READ 6335 - Parallel Curriculum
Sessions 3-5 ~ LS 2016
Devotional
We are looking at another map for our devotion this week. The physical features on this map are distorted from what we know today. Landmasses and areas occupied by oceans are apparent. You might recognize the Mediterranean Sea in the upper left corner, but it is harder to identify areas farther south. The details identify roads, resources, and references required to successfully navigate through dangerous regions, yet the map is not accurate. It is one man’s interpretation, and it represents a human view of the area.
The components of a useful map are present, but the representation and reality are leagues apart. This map was constructed before surveying equipment had been invented and long before satellites ever took the first photograph of the earth from space. This map is limited by the perspective of the individual who drew it. Without a broader viewpoint, relationship and placement, proportion and scale are measured by the map’s creator, not by accurate instruments.
How comforting to think that our Creator established our world, placing everything in its proper place. He drew the land from the depths in the right proportion and called the mountains into proper scale with His majesty. He wove the threads of gravity, purposely tossing the stars across the heavens and causing them to sing. All of creation acknowledges His presence. His perspective is one that is dependable and accurate—not at all like our human perspective.
While it is important to consider our perspective when designing curriculum and instructional plans, how much more important to know that the Creator of the universe has a map for us that includes His perspective and direction.
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
Four Corners
Curriculum/curriculum writing is like... because...
- white water rafting
- a European vacation
- scuba diving
- mountain climbing
Reading
Chapter 3: "Thinking About the Elements of Curriculum Design" p. 37
Chapter 4: "The Core Curriculum Parallel" p. 60
Let's Review...
Numbered Heads Together
Curriculum Design Methods
Core Curriculum (p. 19): There is a national movement to bring core standards to every subject area. Working with national content organizations, this group would like to see a set of standards that would be common across all 50 states. Since education has long been a state issue, there is much discrepancy in what is considered standard curriculum material. Add to that situation the fact that individual school boards and districts want to determine their own standards, and you can easily imagine the difficulty of students transferring between districts and states. This website gives a rationale for the movement and some beginning steps to this process. www.corestandards.org
Curriculum of Practice (p. 23): Many educators are claiming that the best way to get students to truly internalize what they are learning is to give them a project to demonstrate their learning. This is a web site that gives some ideas about how to use the project based learning method. www.edutopia.org
Curriculum of Connections (p. 20): Thematic unit planning has been popular for decades in elementary and middle school classrooms. Countless schools have had special days devoted to thematic unit planning and teaching, and it is fun and enjoyable for teachers and students alike. It is possible that you have developed and implemented your own thematic unit in your school. Here is a website with some ideas about how to design a thematic unit with some "free" units that can be instantly used in classrooms. www.techtrekers.com
Curriculum of Identity (p. 26): As long as teachers are concerned about the individual needs and abilities of their students, this will be an important dimension of curriculum. As we learn more about learning styles, multiple intelligences, brain-friendly teaching, and other affective dimensions of learning, this will be an important dimension of curriculum planning. Here is just one website that talks about the importance of allowing students to find out more about themselves through their learning. www.learning-styles-online.com
The important thing about...
It... (Include 2 - 3 details).
But the important thing about...
Scenarios
- Read each scenario.
- Match each scenario to the parallel or parallels it seems to reflect.
- Explain your thinking using the following sentence stem:
I believe that this scenario matches .... because...
What are the benefits of the Parallel Curriculum Model? p. 38
Complete the following stem using only 8-10 words.
1. The PCM benefits the school district because it...2. The PCM benefits students because it...
3. The PCM benefits teachers because it...
Curriculum Interactions p. 39
Let's talk about the interactions in the teaching-learning process.
2. Teacher and Student
3. Student and Content
Teacher and content interactions should include...
- deep understanding of the content
- possess best-practices
- cognitive and developmental understanding of their students
- facilitate, negotiate, and collaboration skills
- extend, assess, and differentiate.
Teacher and student interactions should include...
Teacher to student:
- individual needs and collective needs
- formative/on-going assessment
- coaching and questioning
- feedback
Student to teacher:
- reflect publicly about their learning
- assignments
- ask their own questions
- vital for learning, assessment, and differentiation
Student and content interactions should include...
