Englandeffective Curriculum Ideas

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Writing good curriculum – What makes a curriculum document really usable? Teachers’ opinions matter.

Englandeffective Curriculum Ideas Preschool

Defining the Effective Curriculum Before we could begin to design a process for curriculum renewal, we needed to answer a fundamental question: What is an effective curriculum? In our view, an effective curriculum increases students' understanding about the world around them and prepares them to live in the 21st century. Independent review of the teaching of early reading. Download with Google Download with Facebook. Integrated Urgent Care / NHS 111. What the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD) says about leadership. In the UK, the CIPD are the prominent authority within the area of human resources, learning and development. The initial planning behind our thematic curriculum involved all of the members of the department, away from the classroom for a day, brainstorming ideas, themes and texts. We began by discussing which themes would allow us to make sure we had a breadth of ideas and a depth of intellect; we debated which themes would reflect the agendas. A curriculum is a set of subjects for an educational institution, or a set of subjects within a course. In bilingual schools some subjects in the curriculum are taught in one language and some in the other.

©Leslie Owen Wilson, (revised in 2018 from 2003 document)

From 1990-2008 I taught a required course in my university’s Masters of Education program. It was a full on graduate course, ED 721, Fundamentals of Curriculum. Since the vast majority of my students were practicing teachers I thought it would be interesting to see what they considered good, user-friendly curricula after being exposed to a variety of new concepts and constructs for usage in curriculum development and instructional design. Each semester, at the end of the course, I held an informal debrief collecting students’ opinions on what constituted truly usable curricula. While certainly highly personalized, their opinions were based on many of the components addressed in our initial comparative curriculum analysis exercise. General comments also included their opinions about the components and instructional design elements we went over during the semester. Since my students were also required to write “a piece of curriculum” that was personalized for their professional usage, many of the components addressed in this webpage entry are ones they chose to include in their personalized samples as they explored writing good curriculum. Here is a summary of the most common responses on what makes curriculum that is truly usable for teachers.

I. Formats: User-friendly formats include:

A.While my course’s timeframe marked the transition from hard copy curricula to electronic versions; many of my students seemed to prefer print copies of curricula. Those who preferred print formats liked the documents in large D ring binders, with tabbed dividers, or clearly marked and separated formats. They also preferred binders with front and back pockets. Comments indicated that print copies allowed them to rapidly find these documents and refer to the contents. Also teachers noted that they could make personal annotations in the print copies, or insert other materials and supportive articles into the binders. For some these features appeared key in supporting frequent and active use. On the topic of personalization and noted annotations, users also wanted at least 1 larger margin on each page to accommodate personal notes, annotations, directions, and text references.

B.Be it hard or electronic copies, participants seemed to appreciate clearly numbered, coded, or sequenced sections that were arranged so that new additions could easily be included, and so that users could readily find different sections. Again, in both print and electronic versions, students thought that sections/divisions should be clearly visible and tagged.

In print copies, discriminating users indicated that they really liked color coding – either different lightly colored pages which were light enough for reproduction, or papers with color coded edges. Students felt that some method of color coding also aided them in finding materials in electronic formats more easily. In voicing their rationales for these organizational preferences, participants indicated that coding aids helped them to easily recognize different sections, and helped them replace loose pages, or update replacement materials in hard copies. In scrolling through electronic copies, some sort of color coding, or some form of visual differentiation, also helped users pinpoint materials and sections more easily.

C.Large readable fonts also aided usability. Font diversity and other forms of desk-top publishing like text boxes, marginal notations, bold heading, italics, etc. seemed to help identify different areas, and areas of emphasis.

D.Visual aides were also much appreciated. Supportive schema, charts, graphs, illustrations, or reproducible forms that might facilitate usage, student assessment, or teacher reflection were also noted as greatly appreciated. A general overview schema which illustrated principles or the component interrelationships, or which summarized information into a diagram also drew much praise from my graduate students and provided contextual overviews for using the document much like a map helps drivers with geographic orientation.

