Curriculum is a list of information and essential ideas or concepts to be taught with a list of ideas for implementation to impact student learning. These ideas should enable successful understanding of content that will provide transfer and practical applications to one’s life. The curriculum should guide teachers to achieving the schools goal or mission. The mission statement must first be understood in order to write curriculum and lead the learning process towards meeting that goal. The mission statements should express long-term intellectual accomplishments of content knowledge and skills that students will need in their careers and daily lives. A curriculum should never be looked at as a model that is written in stone and can never be modified to meet the needs of a particular class or individual. Instruction must be differentiated and the curriculum should provide some of these strategies. A successful curriculum shows teachers how to use the content of facts, concepts, and skills. When the curriculum is focused on the desired accomplishments and competencies of each discipline, teachers can then understand how to transfer the standards into effective learning for their students.
Educational professional’s including principals, teachers, and content area supervisors should be responsible to both design and overlook the process. Those who design curriculum should not only have great understanding and experience in that particular subject area but should also be qualified to write curriculum that will meet the needs of the schools mission, guide teachers in highly effective teaching strategies, and impact student learning at the highest level. I notice that there is curriculum that has been written by people outside the content area and I wonder how someone with limited knowledge of a subject area can create or revise a curriculum that is as resourceful as one who is specialized in that area. I know that curriculum writing is sometimes optional and if teachers within the content area are not interested in being involved then they have to look outside the content area to find someone to revise it. I think it would be more practical to provide time during in-service days to distribute the work evenly to staff within that department to accomplish the curriculum writing process. After all, a curriculum is a very valuable resource to new and experienced teachers and should be designed by those who posses the most knowledge and expertise.
Content area administrators and grade level teams should be responsible for controlling the curriculum to make revisions as they see fit. Periodically, curriculum should be reviewed and revised implementing new and more engaging lessons to increase student learning. Assessment of student learning is vital to determining the need for curriculum revision. This can be discovered through test scores, student work and projects etc. During the teacher evaluation process, this can be discussed to determine any necessary options for improvement of teaching strategies. Curriculum, like a lesson, can always be improved. Therefore, those who are responsible to improve it should be in control of it.
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I agree with what you said about teachers not wanting to write curriculum. I have to say, though, that my district decided to use time from in-service days and from the school days (by providing subs to the curriculum writers)to write curriculum and they found that they just do not have the time to get it done during such restricted hours. The way it used to work was that the group of teachers and administrators would get together for a straight 2 week period over the summer and bang it out. It stayed fresh in their minds and it got done quickly. The problem was that the district did not want to pay for it. Finding people to write the curriculum is definitely a challenge.
You make a valid point. I think most of the time when curriculum is developed, people seem to forget the mission and vision that the school has for its students. Also, finding people to write the curriculum is definitely challenging because I know in my district, it is done over the summer, and that they pay is very nominal. Where is the motivation for us to do it if we are not going to be compensated for the amount of work it takes to create something so complex as the curriculum for a course that we teach?
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