and overall be actively engaged
in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. Incorporating
active learning allows the child and not the subject matter to determine both
quality and quantity of learning.
This is crucial in the purpose of teaching curriculum.
~Caitlin Meyer