- reading
- viewing
- listening
- processing of new content, concepts, and strategies
- thinking skills are required
- must make a connection between prior knowledge and the new content
Comprehensive Curriculum
Key Features of the Components of a Comprehensive Curriculum (p. 42-43)
Fill out the "Something I Know" section of the chart.
Based on your group number, fill out the "Something I Learned" section of the chart for the following components:
GROUP 1 (1-4)
GROUP 2 (5-7)
GROUP 3 (8-11)
- Content (p. 160)
- Assessments (p. 165)
- Introductory Activities (p. 165)
- Teaching Methods (p. 166)
- Learning Activities (p. 166)
- Grouping Strategies (p. 171)
- Resources (p. 173)
- Products (p. 173)
- Extension Activities (p. 174)
- Differentiation (p. 175)
- Lesson and Unit Closure (p. 176)
After completing your assigned sections on the chart, meet with someone from each of the different groups to help you complete the remaining sections of your chart.
Components of a Comprehensive Curriculum Plan p.122-125
Content:
What we specify students should come to know, understand, and apply as a result of their participation in a lesson, unit of study, or a year in the classroom (the standards).
Assessment:
Tasks assigned to students in order to determine the extent to which they have acquired the knowledge and/or skills embedded within a performance standard or content goal.
Introductory Activities:
Created by the teacher and offered to students in order to acquaint them with a new unit or lesson, its content, and teacher expectations during the unit.
Teaching Methods:
Strategies or techniques, selected purposefully, that teachers use to instruct students or connect them with the content (see list of teaching methods on pp. 49-51).
Learning Activities:
Tasks designed to develop the knowledge, understanding, and skills specified in the content goals. They help students perceive, process, rehearse, store, and transfer new information and skills (see list of learning activities on pp. 53-55).
Grouping Strategies:
Strategies that enable teachers to arrange students in configurations most likely to enhance the acquisition of content and skills.
Resources:
A tool, data set, learning opportunity, or source of information for teachers and students. They should provoke thinking and promote clarity of understanding about content goals (see list of resources on p. 56).
Products:
A well-designed product or assignment produces tangible evidence of student learning. It is usually an assessment tool as well as a learning activity (see list of products on p. 58).
Extensions Activities:
Preplanned or serendipitous experiences that teachers orchestrate for individuals, small groups, or the entire class that expand the basic unit plans and emerge from the unit's content goals as well as students' interests.
Differentiation:
Planning instruction on the basis of students' unique characteristics: interest, readiness, learning styles, etc.
Lesson and Unit Closure:
Enables the teachers to focus student attention on what matters most—on how the lesson makes sense and how it relates to the students' knowledge, experiences, and lives.
I used to think...but now I think...
- Choose the component on your chart that you are most struggling to understand.
- Find that component on pages 122-125 and read the detailed description.
- Reflect using the following sentence stems:
Discuss with your 3:00 appointment. Make sure to speak in complete sentences.
The Core Curriculum Parallel
As you learn more about the four curriculum parallels presented in your textbook, you should begin to think of ways you can use this material to develop our own curriculum and instructional plans. You will have the opportunity to “experiment” with each curriculum parallel and to begin the work of designing your own working curriculum document. (See the assignment sheet for the curriculum development project under Course Material.)
It is only natural that we begin with the Core Curriculum Parallel, as it represents the foundation of any discipline. We are talking about the “kernel, heart, gist, essence, basic nature, crux, and fundamental” aspects of a discipline (p. 79). The core curriculum is about the essential knowledge and meaning of a discipline—the basic concepts, principles, and skills that cut across the study of the content area.
The authors state the following:
The Core Curriculum Parallel exists to move curriculum developers from a well-aligned plan for teaching to one that retains alignment while getting at the core knowledge, structure, and purpose of a discipline. (p. 79)
They go on to outline the benefits for both teachers and students.
Benefits of the Core Curriculum Model
- Promotes student understanding of the meaning and structure of a discipline.
- Makes learning in the same discipline easier and more efficient.
- Directly promotes students’ proficiencies, skillfulness, independence, and self-efficacy.
