K-12 Curriculum Development

 
 
Fifteen years ago, Allan Glatthorn wrote Developing a Quality Curriculum.  This book provides teachers, administrators and other stakeholders with curriculum development guidelines and tools which support the ongoing work of K-12 Curriculum Development.

Too often, educators develop the ideal curriculum or the written curriculum, but fail to create tools for assessing a school district's curriculum.  In Toward a Coherent Curriculum: The 1985 ASCD Yearbook, Stellar wrote, "The curriculum in numerous schools lacks clarity and, more important, coherence.  Students move from teacher to teacher and subject to subject along a curriculum continuum that may or may not exhibit planned articulation" (p. v).

The attached chart was developed by Glatthorn (1994).  Educators may use this chart or adapt it to meet the needs of your school district.  If school districts are in the process of developing curriculum on an assembly line and then mass producing a new curriculum for a different subject the next year, then educators may never see curriculum alignment or the strengths and weaknesses of the written and taught curriculum.  Questions number 11, 12, and 15 focus on monitoring the curriculum, implementing the curriculum and conducting a curriculum audit.

Following are the organizational components needed to accomplish effective curriculum work.  Using this chart, indicate a need by placing a check in the "Need" column.  Prioritize the checked items with the following scale:

1 - High Priority
2 - Middle Priority
3 - Low Priority

Use the results to plan next steps. 

This book may be purchased for under $10 at Amazon Books.  While 2009 marks the fifteenth anniversary of this book, the advice is still applicable to K-12 Curriculum Developers.
 
 
If you have ever worked with a team of teachers to develop curriculum maps, align the school district's curriculum, or evaluate curriculum, you understand that curriculum development is a political act.  Fenwick English (2000) wrote, "Knowledge is never neutral.  The selection of knowledge is fundamentally a political act of deciding who benefits from selecting what in the school's curriculum and who is excluded or diminished" (p. 30).

This past week, the Common Core State Standards Initiative was under fire from critics.  The controversy involved the committee members and ties they may have  which could influence 'what' is added to the Common Core State Standards.  Critics feel like the relationships between people who are designing education policy and their various roles in government and business should be made transparent to the public. 

Two Questions Should Be Asked When Evaluating Standards and Curriculum Documents.

1.  Whose politics are represented in this curriculum?

2.  Whose values are represented in this curriculum?

"Curriculum is always a means to somebody's end.....No selection of curriculum content can be considered politically neutral" (2000, p. 53).  If you are asked to review curriculum or develop curriculum, then you should be careful to avoid bias.  What is good for your own child may not be good for every child.  Politics are unavoidable when it comes to curriculum development, but educators can improve the curriculum development process by seeking multiple perspectives.  For additional information on Curriculum Decisions visit http://tiny.cc/TTS0P

View Full Story
http://tiny.cc/g5E6W
Conflict of Interest Arises as Concern in Standards Push
By Mary Ann Zehr
November 2, 2009

References:
English, F.W. (2000). Deciding what to teach and test: Developing, aligning, and
         auditing the curriculum. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
 
 
When I meet educators at a state conference or I am introduced to an author, one of the questions I like to ask is, "What are you currently reading?"  When I meet Superintendents, College Professors, Classroom Teachers, Principals, and Educational Consultants they often cite the same authors.  The following list contains Ten Books Every Curriculum Developer Should Read. 

Please feel free to share your opinion regarding one or more of the books listed.

1.  Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949)
     Ralph W. Tyler

2.  Understanding by Design (Expanded 2nd Edition - 2005)
     Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe

3.  Deciding What to Teach and Test: Developing, Aligning, and Auditing the
     Curriculum (2000)
     Fenwick W. English

4.  Developing a Quality Curriculum (1994)
     Allan A. Glatthorn

5.  Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum and Assessment K-12 (1997)
     Heidi Hayes Jacobs

6.  Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom (2007)
     H. Lynn Erickson

7.  Common Formative Assessments: How to Connect Standards-Based
     Instruction and Assessment (2006) 
     Larry Ainsworth & Donald Viegut

8.  Unwrapping the Standards: A Simple Process to Make Standards Manageable
     (2003)
     Larry Ainsworth

9.  Power Standards: Identifying the Standards that Matter the Most (2003)
     Larry Ainsworth

10.  Schooling by Design: Mission, Action, and Achievement (2007)
       Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe 

What are you currently reading?  Do you have a favorite curriculum and instruction book?  Please feel free to share books that have influenced your work with curriculum design, curriculum alignment and staff development.