K-12 Curriculum Development

What is an Avatar?
An Avatar is a character that you can personalize and use when interacting with friends online. By changing hairstyles, clothes, accessories, and backgrounds, you can create your own unique persona.

Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages.

Voki is brought to you by the folks at Oddcast, a New York based company that has been creating innovative user-generated media technologies for years.

How Could Teachers Use an Avatar with K-12 students?

An Avatar could explain the next Unit of Study to students.

Students could use an Avatar to explain their group project.

Instead of creating a poster or traditional class project, students could let the Avatar do the talking.

A group of students in a history class could create an Avatar for different people in history (i.e., President of the United States, Governor of Alabama, African American students and families, White police officers, and Classroom teachers).  The students could use the Avatars to demonstrate their understanding of multiple perspectives during the Civil Rights Movement in the years following Brown v. Board of Education.

Are you using Avatars in your classroom? 
Please share your ideas with the K-12 Curriculum Development community.  Thank you!

Would you send your child or your nephew to a school district that took pride in its worksheet curriculum?  Does it impress you when your child comes home from the eighth grade with a student portfolio of science worksheets?  Worksheets kill more than trees.  Worksheets decrease student enthusiasm and completing worksheets usually does not require students to use higher order thinking skills.  There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as the Document Analysis Worksheets developed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  While NARA uses the term worksheets, the activities force students to collaborate and use higher order thinking skills.

One of the most disturbing findings is that minority students, students living in poverty, struggling readers, and students enrolled in non-honors classes are given more worksheets than their peers in the same grade level. 

Before giving students a worksheet, teachers and administrators should ask the following questions:

1.  What educational purposes should this course provide?

2.  How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in
     attaining these purposes?

3.  How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?

4.  How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated? 
                                                      (slightly modified from Tyler, 1949)

If a worksheet can help students meet the educational purposes of the course, then it may be a good use of student time.  However, if a worksheet is not the best tool for providing quality instruction, then teachers should reconsider assigning worksheets.  Finally, question four asks "How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?"

DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Karhanek (2004) suggested the following questions.

1. What do we want our students to learn?
    (Does the worksheet serve as a means to the end goal)?

2. How will we know they are learning?
    (Do we receive quality feedback when every student answers the same
     ten questions on a worksheet)?

3. How will we respond when they don’t learn?
    (Unfortunatly, many students receive another worksheet when they do
      not make a passing or proficient score on the first worksheet).

4. How will we respond when they do learn?
    (Some students can complete a worksheet in ten minutes and then they
     sit for the remainder of the class.  Worksheets do not challenge all
     students).   

From my observations, most teachers who provide students with a 'worksheet curriculum' have used the same worksheet so many times that the font is outdated or the paper has smudge marks from decades of photocopying the same master copy.  Do poor teachers use worksheets?  The intent of this article is not to ban worksheets or ridicule every teacher who has assigned a worksheet.  This article provides a criteria for determining if a worksheet is the best tool for helping students learn identified skills, concepts, and enduring understandings.

A worksheet may be an option, but a worksheet curriculum should become more of a sarcastic joke about an outdated practice than a norm in our school districts.

References:

DuFour, R. (2004). Whatever it takes: how professional learning communities
       respond when kids don't learn. Bloomington, Ind.: National Educational Service.

Tyler, R.W. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction . Chicago:
         University of Chicago.

K-12 curriculum development and instruction focuses on preparing students for life and work beyond the twelfth grade.  National reports indicate that a large number of students are not enrolled in school through the twelfth grade.  According to a report by the Alliance for Excellent Education, "Over a million of the students who enter ninth grade each fall fail to graduate with their peers four years later.  In fact, about seven thousand students drop out every school day."  This is unacceptable in today's workforce.

The following link shows a disturbing political cartoon:
http://www.all4ed.org/files/DF_01_1.jpg

High School Dropouts

One of the documents which has brought needed attention to this national crisis is "The Silent Epidemic" published in 2006.  While this document was published four years ago, educators can still begin a conversation about the dropout crisis by using quotes and statistics in this document as a starting point.

K-12 Curriculum Development provides an opportunity for educators to share strategies for increasing high school graduation rates and decreasing dropout rates. 

Questions For Discussion:
1.  What strategies does your school use to monitor student attendance?

2.  Does your school call the parent/guardian if a student is absent?

3.  Does your high school offer credit recovery programs?

4.  Does your high school set SMART goals for addressing the graduation
     rate/dropout rate?

5.  Does your school offer additional support for students who have been
     identified for being at-risk of dropping out?