II. Components – Standard components teachers’ indicated they find useful.

A.A title page – Beyond the standard title page notations, information should include the date of publication, and more specifically, who authored the document. Teachers want to know how old the document is in the event newer information in their field exists, or if they need to cite the document. And users indicated they wanted to know who wrote the document. If the authors were within a school district, users thought knowing authorship would allow users to ask clarifying questions, or examine the professional credibility of the contents based on authorship.

B.A needs statement; mission statement; and/or a philosophy of intent or practice. Depending on the subject area and the intent of the curriculum, teachers wanted clear statements which succinctly indicated why the material in the document is important to the educational futures, lives or career goals of their students. These statements could include general program, district or state mission statements, or a rationale or justification as to why the material in the document is important in the context of the district’s educational orientation.

My students felt these types of statements are especially important if curriculum or method of teaching content is changing as it offers teachers contexts to offer inquiring parents, students or even to members of a curious public. This type of inclusion is especially helpful if the curricula changes are in either content or methods and are controversial or radically different from previous practices. Generally these types of entry statements are important in helping teachers effectively communicate with students, peers, and parents, and in creating a tone by which to measure the internal consistency of the material or processes in the curriculum.

My graduate students expressed concerns when the entry statements to the documents they examined did not meet the curricular materials presented in body of the document. They felt that the promises offered in the introductory portion became a “front door” by which one entered the intentions of the document. If the tone of the interior of the document did not meet the expectations as expressed in the entry statement(s) then my students felt both mislead and disappointed.

C. A table of contents with component summaries and section sequences. Again, my students felt that even in cases of electronic documents, this inclusion helped them see the pattern and internal layout of the document up front, and thus facilitated easy and optimal usage.

D. An organizing schema, a scope and sequence chart, or some sort of graphic organizer of the progression of general concepts. (See sample general progression concept mapoffered by Jeff Mlsna) My graduate students indicated that these additions, especially if they were for the same subject areas over successive grades or levels of difficulty, aided them in seeing where students should be headed. This addition allowed them to more easily see how students could be remediated or accelerated through content or concepts also. This addition could be laminated, or be a fold out piece, or something that fit easily into the front pocket of a binder for easy referral or retrieval. Even though this was not a common piece in the many curricula we examined, when prime examples were found, they were well appreciated and often praised. This was especially true with secondary teachers and with those instructors considering how to more effectively personalize students’ progressions through required skills or courses.

E.Curricular aims, goals and objectives (AGO) that were clearly marked and sequenced. Participants thought aims,goals and objectivesshould be correctly termed and clearly differentiated. Many curricula developers seemed to use these terms interchangeably and this proved confusing when students were trying to compare curricula across programs, districts, or states. Even commercial curricula seemed to get the terms confused. And some students found this confusion of nomenclature even among documents from a single district. My students thought consistent terms should be used, especially across a district. Many students were generally highly critical of documents that included just a litany of behavioral objectives. They wanted an umbrella of broader terms (larger chunks) that aims, goals or standards or benchmarks would provide. And too, they wanted examples of objectives “other than behavioral ones” as they were exposed to both problem solving objectives, as well as examples of expressive activities that lead to expressive outcomes as ways of organizing and constructing lessons. (Eisner, 1994)

Englandeffective curriculum ideas activities

F. Internal components of curriculum should be a direct extension of the mission, needs, and /or philosophy statements so that there is a sense of congruency between the underlying instructional principles and practices and the introductory statement(s) of the document’s intentions and hoped for outcomes.

G.Clear indications of desired outcomes, benchmarks, or competencies.

H. Assessment suggestions, examples of assessment devices, and or samples of progress charts. Hell city unblockeddefinitely not a game site.

I. Appendices. Many teachers would like:

Sample lesson plans that may serve as prototypes (These were perceived as very valuable for newer teachers or for teachers teaching in new subject or content areas.)
Lists of related resources, materials, related organizations, support personnel or lists of local area experts.
Lists of electronic, or technological resources, or hard copy resources and visual aids.
Some teachers would like sample forms which might help facilitate usage, suggestions for time allotments or scheduling, or suggestions for room, lab, or station arrangements.

