Curriculum Design

As I read the articles about curriculum design I found myself thinking that the whole educational system needed to be turned up side down. Grant Wiggins wrote an article titled The Futility of Trying to Teach Everything of Importance in which he discusses the need of an apprenticeship program which teaches students the skills they need through discovery as opposed to sitting and listening to lectures and then turning around spewing out facts and figures that they just heard. He also suggests that we start with important questions and teach students ways to solve or answer those questions.

This gave me an idea for my own Algebra classes. I am going to try something new and begin each unit with a real-life problem that students would need to solve. Then we would work on the problem and think of ways to generalize our findings. Hopefully this will give students the confidence to attack the dreaded word problems that a lot of them face during standardized tests.

Usually when I read educational articles, I have a hard time finding a way to apply their ideas to my Math classes. Generally English, Language Arts, or Social Studies courses are used as examples because it is easier to diversify instruction and apply concepts to students' lives than it is to Mathematics. After reading William Wraga's article Toward a Connected Core Curriculum I think that his ideas of connecting subjects would be easily applicable and make a huge impact on how students view education. Though it would be hard to connect Math and English, I can definitely see how Math and Science would make a great marriage. It would be easy for me to use Science as a connection to the topics being learned in my class and may show the application of the subject more. I do think that English principles can be used in all subjects by giving students writing assignments and emphasizing using proper English in all course subjects though.

As I was working on my first task for this course and as I was in the middle of my blog (I started on Thursday and finished today) a tragedy struck my school and impacted many of my students. Even as I am writing now I feel the weight of what has happened on my shoulders and really do see a need for a change in our school system. Our school has experienced its first homicide that I'm sure many of you have heard about as it has been in the news. In my naiveness, I didn't think that this terrible act really related to me because the student that was killed wasn't in any of my classes. However, after learning more about what happened and seeing how it has impacted my students from the past and the present I realize that it really has impacted me.

In thinking about curriculum, I really do see a need for something different than the system that we currently have. I think that schools are more than a place to learn book smarts. As some of my students have told me, schools are safe havens (especially after tragedies like we have just experienced), social clubs, mentoring centers, etc. Since our products are more than just college bound students, we really need to incorporate a curriculum that teaches students how to problem solve and I don't mean like trying to find the area of my backyard (a problem that I gave my students last year). When I say problem solve, I mean we need to help our students develop the skill set that will enable them to know right from wrong when they are put in tough situations; the skill set that will help them talk through their problems and find resources to help them instead of using violence; the skill set the will help them become positive contributors in our society.

I think that Applebee had a great idea when he wrote, "The construction of curriculum, then, becomes the construction of a domain for culturally significant conversations among students, teachers, and texts (taking texts broadly to include cultural artifacts of all sorts, from written documents to works of art to architectural monuments) (pg. 9)". If we could create a culturally significant conversation in our school not only could we teach students traditional topics, but we could also teach them ways to live better lives. When I say teach, I think of using the system Wiggin's dreamed about in which we started with questions and worked together (teacher, students and community) to solve the given problems. I think that it would make schooling a lot more meaningful to all the students in a school. Especially to those that are just trying to survive on a daily basis.

I think that all of the articles that I read for this task have shown that there is a need for something new when it comes to curriculum. The best bet may be to combine all the ideas presented instead of having a curriculum that is only a road map for teachers to follow. Instead it should be an open conversation that allows discovery by students in classes that relate to one another.