- Helps teachers develop their own frameworks of meaning.
- Meets the demands of employers and universities for individuals who independently use higher level thinking.
- Addresses issues of equity and opportunity to learn for all students.
- With these benefits in mind, the authors then outlined the “Key Curriculum Components” necessary to build a core curriculum unit. Keep Figure 4.2 close at hand as you consider how to develop your own plan.
Figure 4.3 (p. 85) and Figure 4.7 (p. 95) will also be valuable as you begin work on your very own Curriculum Development Project for this class. Your assignment for this week is to fill in a similar chart for a unit of language curriculum of your choosing. After reviewing the standards in your area of choice, you will provide at least two examples of the following “Categories of Knowledge”:
Fact:
A specific detail; verifiable information
Concept:
A general idea or understanding, a generalized idea of a thing or a class or things; a category or classification
Principle:
A fundamental truth, law, rule, or doctrine that explains the relationship between two or more concepts
Skill:
Proficiency, ability or a technique, a strategy, a method, or a tool
Attitudes:
Beliefs, dispositions, appreciations, and values
Problem Solving:
The ability to transfer and apply acquired knowledge to address a goal
For the remainder of the lecture today, you will spend some time doing some research into content standards. Some websites have been provided for initial consideration, but you should feel free to go beyond these documents. You will want to study a wide variety of curriculum standards to get a better sense of what is considered by experts in the field of reading/language arts as well as state and local officials to be essential knowledge in this curriculum area. (For those of you who are not reading specialists, this will be an opportunity for you to see how standards are written in a particular content area, with obvious transferability to other content areas.)
After studying these standards documents, you should have a better idea of how to identify elements of the knowledge categories listed in Figure 4.3. These categories of knowledge will be the foundation for the other three curriculum plans in the weeks to come. After further development, each student will have a working curriculum document that can be immediately implemented in a classroom.
A final word of caution is worth repeating. As we work through the categories of knowledge that are integral to the core curriculum, we must remember that “it is far too easy for students to become lost in an array of facts, data, information and tasks, without focusing on the core concepts and principles behind the information … so the teacher plays a leadership role in helping student focus on making meaning of what they are studying” (p. 92). We never want to lose sight of the fact that we are helping students find meaning in what they are studying. Keep that in mind as you select your categories of knowledge.
National Standards
Look first at the national standards for English/Language arts. A joint commission from National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading
State Standards
Look at the state of Texas document for English/Language Arts. If you are a teacher in Texas, these should be very familiar to you. If you are teaching in another state (or overseas), you may find these helpful, but feel free to research the standards for your state or country.
Local Standards
Finally, look at your local school and/or district curriculum plan. If you are not currently a teacher, or your school does not have a plan, you may find this curriculum plan for the Dallas Independent School District helpful. (Keep in mind that this is an overview designed for parents. Only school staff is allowed to access the full curriculum documents. That’s why it is better to find your own document for review.)
After some time reading and studying these standards, you should be ready to develop your own curriculum plan that reflects the expected goals and outcomes of a core curriculum.
The important thing about The Core Curriculum Parallel is...
The Curriculum of Connections Parallel
With this wonderful analogy to integrated learning in mind, let's take a moment to expand our understanding of the importance of the curriculum of connection.
Last week, we spent some time developing a clear understanding of the core curriculum parallel. Your assignment was to identify some basic facts, concepts, principles, etc. for your own curriculum project. This curriculum of connection will use those important concepts and principles to "help learners focus on the discovery of relationships, associations, and ideas across various instances and aspects of knowledge and information" (p. 117).
In this curriculum parallel, our goal is to help students see the macroconcepts:
Macroconcepts: overarching concepts that connect many disciplines and topics.
In this curriculum parallel, you will always be looking for those "overarching" concepts that will make it easy to connect to other disciplines.
The Curriculum of Connection is all about:
- Connections
- Analogous thinking
- Comparative ideas
- Relationships
- Patterns of ideas
- Discovery through reflection
- Multiple layers of connections
- Focusing Questions
As a review, here are the focusing questions for the Core Curriculum:
- What is the structure of this discipline?
- What are the key concepts and principles in this discipline?