6.  If we know that students drop out of school, should we develop strategies for
     supporting students and identifying at-risk students?

7.  Do you have a link to a PowerPoint presentation or your school website which
     offers information to parents and students regarding the negative
     consequences of dropping out of high school?

8.  Do you have programs which support high school graduation rates (i.e., AVID,
     Early College, Virtual Courses, Credit Recovery, Pyramid of Interventions,
     Lunch Tutorials, Alternative School, Weekly Advisory, Yearlong Classes on the
     Block Schedule, Reading and Math support for identified students, Ninth Grade
     Academy, or other school-designed programs and opportunities for
     students)?  Please describe.

Educators do not need to answer each question.  If one question is specific to the work being conducted in your school or school district, please answer that question.  If you have a URL link to your school site wiith resources related to dropout prevention, please share the link with the K-12 Curriculum Development community.  This is a conversation that will improve the lives of millions of students.  While the high school dropout rate is a crisis in each school, it is a national crisis with international implications.  "Nationally, about 71 percent of all students graduate from high school on time....but barely half of African Americans and Hispanic students earn diplomas with their peers.  In many states the difference between white and minority graduation rates is stunning; in several cases there is a gap of as many as 40 or 50 percentage points" (Alliance For Excellent Education, Feb. 2009).

Join the Conversation! 

Teaching to the Test: Is it a best practice or education malpractice?  Since the introduction of high-stakes testing, educators have attempted to weigh the benefits versus the consequences of teaching to the test.  Some educators argue that teaching to the test is unethical.  In most states, teachers can lose their teaching license if they are caught teaching to the test.  However, if you are teaching in a standards-based education system (all 50 states in the U.S.), then teaching the standards could be viewed as teaching to the test.  If teaching to the test means that students have been exposed to the standards and there are no surprises on the End-of-Grade or End-of-Course test, then this practice could be viewed as ethical.

James Popham (2001) wrote an informative article titled, Teaching to the Test: High Crime, Misdemeanor, or Just Good Instruction.  Popham suggested that educators should "immediately expunge the phrase 'teaching to the test' from our educational lexicon, forcing folks to say either 'teaching to the test's items' or 'teaching to the knowledge/skills' represented by the test."

Common Problems with "Teaching to the Test":
1.  Curricular Reductionism
A narrow focus on the tested subjects or excluding certain skills and concepts because they cannot be measured on a multiple-choice test

2.  Covering standards (a.k.a. "Coverage")
Wiggins and McTighe (2005) discuss the Twin Sins of Curriculum Development and they call the twin sins coverage-focused teaching and activity-focused teaching.  In today's high-stakes era of testing and accountability teachers feel pressure to 'cover' material, rather than teach for understanding.  Covering material may indicate that a teacher has taught content or checked off each state standard, but it does not mean that student understanding took place.

3.  Test Prep Activities
In defense of classroom teachers, I have rarely met a teacher who enjoys "Drill and Kill" test prep for the final month of the school year.  By looking at the faces of students, it appears that drill and kill lessons take the joy out of learning.  If you have ever visited a low-performing school or a school that is focused on increasing test scores at all costs, then you have probably witnessed Test Prep Activities.  Some Superintendents even praise principals who raise test scores using these practices.  While test prep activities may increase scores, the activities rarely transfer to student understanding or transfer of learning.

Conclusion:
I could cite over 20 problems with "teaching to the test", but educators already understand the problems and know the solution to many of these problems.  As Popham suggested, "teaching to the test" is a phrase with multiple meanings.  As we enter the second semester of the 2009-2010 school year, I encourage educators to have this conversation in each school and each school district.  What do we mean when we say "teaching to the test?"  What are the 'benefits' of teaching to the test?  Does "teaching to the test" help all students?  Do we want to teach to the test or teach for student understanding?  What are the consequences of spending the final month of school on test review and test prep activities?  Is teaching to the test a best practice or education malpractice?

Final Thought:
"Whatever else Opportunity to Learn (OTL) may entail, it must surely encompass a consideration of the content taught.  Students can scarcely be said to have had an opportunity to learn content they never encountered" (Moss, 2008, p. 19).  If Teaching to the Test means that every student in a school district receives the state and local curriculum and that the curriculum is not reduced to tested subjects or tested items, then I favor teaching to the test.  Student achievement should not be dictated by a zip code, student assignment, board policies, teaching practices, tracking, or school leadership. 


