Lessons Learned

This is the fourth post about how to develop a curriculum review system in one’s school. It deals with answering questions about who participates in the curriculum development process. Just as the first post on the big picture, these are questions for members of the community to work through before they begin designing their system.

All Participants:

1) Who will really own the entire curriculum process moving it from the start to the finish in the classroom?
2) Who will own and guide the professional learning community being formed via this process?

Classroom Teachers, Support Teachers (ESL, Instructional Technologist, Librarian, Learning Resource, GATE, etc.) and Elective/Arts Teachers:

3) How ready are teams/departments to divide up the units to be developed/reviewed by one or two grade level, team or department members but not by the whole group?
4) What specific roles should they fulfill in the reviewing process (e.g., facilitator, scribe, etc.)?
5) How far along is the curriculum in being differentiated to meet learning needs of all the students?
6) Which teachers are needed to help design the content, process and products for those different needs?
7) Who can help integrate the technology and information & communication literacies?
How interdisciplinary are your units?
9) What steps do you want to take to make them more interdisciplinary? How can the curriculum process help you do this? Who needs to lead out in this effort?

Administration:

10) What do you need from your building principal? What is his/her role in the process?
11) How can the Curriculum Director support you and the entire process?
12) Which other administrators need to be involved in the curriculum development process? What are their roles in this process?

What other questions come to mind?

We really have three essential questions for this show:

• How to infuse information literacy skills across the curriculum?
• Where does the use of technology fit into the information literacy picture?
• How does a modern library media specialist fit into the shifting process?

The possible answers to these questions start with the library media specialist trained in using digital information tools as well as generative technologies for student sharing of their research. This individual is a leader in his/her school working with the instructional technologist as designers and collaborators in the curriculum review process to embed the various information & communication literacy (ICL) skills throughout the curriculum.

Everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. We work with early adopter teachers, students, interested parents, and administrators to build a learning community open to new ideas and practices. We don’t start with overwhelmed teachers or those not so comfortable with change. We return to collaborate with them individually honoring their contributions while working to adapt their practices when possible.

Working organically, we nurture our risk takers and spread their ideas by publically celebrating best practice instructional strategies and assessments. As is written all over the edublogosphere, we must do everything possible to bring the administrators on board to provide the leadership and modeling of the instructional strategies that lead to the skill and concept-based learning our students need.

A key location to start the shifting process is the meeting rooms where our curriculum reviews take place. This is followed up by team and department meetings where lessons are finalized for the classroom. We will talk a great deal more about his next week with our SOS guest Margaret Carpenter.

Margaret will go into detail about the “who” of the shifting equation. Two key leaders are your instructional technologist and library media specialist. They can be a big part of being in lots of places to make the shift happen.

Image Source

I recently posted How Progressive is Your School? to highlight our school’s effort to measure just how progressive we are. The discussion centered upon the article by Alfie Cohen and the 8 values (Intrinsic Motivation, Social Justice, Collaboration, Whole Child, Community, Deep Understanding, Active Learning & Taking Kids Seriously) that encompass being more progressive in how we “do” school. I am now doing a series of posts about our learning community’s ideas about each value. We are now discussing one value per month and looking at ways to follow through in making the value even more a part of our culture at HIS.

• How to foster a sense of community when kids are at so many places academically?
• How do 1:1 laptops help build and/or hurt community at HIS?
• Define communities first… school, parents, digital, etc.
• How do we build community?
• Morning Gatherings, Advisory…enough structure for community?
• How can we be more involved in Hsinchu and great world community? Connection to goals for citizenship.
• Role of competition
• How do we incorporate progressive educational ideas into conservative and traditional communities?
• How to further foster the connections between old students and younger as well as elementary students?

This is the third post about how to develop a curriculum review system in one’s school. It deals with answering questions about the culture of one’s school and how folks deal with change. Just as the first post on the big picture, these are questions for members of the community to work through before they begin designing their system.

1) How is your school year laid out for natural times to work on curriculum units?

2) When would be the best time to have the “big picture” meeting(s) to look at each subject area K-12 for scope and sequence?

3) How can technology lessen the number of meetings while supporting the strategic big picture planning?

4) What is your PD schedule for the year?

5) How can it be tied in to support the curriculum development process?

6) How can you use time during the day more effectively to support the learning communities working on curriculum?

7) What gets in the way of your teachers having time to share and reflect on student learning?

What other questions (and answers) come to mind?

Image Source

I recently posted How Progressive is Your School? to highlight our school’s effort to measure just how progressive we are. The discussion centered upon the article by Alfie Cohen and the 8 values (Intrinsic Motivation, Social Justice, Collaboration, Whole Child, Community, Deep Understanding, Active Learning & Taking Kids Seriously) that encompass being more progressive in how we “do” school. I am now doing a series of posts about our learning community’s ideas about each value. We are now discussing one value per month and looking at ways to follow through in making the value even more a part of our culture at HIS.

• One room school house
• Where are we in our interdisciplinary efforts?
• Learning how to collaborate, learning to work and play together. Teach cooperative learning skills as part of 21st century skill set.
• How do we build a truly democratic school?
• What role does the Student Representative Council play in our community decision-making?
• How effective is group work in our classrooms? Which kinds of group projects more effective?
• Which Web 2.0 tools meet our collaboration needs?
• While we have the structure and culture for collaboration, how well are we doing?, How can we measure our efforts?
• How to expand the collaboration to our immediate and world community?
• Role of administration in all aspects of collaboration?
• Our culture supports mixing of seniors with younger students.
• Continue to develop older students as peer leaders with attentive listening and group facilitation skills
• What structures do we have and need to support collaboration in our community? How to build further partnerships?
• How to engage parents in the culture of our school?

This is the second post about how to develop a curriculum review system in one’s school. It deals with answering questions about the culture of one’s school and how folks deal with change. Just as the first post on the big picture, these are questions for members of the community to work through before they begin designing their system.

1) How does your school make decisions?

2) Who is involved?

3) How does your school handle change?

4) What are strengths and weaknesses of your school culture?

5) How can you build on the strengths in (re)designing your system for curriculum creation and review?

6) How can you overcome or lessen the weaknesses?

7) How do your administrators and teachers value the curriculum in the grand scheme of things?

Where are you with your teaming and collaboration at grade levels and departments?

9) What is the level of trust in your teams?

10) How ready are they to divide up the units to be developed or reviewed by just a few team members?

11) What other questions (and answers) come to mind?