K-12 Curriculum Development

Thoughts for Teachers and Teacher Teams:

When you close the classroom door, how do you make decisions about 'what' to teach?  Do you use the same criteria for making decisions as your co-workers?  How do you decide what to assess?  Do your co-workers assess the same skills and concepts?  How do you make critical decisions about the state standards and pacing?  How do you communicate your decisions within your school?  How do you communicate your decisions within your school district (across schools)?  Is the taught curriculum aligned across schools in your district?  How do you know?

"If schools want to enhance their organizational capacity to boost student learning, they should work on building a professional community that is characterized by shared purpose, collaborative activity, and collective responsibility among staff" (Newmann & Wehlage, 1995, p. 37).

Reference:

Newmann, F., & Wehlage, G. (1995). Successful school restructuring: A report to the public and educators by the Center for Restructuring Schools. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
 

During the curriculum development process, educators will experience change and various strategies will require that educators have a clear understanding of the differences between first order change and second order change
(See Figure 6 - Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003).

"Assuming that all changes will have the same implications for all stakeholders, and/or using practices that might be appropriate for a first order change when a second order change is actually implied for stakeholders, will likely result in a negative impct on student achievement.  Thus, in addition to focusing leadership efforts on school and classroom practices associated with improved student achievement, leaders must also tailor their own leadership practices based on the magnitude or 'order' of change they are leading" (Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003, p. 7).

Questions for Educators:

1)  How does the chart (Figure 6) change your views on curriculum development
     efforts?

2)  Does curriculum mapping involve first order change, second order change, or
     both?

3)  How do educators determine if a program or initiative will involve first order
     change or second order change?

4)  Reflect on a time during your career in education when an initiative failed or
     was not as successful as it could have been.  Did teachers and administrators
     focus on the product, rather than the process?  Would a careful analysis of
     first order change versus second order change provided the leaders with
     insight on how to support teachers, administrators and the change effort?

5)  How can educators use this research to impact student achievement?

Reference:

Waters, J.T., Marzano, R.J. & McNulty, B.A. (2003). What 30 years of research tells us about the effect of leadership on student achievement. Aurora, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning. 

Benefits

1)  Improved Alignment

2)  Improved Communication

3)  Increased Relevance

4)  A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum

5)  Equitable for all Students

What Does Research Tell Us About Purpose-Driven Curriculum?

Working on the Work (W.O.W.) entails teachers' purposefully creating, designing, identifying, or otherwise making available to students authentically engaging activities, programs, tasks, assignments, and opportunities to practice that result in students learning those things it is determined that students need to learn to be judged well educated.

                                                       -  Phillip Schlechty, Working on the Work (2002)

Many educational programs do not have clearly defined purposes.

                           - Ralph Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949)

Leadership involves purposes and direction.  Leaders know the ends toward which they are striving.  They pursue goals with clarity and tenacity, and are accountable for their accomplishments.

As cited by Robert Marzano in School Leadership that Works: From Research to Results. Leithwood, K.A. & Riehl, C. (2003). What do we really know about successful school leadership? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. 

The attached document outlines Purpose-Driven Curriculum and Instruction (Weber, 2008).

what_is_a_purpose-driven_curriculum.pdf
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The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) recently posted three videos to their site.  The videos were produced by The School Improvement Network and they are beneficial to K-12 educators.  If you are beginning to create curriculum units using Understanding by Design, aligning the curriculum with Curriculum Mapping, training teachers to develop Common Formative Assessments, or changing from teachers working in isolation to teachers and administrators functioning as a Professional Learning Community, then these videos will be a valuable resource.

Professional development is changing and NSDC is leading the way through seeking a revised definition of professional development and through their journal, national conferences, and outreach tools.

View NSDC's Definition of Professional Development Videos

What are your thoughts on the new definition of Professional Development? 
Will these videos assist your school system? 

Recently, I read a book written by Malcolm Gladwell titled, Outliers. Gladwell (2008) wrote, "Marita doesn't need a brand new school with acres of playing fields and gleaming facilities. She doesn't need a laptop, a smaller class, a teacher with a PhD, or a bigger apartment......All those things would be nice, of course. But they miss the point. Marita just needed a chance" (p. 268-269).

Gladwell suggests that superstar athletes are given access to good coaches, private lessons, and additional opportunities.  This quote made me struggle with answers to the following questions.

Questions for Educators:

1.  What does it look like when all students have a chance or an "opportunity to
     learn?"

2.  What role does K-12 curriculum development play in providing each student
     with an "opportunity to learn?"

3.  What policies and procedures need to be developed in order to guarantee
     that each student receives the "opportunity to learn" a guaranteed
     curriculum?

4.  Is it ethical for sixth graders at School A to receive a different curriculum
     (key concepts, skills, understandings) than the sixth graders at School B?

5.  If the opportunity to learn is critical to student success, why don't educators
     discuss "opportunity to learn" on a regular basis?

Please share your thoughts.

According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2000),

“A curriculum is more than a collection of activities: it must be coherent, focused on important mathematics, and well articulated across the grades.  A school mathematics curriculum is a strong determinant of what students have an opportunity to learn and what they do learn.  In a coherent curriculum, mathematical ideas are linked to and build on one another so that students’ understanding and knowledge deepens and their ability to apply mathematics expands.  An effective mathematics curriculum focuses on important mathematics – mathematics that will prepare students for continued study and for solving problems in a variety of school, home, and work settings.  A well-articulated curriculum challenges students to learn mathematical ideas as they continue their studies.”

This is a powerful definition of curriculum that could be applied to any content area.  As a K-12 curriculum developer, I am always humbled by the term opportunity to learn.  If curriculum development plays an important role in determining what students will learn at each grade level and impacts an individual’s opportunity to learn, then we must increase our efforts to develop quality curriculum, communicate about the curriculum, assess the curriculum, and make certain that our efforts do not result in a three-ring binder which is placed on the bookshelf in each teacher’s classroom. 

What is your definition of curriculum?  Does your school have a common definition?  What are the benefits of having a common starting point when defining and developing curriculum?