Please feel free to share your thoughts on testing and accountability, teaching to the test, and other thoughts you have on these important topics and policy issues. 

February 1, 2010, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the day the Greensboro Four held a sit-in at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. At 8:00 a.m. (EST), a ribbon cutting ceremony took place in Greensboro, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary and the grand opening of the International Civil Rights Museum.  On February 1, I was able to tour the International Civil Rights Museum with my thirteen year old son.  

We saw exhibits which focused on segregated schools, lunch counters, movie theaters, churches, hotels, and public transportation.  We took a tour through the Hall of Shame, which featured graphic photos and reminders of hate crimes that took place throughout our nation's history.  The museum will serve as an learning laboratory for all ages.

The Little Rock Nine were featured in the new museum, along with James Meredith's admission to the University of Mississippi.  Revisiting the Civil Rights Movement reminds us of how far we have come as a nation, but it also reminds us how far we have to go.  

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the court stated,

"Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society.....Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."

Opportunity to Learn
Visiting the International Civil Rights Museum reminded me of our nation's commitment to provide free public education to all students.  While we are delivering on the intent of Brown v. Board of Education, we must continue to increase each student's Opportunity to Learn (OTL).

If educators agree that all students should be prepared for the next grade level and the goal is for 100% of our students to graduate, then we should develop a clear idea of how to support student achievement.  Robert Marzano (2003) cited several factors which impact student achievement.  He divided the factors into the following categories: School Level, Teacher Level, and Student Level.  His thirty year meta-analysis revealed that the number one factor impacting student achievement is a 'guaranteed and viable curriculum.'  In other words, according to Marzano's research, Opportunity to Learn is the number one factor impacting student achievement.

Recently, Squires (2009) wrote, "It is of paramount importance to make sure students have the opportunity to learn more important content aligned with standards and assessments.....Further, school districts, through their curricula, have the tools at their disposal to control and ensure what students learn" (p. 133).  Developing specific strategies which support Opportunity to Learn will impact student achievement.  Over forty years of research supports that "access to curriculum opportunities is a more powerful determinant of achievement than initial achievement levels" (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 54).  As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins and the courage of the Greensboro Four, we must act courageously to provide the opportunity to learn to each student in the United States and throughout the world.

References:

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America's
        commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teacher's College
        Press.

Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action.
       Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Squires, D.A. (2009). Curriculum alignment: Research-based strategies for increasing
       student achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

According to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948),

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.

W.E.B. DuBois provides us with a powerful reminder of the moral obligation of educators:

"Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental....The freedom to learn....has been bought by bitter sacrifice.  And whatever we may think of the curtailment of other civil rights, we should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn, the right to have examined in our schools not only what we believe, but what we do not believe; not only what our leaders say, but what the leaders of other centuries have said.  We must insist upon this to give our children the fairness of a start which will equip them with such an array of facts and such an attitude toward truth that they can have a real chance to judge what the world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be." 

- W.E.B. DuBois, The Freedom to Learn (1949)
as cited in The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools That Work (Darling-Hammond, 1997)

Conclusion:
All students should receive a guaranteed and viable curriculum (Marzano).  If the received curriculum varies from one class to the next, then it will be difficult for teachers at the next grade level to build on prior knowledge and understandings.  One of the goals of teaching is to ensure close alignment between the intended, taught, assessed, and received curricula.

Questions to Consider:

1.  Does your school have a guaranteed and viable curriculum?

2.  How is the intended curriculum different from the received
     curriculum?

3.  Do teachers implement the written curriculum/intended curriculum or do
     teachers create curriculum in isolation?

4.  Ask yourself, would I want my son or daughter to experience
    the watered-down curriculum and miss out on parts of the district's 
    intended curriculum?
 
What the best and wisest parent wants for his or her own child, that must the community want, for all of its children.

         John Dewey
         As cited by Gene Carter, Executive Director ASCD
         ASCD Education Update - December 2006, p. 2

Opportunity to Learn was introduced by John Carroll (1963), who asserted an individual cannot learn a task if he or she is not allowed enough time to do so.  Since 1963, various national and international studies have been conducted in an effort to measure opportunity to learn.  The IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), English Language Learners and Math Achievement: A Study of Opportunity to Learn and Language Accomodation, the Education for All Global Monitoring Report(s), and the National Educational Longitudianl Survey of 1988, are among the surveys and research studies that have analyzed how Opportunity to Learn impacts student achievement.