J. References used to write the curriculum document.

III. Miscellaneous suggestions: Other components or formatting suggestions

A.Materials should be regularly revised and updated every two or three years. Opportunities to discuss revisions should be offered to district or school educators. And, suggestions for revisions are solicited from practicing teachers by administrators or authors prior to scheduled revisions.

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B.Materials and frameworks should be sufficiently comprehensive, inclusive, and understandable so that they provide direction for novice teachers, but with enough freedom to allow artistic latitude for veteran teachers.

C.Materials contained in one binder or document should give an overview of an instructional progression of 3 years. This does not mean that all materials for 3 years should be in this one document, but there should be some indication of a 3 year progression. In addition to their own curricular responsibilities, teachers want to be able to tell what skills preceded the prior level and know what skills students will need in the grades following. While teachers do not need curricular documents encompassing all 3 years, they do want easy access to these volumes and lists of assigned content and skills. This allows educators to see the continuity of what they are teaching, as well as aiding them to better help students needing either remediation or acceleration.

D.Components or educational goals should be clearly prioritized or differentiated into discreet categories. Categorical prioritization or differentiation can aid teachers in creating more personalized pathways or educational plans for individuals or small instructional groups needing acceleration or remediation or enrichment. The most popular categories that were easy for teachers to understand were: 1. Introduced; developed; or mastered; or 2. A categorical classification of skills on some sort of continuum like novice, intermediary, expert; or 3. Goals or objectives arranged into must know (imperative skills) need to know (less imperative, or one that can be put off until later); and nice to know (materials that flesh out or enrich a subject.

Categorical differentiation also helps teachers prioritize lessons in case there are time management versus coverage issues and they need to concentrate instructional time on imperative or baseline knowledge.

E.Whether it is a hard or electronic copy a curriculum should be comprehensive, logically arranged, attractive, easily accessible, and with features that can be readily personalized. All teachers should know exactly where to find them and who to ask if there are questions about the content.

F.Upon arriving in a district each teacher should be given a personal copy of his or her curriculum. They should also be given additions and revised versions at regular intervals.

G.If instructional procedures or orientations, or new materials or additions are significantly different from previous materials, there should be in-service sessions, and/or instructional or mentoring experiences offered to teachers to help them transition into the new materials or procedures.

H. Teachers need periodic collaborative time devoted to the exchange of ideas about curricular implementation, thus offering one another ideas and suggestions. These sessions are meant to be heathy professional exchanges where ideas and techniques are shared.

I.Prototypes and/or suggestions for using integrated subjects or themes, or examples of current best practice are also very helpful, especially for novice teachers. These can be contained within the curriculum document itself or cached in an accessible online data bank. All teachers need to know where to find these documents.

IV. Elements and things that make curricula unusable

Teachers indicated that they do not like:

A. Curricula that follows the table of contents of a text, or which are written to follow the content of national or state assessment tests. They believe that this type of curricula is professional insulting and gives textbook companies and testing companies too much control over children’s education. Textbooks and testing companies are about making money not educational excellence. While my students fully understood that testing is a part of the educational process, they objected to “teaching exclusively to tests.”

B. Curricula that consisted of a series of behavioral objectives, especially if only lower levels of the cognitive domain were represented.

C. Curricula that was outdated.

D. Curricula that were: permanently bound; or overly large and cumbersome; or disorganized.

E. Curricula written using lofty or inspirational philosophies or mission statements which then have limited, mismatched, or even contradictory internal components.

F. Teachers did not like not knowing: 1. where master curricula are stored, or 2. who is responsible for curricular development at the program or district level.

G. Teachers do not like curricula that are overly restrictive or directive, or which impaired or dismissed a teacher’s professional judgments, or their creative efforts and innovative teaching.

H. Curriculum that is too vague or sparse to be helpful to novice teachers.

Note: If users are interested in learning more about how to construct other kinds of learning objectives – see Eisner, E. (1994 or 2001 editions) The educational imagination. New York, NY: Pearson Publications.

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