K-12 Curriculum Development

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.