The purpose of this article is to focus on a few specific factors that impact Opportunity to Learn at the school level.  If educators agree that all students should be prepared for the next grade level and the goal is for 100% of our students to graduate, then we should develop a clear idea of how to support student achievement.  Robert Marzano (2003) cited several factors which impact student achievement.  He divided the factors into the following categories: School Level, Teacher Level, and Student Level.  His thirty year meta-analysis revealed that the number one factor impacting student achievement is a 'guaranteed and viable curriculum.'  In other words, according to Marzano's research, Opportunity to Learn is the number one factor impacting student achievement.

School Districts Can Increase Opportunity to Learn By:

1.  Developing a Guranteed and Viable Curriculum
Does our school district have a common curriculum?

2.  Monitoring Student Achievement
Does our school district administer common formative assessments or benchmarks to monitor student achievement results?

3.  Differentiating Instruction
Does our school district differentiate instruction while still providing every student with the Opportuntiy to Learn?

4.  Identifying Common Student Misconceptions
Does our school district provide teachers with time to focus on student misconceptions?  Do teachers collaborate and share strategies for teaching the common curriculum to all students?  Does our school district focus on 'coverage' of material or student understanding?

5.  Developing and Revising Pacing
Does our school district provide teachers with pacing guides, curriculum maps, online tools which allow for teacher collaboration, or other tools which assist in implementing a guaranteed and viable curriculum?  If the pacing is not working, do teacher have a voice in modifying the district's pacing and curriculum maps?

6.  Increasing the Number of Minority Students Enrolled in Advanced Courses
Does our school district have strategic plans in place for identifying students who would benefit from advanced course offerings?  Do Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors courses reflect the demographics of our student enrollment?

7.  Identifying Instructional Strategies Which Will Support the Learning Styles of Today's Student's
Will the instructional strategies used in our school district support student understanding of the district's guaranteed and viable curriculum?  Will students receive challenging assignments and the opportunity to learn regardless of school assignment or teacher assignment?  Are certain instructional strategies more effective than others?

Too often teachers and administrators make the mistake of:
1.  Celebrating success on the End-of-Grade or End-of-Course High-Stakes Assessments
or
2.  Becoming frustrated because student growth is decreasing annually according to High-Stakes Assessments

Educators should celebrate their success.  However, if we are only celebrating and not looking for patterns or identifying individual students who need academic support, then we may be missing the point.  It is also understood by most teachers and administrators that waiting to measure students' knowledge of the common curriculum or state standards at the end of the grade or course is too late to provide students with timely intervention and support.  Several educators also struggle with assessing student understanding using multiple choice exams.  Do we help all students meet the district's learning outcomes when we use one high-stakes multiple choice test to determine student achievement? 

Recently, Squires (2009) wrote, "It is of paramount importance to make sure students have the opportunity to learn more important content aligned with standards and assessments....Further, school districts, through their curricula, have the tools at their disposal to control and ensure what students learn" (p. 133).  Developing specific strategies which support Opportunity to Learn will impact student achievement.  Over forty years of research supports that "access to curriculum opportunities is a more powerful determinant of achievement than initial achievement levels" (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 54).

References:
Carroll, J. B. (1963). A model of school learning. Teachers College Record, 64
       (8), 723-733.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America's
       commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teacher's
       College Press.

Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action.
       Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Squires, D.A. (2009). Curriculum alignment: Research-based strategies for
       increasing student achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Most teachers and administrators have experienced spending one to two years in meetings debating what students should know and be able to do, only to see the final document used as a book end.  Many school districts focus on creating documents and in lose sight of the bigger picture which is student achievement.

Curriculum development is "an ongoing process that asks teachers and administrators to think, act, and meet differently to improve their students' learning" (Hale, 2008, p. 8).  Have you ever thought about what it would look like to act differently and meet differently in schools?  Wiggins wrote, "The great scandal in K-12 education is that almost every K-12 system is actually not a system at all" (p. 24).

Working on the Work: An Action Plan for Teachers, Principals, and Superintendents (Schlechty, 2002) is a timeless classic.  If educators are seeking to improve student achievement, they can begin by focusing on the following quotes from Working on the Work.

"Schoolwork is a form of work intended to produce learning."

Teachers should purposefully create, design, identify, or otherwise make 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 (p. xvi).

