K-12 Curriculum Development

 
 
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Does your school system have an established method or strategies which assist teachers and administrators in determining the K-12 curriculum?  Each year, parents send their children to school with the hopes that the teachers and the educational experiences offered will prepare students for the next grade level and for life in an ever changing, interdependent world.  Should each teacher determine the curriculum?  According to DuFour (2004), “Despite compelling evidence indicating that working collaboratively represents best practice, teachers in many schools continue to work in isolation. Even in schools that endorse the idea of collaboration, the staff's willingness to collaborate often stops at the classroom door” (p. 8).  

The following strategies will assist collaborative teams of professional educators in unwrapping state standards, prioritizing curriculum, aligning skills and concepts which spiral throughout the curriculum, and most importantly begin a conversation about the essential curriculum (a.k.a., Power Standards – See Ainsworth).  Select one strategy and begin developing your plan for students.

Strategies for Determining the K-12 Curriculum

I.  Unwrapping Standards: 

“Unwrapped standards provide clarity as to what students must know and be able to do.  When teachers take the time to analyze each standard and identify essential concepts and skills, the result is more effective instructional planning, assessment, and student learning” (Ainsworth, 2003, p. 1).

For the process, seeUnwrapping Standards: A Simple Process to Make Standards Manageable (Ainsworth, 2003)

II.  Curriculum Mapping:

“Choosing important knowledge, sequencing it well, and getting it behind every classroom door in every grade” is an important part of ensuring that all students receive a rigorous and relevant education (Parker, 1991, p. 84).

For the process, see Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum and Assessment K-12 (Jacobs, 1997).

See Using Curriculum Mapping and Assessment Data to Improve Learning (Kallick & Colosimo, 2009)

III.  Identify Declarative and Procedural Knowledge:

Jane Pollock (2007) distinguished between declarative (content mastery) and procedural (skill mastery) knowledge.  She wrote, “In a curriculum document, the statements of declarative knowledge (facts, concepts, generalizations and principles) are identified by the words understands or knows” (p. 35) that “serve as placeholders for active verbs, which translate into activities and experiences that help students organize declarative knowledge.”  For procedural knowledge, a statement of student learning would begin with “a verb that describes the steps that need to be practiced to attain automaticity such as add, compose, sing, draw, or graph” (p. 36).  The latter requires extensive repetition and practice.  Does your school system’s curriculum clarify the difference between declarative and procedural knowledge which is guaranteed to be taught at each grade level?

IV.  Clarify Content Priorities:

“Because we typically face more content than we can reasonably address, and because it is often presented as if everything were equally important for students, we are obliged to make choices and frame priorities” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 70).

Planning Tool - See Figure 3.3 (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 71).

V.  Use Dr. Reeves’ Criteria for Identifying
      Power Standards:

a)  Endurance     b)  Leverage    c)  Readiness for the
                                                 next level of learning

Use the following question: 
What do your students need for success – in school (this year, next year, and so on), in life, and on your state tests” (Ainsworth, 2003, p. 14)?

VI.  Determine What You Won’t Teach:

Jacobs reminds educators, “Given the limited time you have with your students, curriculum design has become more and more an issue of deciding what you won’t teach as well as what you will teach.  You cannot do it all.  As a designer, you must choose the essential” (as cited by Ainsworth, 2003, p. 12).

Conclusion:

Wiggins and McTighe (2005), wrote, “In the absence of a learning plan with clear goals, how likely is it that students will develop shared understandings on which future lessons might build” (p. 21)?  If your school system does not have a common curriculum, select one of the strategies above and watch student achievement soar.

References:

Ainsworth, L. (2003). Power standards: Identifying the
       standards that matter the most. Englewood, CO: Lead +
       Learn Press.

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

DuFour, R.(2004, May). What is a professional learning
       community? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6-11.

Jacobs, H.H. (1997). Mapping the big picture: Integrating
       curriculum & Assessment K-12. Alexandria, VA:
       Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Kallick, B., & Colosimo, J. (2009). Using curriculum mapping
       and assessment data to improve learning. Thousand
       Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Parker, W. C. (1991). Renewing the social studies curriculum.
       Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
       Curriculum Development.

Pollock, J. E. (2007). Improving student learning one teacher
       at a time. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision
       and Curriculum Development.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design:
      Expanded 2nd edition. Alexandria, VA: Association for
      Supervision and Curriculum Development. 
 


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