Initial Thoughts Regarding The Way Curriculum Is Created:
The first reading titled, How Christian Were the Founders? was
frustrating for me to read. I
think it is because I continue to question the reality that people, other than
teachers, are making HUGE decisions in education. These decisions that they are quick to decide on have a
direct effect on teachers and students.
Do these decision makers understand that? I found the following quote by Tom Barber to be very
interesting, “The process of reviewing the guidelines in Texas is very open,
but what happens behind the scenes after that is quite different.” As we read in this article, the board
was open to many public comments and viewpoints, some coming from teachers. As Judy Brodigan stated that the
document was very good before the board began to amend and weaken the
curriculum. She said, “The
teachers take their work seriously.
I do believe there are board members on the ultraright who have an
agenda. They want to make our
standards very conservative and fit their viewpoint. Our job is not to take a viewpoint. It’s to present sides fairly.” This is ultimately what I believe, as a
teacher we have to present material in a way that our students will be able to
understand it to the fullest, the actual information, not a one sided
story. We reference this
curriculum everyday, where as decision makers see it one time, alter it, vote
on it, and make it mandatory to teach.
These decision makers do not know how the kids read into certain
material or how confusing certain topics may be. These decision makers do not know the realities of the
classroom and all the things that go into teaching children and helping guide
our students learning. I strongly
believe teachers should be the ones writing curriculum! After all, we do have the best insight
in what happens in the classroom, the place we spend all of our time!
How Should Curriculum Be Created?
This leads me into how should
curriculum be created? Today there
are many ways that curriculum is being created. We have decision makers (people other than teachers)
creating curriculum. We also have
people like, Salman Khan, who began to make youtube videos to present curricula
topics to tutor his cousins. Millions saw these youtube videos and now Salman
Khan has over 2,200 videos. This
is an example of “flipping the classroom”. Flipping the classroom is a way in which teachers can assign
lectures for students to watch after school. While the students are at school they are engaged in hands
on learning directly aside their teacher.
The students would progress through the curriculum at their own pace and
the teacher can intervene using student data, when need be.
Salman Khan’s teaching through
youtube videos interested me so I went to his website
I decided to watch some of his youtube
videos that covered topics I currently teach in my classroom. For example, I watched his basic
addition video.
I honestly did not find it to be
all that intriguing. I was
expecting it to be a bit more engaging and fun but it was pretty dry. I do not know if my kindergarten
students would be engaged the entire time or if they would actually learn from
that video. I did like the
practice with the guided help but I think it if was even more interactive my
students probably would be more interested. Today there are so many fun interactive learning games that
can be found on the Internet. I
have found better. I wonder how
others feel about Khan’s website.
Maybe for the upper grade levels or for the more complicated concepts
these videos are really excellent.
It would be worth hearing other people’s thoughts on this.
One other way curriculum can be
created is by teachers themselves.
I strongly do believe that every teacher needs to participate in
curriculum planning. This will
allow teachers to gain the knowledge and understanding of where their grade
level fits in with the overall k-12 teaching spectrum, just like Tyler stated
in chapter 5. I also believe
that in order for curriculum to be created to its fullest, we have to consider
the interactions between the learner and their environment, creating learning
experiences to develop skills in thinking, creating learning experiences that
acquire information, create learning experiences that develop social attitudes
and interests, look into how learning is organized, and how to effectively
evaluate learning. Tyler went into
great detail regarding how all of these ideas interact with each other to
create an overall curriculum process.
This curriculum process is one that I could relate with.
To start off, I strongly believe
that as a teacher we have to set up stimulating situations or experiences that
our students can relate and refer to.
We have to provide our students with these experiences so that our students
will stay engaged in their own learning.
However, it is important that we know where are students are and that we
know our students interests. Once
we have a good understanding of our students and the experiences that will most
benefit them than we want to develop skills in thinking, such as problem
solving. As a kindergarten
teacher, I work with my students every day to solve problems. I began to teach problem solving by
showing them ways to go about solving their own issues with each other. This worked to prevent the tattling and
allowed my students to take ownership of what was bothering them and talk it
through with the other students.
For many, this form of problem solving has worked and the students are
doing well with it. Other forms of
problem solving occur during everyday events. I am providing a model for my students, by allowing them to
help me solve everyday problems.
It is important that my students are engaged in learning so that they do
not just memorize a thought or rule but actually can connect it with something. Sometimes these connections can be
emotional connections through a traumatic experience or through an experience
that was triggered by things or people around them. The goal is to help our students provide insight and
structure with all of these connections and attitudes so that they can continue
to learn. Like Tyler shared,
“When experiences build upon other experiences, across grade levels, there will
be greater depth and breadth.” (Tyler, 84) We as teachers need to structure our learning similar to
other grades so that students can build upon their past experiences. We also need to make sure to provide
reiteration of major curriculum elements so that our students can get the
continuity they need to understand the curriculum. As a teacher, we can do this because we are with our
students everyday. We are constantly evaluating what our students know before,
during, after, and even what they still can recall or connect with months
later. We are providing our
students the chance to continuously work towards mastery of topics.
Personal Connection- A Recent Professional Development Experience
Recently I was lucky enough to go
see Dr. Robert Marzano speak about Formative Assessment and Standards Based
Record Keeping. He shared the
importance of getting ride of the omnibus grade and replacing it with a grading
system that continuously shows growth.
Dr. Marzano’s way of thinking intrigued me in that our students would be
able to continuously work on skills until they have become mastered. We would be able to provide this
information in a bar graph form so that the parents could see the growth and
share in their child’s education. Dr.
Marzano was also a big promoter of multiple assessments. We sometimes catch students on bad days
or the form of assessment is not one the student can relate with. For example, a student may have a topic
mastered and can orally share it with you but may not be able to write it all
down in a concise manor.
Dr. Marzano just had this new outlook on assessing students. I came back from this professional
development and presented multiple things I had learned with my staff. Many were as intrigued as I was. However, we were stuck…we could not
begin to test out this form of grading because as a district it is not what had
been agreed upon. How as educators
can we begin to change some of the “old” systems, if we never get a chance to
test new practices out first? I
understand that getting rid of the omnibus grade is a HUGE change, so why not
start small and add a simple bar graph to each grade so if the student gets the
same letter or number grade two marking periods in a row, the parents can than
see by the bar graph that there was actual growth still taking place. This is just a thought for you all to
ponder. If you would like to learn
more you can go to Dr. Robert Marzano’s research website. http://www.marzanoresearch.com/site/
I highly suggest everyone to read this book. http://www.marzanoresearch.com/reproducibles/formative_assessment.html.
Overall, I strongly believe that teachers should have a more
active process in developing curriculum.
At least allow us to share our insight for each grade level!