Resources for K-12 Curriculum Developers:

Ainsworth, L. (2003). Unwrapping the standards: A simple process to make
       standards manageable. Englewood, CA: Lead + Learn Press.

Ladder Against the Wrong Wall
Blog Archives

Hale, J.A. (2008). A guide to curriculum mapping: Planning, implementing, and
         sustaining the process. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Jacobs, H.H. (2010). Curriculum 21: Essential education for a changing world.
          Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Marzano, R. (Ed.). (2010). On excellence in teaching. Bloomington, IN: Solution
         Tree Press.

Schlechty, P.C. (2002). Working on the work: An action plan for teachers,
         principals, and superintendents. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Wiles, J. (2009). Leading curriculum development. Thousand Oaks, CA:
          Corwin Press.

Opportunity to Learn is often overlooked in U.S. schools.  Educators attend conferences and visit the exhibit hall looking for the next 'solution' to current problems.  What does it mean to have the 'Opportunity to Learn'?  If you ask three sixth grade science teachers this question would you receive a consistent answer?  K-12 Curriculum Development seeks to answer the question, "Learn What?"  Once we identify what each student should know and be able to do, we can begin developing course goals, enduring understandings, unit goals, essential questions, and common assessments.

Some school districts have professional documents, but the district leadership becomes so focused on developing teacher-friendly documents that they forget to monitor curriculum implementation and student understanding.  Recently, I discovered an article titled,

Opportunity to Learn: A High Impact Strategy for Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries.

This article is a great introduction to "Opportunity to Learn."   According to the article, "In the 1960’s, John Carroll wrote that equality of Opportunity to Learn required increasing the amount of instructional time for the least prepared students to enable them to master the curriculum. In the 1980’s, RAND developed a set of institutional quality indicators, including teacher qualification, curriculum, and spending indicators."

The article cites Eight Factors Which Impact Opportunity to Learn.  One example is "an OTL study in Ghana found that the overly ambitious curriculum was poorly aligned with teacher capability, so that less than half of the material was actually covered during the school year. However, the national examinations measured learning on the entire curriculum, so that the theoretical maximum score that most students could achieve would be 50 percent, even if they learned all of the material covered perfectly."
 
For more resources and research on this topic, visit the Blog Archives at:
Opportunity to Learn

Feel free to share additional articles or resources related to "Opportunity to Learn." 

On January, 18, 2010, people across the United States and throughout the world will pause to remember the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968).  As a pastor, father, communicator, and community leader, Dr. King encouraged Americans to provide equal opportunities regardless of race.  It took education nearly fifty years to make the transition from segregated schools to integrated schools.  Dr. King's leadership and the efforts of countless others who believed in equal rights helped provide educational opportunities for all students.  In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled, "We conclude that the doctrine of 'seperate but equal' has no place.  Seperate educational facilities are inherently unequal" (Chief Justice Earl Warren in Brown v. Board of Education).

In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  This letter was written on April 16, 1963, approximatly nine years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision.  Dr. King challenged seperate facilities for whites and blacks.  He also emphasized that a quality education should not be denied to any child.  The ongoing work of K-12 curriculum development focuses on reaching each child and supporting the priorities identified in state and local curriculum documents. 

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).  As we remember the legacy of Dr. King, educators can focus on "Opportunity to Learn" in each school.  Do African American students have access to advanced courses or do AP and Honors courses look like a school within a school (See Advancing Minority High Achievement, College Board, Feb. 2000)?  Do teachers have beliefs about students which cause them to have lower expectations for some students?  Do students receive a rigorous curriculum on both sides of town, or does a rigorous curriculum depend on school assignment or the neighborhood school?  Does injustice still exist in our school district?  How can injustice be addressed in our school district?  Does the achievement gap (which is a nationwide dilemma - See Facts on Achievement Gap, Harvard University) cause us to evaluate our current teaching practices in an effort to reach more students?  Do more African American students drop out of school?  How can we make Martin Luther King Day a day to focus on improving education for all students?  What other questions does our school district need to ask?

"As June approaches, with its graduation ceremonies and speeches, a thought suggests itself...Whatever career you may choose for yourself--doctor, l awyer, teacher--let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man . Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in."                                                         -- Martin Luther King, Jr. , 18th April, 1959


Resources for educators which address Brown v. Board of Education (1954) are available at:

http://www.landmarkcases.org
This site was developed to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark Supreme Court cases, helping students explore the key issues of each case.  These resources include photos, speeches, political cartoons, DBQ's, Questions to Consider, and additional primary sources.