When was the first time you encountered the term “curriculum” and what did you think it meant? My mother was an educator of English, French, and Humanities, and was never satisfied with keeping things status quo, so I don’t really remember a time when the word curriculum was not used around me. She would speak with my aunt about English curriculum because she, too, was an educator. Together, they shaped my life and their classrooms in the way Jane Addams described when she said “schools ought to do more to connect these children with the best things of the past, to make them realize something of the beauty and charm of the language, the history, and the traditions which their parents represent” (1908).  

Have you identified the level, the sector, the grade, the school board and so on involved in your personal and professional definition? I work at a small International Baccalaureate charter school, and the school board is vested in keeping the values and ideology of IB. I taught them about it when we went through our Middle Years Program evaluation two years ago, and that “The teacher must provide meaningful, authentic activities to help students construct understanding relevant to solving problems” ( Wilson, 1996 ). We have a new Head of School who has only been at the school a few months. I am working on helping her to also understand the IB philosophy better.

If your definition comes from a personal narrative, then share the details of dates, names, years and such.  Perhaps a moment in your teacher timeline contributes to your understanding of curriculum. When I taught Spanish in 2001, I was not given any guidance on curriculum, so I learned to create it on my own, and I still believe that the best curriculums are formed that way, with the addition of Concept Maps. I discovered their usefulness in 2018, and now I have the students create maps with me as we navigate their learning because as Wilson indicates, "Concept maps are effective tools for making the structure of knowledge explicit, and our hope is that by using them in our planning...the material will be more accessible and more easily integrated by students" (p. 4). Maps also give students the bigger picture, and how the standards they are learning relate to real life. 

How did the interview participant’s definition from last week inform your understanding of the term? The interview with another teacher and former IB coordinator really cemented in my definition of curriculum. She emphatically stated that the curriculum is “the written material that guides our teaching.” Even when probed to go further, she did not touch on the other aspects of curriculum that I think are critical, as defined by the IBO. I use the mnemonic SLACK to help me remember them. It stands for Skills, Learner Profile, Action, Concepts, and Knowledge.

Who are the stakeholders involved in determining/creating/constructing your definition? I have recently begun to understand that knowledge, or facts and figures from our local governing body, are just a piece of the puzzle. Our Head of School really wants us to focus on them. But it is so important for the teachers to help create a curriculum that educators teach the bigger picture, and concepts to match the standards. For instance, they will teach that protons, electrons, and atoms are all important because they make up matter, and why matter matters in the students’ personal lives. Our board agrees that we also need to focus on students' emotional health and other Approaches to Learning (IBO). Even in 1908, Addams mentioned that “splendid as the public schools are in their relation to the immigrant child, they do not understand all of the difficulties which surround that child-all of the moral and emotional perplexities which constantly harass him.” Especially in response to Covid-19, we need to explicitly teach skills to manage stress and other emotions.  

Name a few of the researchers/theorists/thinkers we have read so far that would contribute to your curriculum reform? Besides the IBO, which has been heavily influenced by Dewey and Vygotsky, this Learner-Centered approach is influenced by one of Shiro’s ideologies. It focuses on constructivism, growth of the individual, concepts, and that the teacher should be more of a facilitator than a lecturer (2013). Tyler’s four questions should help us focus on the educational purposes, organizing them, the experiences to back it up, and assessment afterwards (1949). Finally, I believe in Slattery’s broad definition of curriculum, that it does not always need to be specific to standards, but that it must also relate to the students’ life experiences, and that we cannot separate things that students see outside of school just because we have content to cover (1995). We need to be creative enough to follow student inquiries related to real-life, and help them in their voyage to find answers to these inquiries, and the many others they will discover along their way. 

References:

Addams, J. (1908). The Public School & the Immigrant Child.  Retrieved fromhttps://educ820in2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/addams-1908-the-public-school-and-the-immigrant-child.pdf

IBO. Further Guidance in Developing Approaches to Learning. Retrieved December 21, 2019, from https://resources.ibo.org/myp/topic/Further-guidance/resource/11162-33714?lang=en.

IBO. Written Curriculum. Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.ibo.org/programmes/primary-years-programme/curriculum/written-curriculum/

Schiro, M. S. (2013). Curriculum theory: Conflicting visions and enduring concerns (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved from: https://talkcurriculum.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/schiro-m-2013-introduction-to-the-curriculum-ideologies.pdf

Slattery, P. (1995). Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era.  New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=mBb9CAm3BP0C or use this link: https://www.book2look.com/embed/9781136494185

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (n.d.). Concept Mapping and Curriculum Design.  Retrieved from https://www.utc.edu/walker-center-teaching-learning/teaching-resources/cm-cd.php

Tyler, R. (1949).In Flinders, D. J., &   Thornton, S. J. (Eds.), The Curriculum Studies Reader, Fourth Edition (pp.11-18).  New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved from: https://talkcurriculum.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/tyler-r-2013-basic-principles-of-curriculum-and-instruction.pdf

As a teacher at an IB school, I believe that all curriculum must be based on a Central Idea, such as “Conflict leads to a  different way of life for people.” From there, I would talk about concepts, such as war. Local standards require teachers to be more specific with a topic such as the Revolutionary War, and to study facts about that war. I believe that boxed curriculum is not always necessary or effective. We should start with the big ideas and relate the facts and figures to it to help students gain a greater understanding of why their learning matters in the real world. 

IBO. (n.d.). From Principles into Practice. Retrieved January 31, 2020, from https://resources.ibo.org/pyp

Especially in our middle school, students crave the attention, and I feel that skits offer them an opportunity where they can get it. Skits and student presentations are great methods to use in assessment as learning because they provide an opportunity for students to adjust and rethink things as they go (Western and Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Education, 2006). Performance assessments are very beneficial for English Language Learners, especially if we keep the rubrics to fewer than three items (Colorin Colorado, 2007). These shorter rubrics are something that I can really work on. I often overcomplicate things, and even my own children had a hard time following me at times. After students present their skits, I think it is important for them to reflect on their own work, as well as the work of their peers to emphasize the metacognitive process (WNCP, 2006).

Our culminating performance assessment of the Primary Years Program is the fifth-grade exhibition. It is an assessment of learning because it shows not only the product, but also the process. The IBO explains some key purposes for assessing students through the exhibition: collaborative inquiry, responsibility for the students own learning, and taking action as a result of learning (Making the PYP Happen, 2009). The students are able to choose their own topic, they work in groups, and they present it in a science-fair type manner. The exhibition is useful as an opportunity to assess research skills, collaboration, language skills, my own performance as a coordinator, and many other skills that students have learned throughout the Primary Years Program. We invite community members and leaders such as the mayor, our school board, parents, and any other stakeholders that might be interested. I need to do more research to see how we are going to do it virtually this year. It’s such an important part of the transition from elementary to middle school. 

References:

Making the PYP happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education - PYP resources - Home - IB programme resources. (2009). International Baccalaureate Organization. resources.ibo.org/pyp/resource/11162-occ-file-p_0_pypxx_mph_0912_2_e?lang=en

 

Sadlier, W. H., & Inc. Virtual Events | Sadlier School. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from www.sadlier.com/academic-webinar-center

 

Using Informal Assessments for English Language Learners. (2007, March 12). Colorín Colorado. www.colorincolorado.org/article/using-informal-assessments-english-language-learners

 

Western and Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Education (2006) Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind.  Retrieved from: https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/assess/wncp/full_doc.pdf