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Curriculum Development: Ideas to Consider

Maria Varelas

College of Education Center for the Advancement of

Teaching-Learning Communities

My journey

Physics

Teacher

Education

TA mentoring

K-12 teacher

preparation

NSF grants

Partnerships

Science education research

English as a

second language

Bicultural bilingual

Woman

Mother

Ralph Tyler’s Basic Principles of Curriculum & Instruction

•  What educational purposes are considered •  What educational experiences are used to

attain these purposes •  How these experiences are organized •  How attainment of purposes is assessed

What is Curriculum? •  “A curriculum reflects not only the nature of

knowledge itself but also the nature of the knower and the knowledge-getting process. It is an enterprise par excellence where the line between subject matter and methods grows necessarily indistinct…Knowledge is a process, not a product” (Bruner, 1966, p. 72)

Student   Teacher  

Subject  Ma0er   Milieu  

Joseph Schwab’s The Practical •  Commonplaces of educational thinking

and curriculum development

William Schubert’s Four Curriculum Traditions

•  Curriculum = What is worth knowing, experiencing, doing, being

Intellectual Traditionalist  

Social Behaviorist  

Experientialist  

Critical Reconstructionist

Gloria Ladson-Billing’s Educational Debt & Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Sociopoli'cal  consciousness  

Cultural  relevance  

Academic  Achievement  

Defining Purposes •  In 2012 NRC Report Education for Life

and Work, student competencies arrayed across three dimensions ²  Cognitive outcomes ²  Intrapersonal outcomes ²  Interpersonal outcomes

Cogni6ve  outcomes  

Cogni6ve  processes  

and  strategies  

Knowledge  

Crea6vity  

Cri6cal  thinking  

Informa6on  literacy  

Reasoning  

Innova6on  

Intrapersonal  outcomes  

Intellectual  openness  

Work  ethic  and  conscien6ousness  

Posi6ve  core  self-­‐evalua6on  

Metacogni6on  

Flexibility  

Ini6a6ve  

Apprecia6on  of  diversity  

Interpersonal  outcomes  

Team  work  and  collabora6on  

Leadership  

Communica6on  

Responsibility  

Conflict  resolu6on  

Still missing… •  “Outcomes” that address Ladson-Billing’s

cultural relevance and sociopolitical consciousness…

•  A challenge for us all…

Designing & Organizing Experiences

Learner-­‐centered   Knowledge-­‐centered  

Assessment-­‐centered   Community-­‐centered  

Design  lenses  for  framing  teaching  and  learning  

Donovan & Bransford (2005). How students learn.

Need to Consider… •  What topics you include AND those that are absent (null

curriculum) •  What external and internal factors shape these

experiences •  Who is designing them and why/why not •  Linearity vs. non-linearity of topics and experiences •  Relevant resources (including textbooks) •  Depth vs. breadth •  Differentiation •  Student experience of the curriculum •  Curriculum enactment vs. implementation

High-Leverage Teaching Practices

•  Many opportunities for students to engage with and communicate concepts and practices

•  Multimodality •  Meaningful feedback •  Variety of entry points •  Critical reading of multimodal texts •  Modeling •  Argumentation •  Problem-posing/finding and problem-solving •  Relevant context •  Attention to affective, social, and cognitive dimensions

Assessment •  Alignment between purposes, experiences,

and types of evidence •  Equity and fairness •  Formative and summative assessment •  Course- and program-based assessments •  Importance of performance-based

assessments •  Timescales associated with assessments

As teachers, we are creators and bearers of meaning. Our work is to empower students to find their own personal meaning. But, we cannot do that year after year without attending to our own meaning-making and empowerment. –Frances Bolin

TLC  

Master  Teaching  Scholars  (MTSs)  

Teaching  Scholars  (TSs)  

Learning  Technology  Solu6ons  

(formerly  ITL)  Collaborators  

Student  Advisors  

Other  UIC  Faculty  

If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow –John Dewey