- How can I develop an understanding of the concepts and principles as a result of studying this topic?
The Curriculum of Connections asks these questions:
(in addition to the ones above)
- How are the key concepts and principles in this topic or discipline related to the key concepts and principles in other topics or disciplines?
- How might I use what I already know about the key concepts and principles in a topic or discipline to acquire a deeper understanding of those same concepts and principles in other topics and/or disciplines?
- How might I use interdisciplinary concepts, themes, and processes to solve novel problems?
As with the study of the Core Curriculum, the authors also outline some reasons why this curriculum parallel is useful and why a teacher should consider this model when planning instruction.
Benefits of the Curriculum of Connections Model
The ability to recognize connections and relationships:
- Broadens and deepens student understanding,
- Develops an appreciation for the interconnectedness of knowledge,
- Leads to an appreciation for analogous thinking,
- Decreases episodic thinking and supports long-term knowledge,
- Diminishes a learner's sense of confusion and frustration when confronted with new data,
- Decreases the amount of time needed for a learner to understand new content,
- Improves efficiency and precision through independent learning,
- Improves insight and creativity through metaphoric thinking and analogy making,
- Supports a person's ability to view ideas or events from multiple perspectives,
- Enhances empathy, open-mindedness, and nonjudgmental thinking while decreasing stereotypical thinking and bias.
There are countless websites that are devoted to helping teachers develop thematic units or integrated lessons. Here are just a few that you may want to explore.
Bridging the Gap for ELL Students in the Academic Classroom
With this information in mind, you will be developing the FRAMEWORK for a curriculum of connection. You will not be developing activities or teaching strategies for this assignment, but you will be thinking through some of the discipline-based concepts and some of the interdisciplinary macro-concepts. Take some time this week to explore how you could use this curriculum of connection to expand the way you teach both reading/language arts and the associated disciplines of school.
See the Assignment Sheet for the Curriculum of Connection Project under Course Material.
To summarize, the curriculum of connection focuses on content knowledge, concepts, skills, and principles just like the Core Curriculum Parallel.
The biggest difference is that the CURRICULUM OF CONNECTION also emphasizes:
- common concepts, principles, and or skills across topics, individuals, events, cultures, and/or time periods
- common concepts, principles, and/or skills across disciplines,
- the identification of macro-concepts across multiple concepts, and
- the discovery of generalizations across principles.
The important thing about The Curriculum of Connection Parallel is...
Assignments
- Discussion Board #3
- Journal #2
- Discussion Board #4
- Journal #3
- Core Curriculum Parallel Assignment
Discussion Boards
Discussion Board 3:
On pages 38-39 of your textbook, several "benefits" of a well-designed curriculum are listed.
- Identify a benefit in each category,
- Explain the benefit as completely as possible,
- Discuss WHY you think it is important for schools.
Discussion Board 4:
You will be developing a curriculum plan for a specific unit of study over the next few weeks. Identify the topic and grade level for your plan. Discuss what went into your decision making about the categories of knowledge for this topic as related to the Core Curriculum Parallel.
Discuss with your 9:00 appointment. Make sure to speak in complete sentences.
Journals:
Go to the Journal page and participate in the Journal for this session. (To get to the Journal page, click on the "Journal" link above or on the left side of the screen.)
Journal #2:
Discuss your initial reaction to the sample unit presented in your textbook using the parallel curriculum model. After thinking about how to use this in your own educational setting, brainstorm some potential topics for your own instructional plan using this curriculum model.
Journal #3:
Consider the metaphors that are presented to provide support for the four curriculum approaches (pp. 76-78). Which metaphor do you find more useful in thinking about the need for the four curriculum parallels? Why?
Reminder: Journals are "private" correspondence between you and your instructor. Nothing you write in a journal will be shared with classmates. Journals are due by the end of the day on Sunday.
Discuss Journal #2 with your 6:00 appointment. Make sure to speak in complete sentences.
Discuss Journal #3 with your 12:00 appointment. Make sure to speak in complete sentences.
Dr. Anita de la Isla
Email: adelaisla@irvingisd.net
Website: www.dbu.edu
Phone: 469.733.3086
Twitter: @shoegoddess97