Week #1 Responses
• Blog
post #1—A simple prompt this week to write about your experiences with
curriculum planning and development...in your classroom, school, district, or
beyond. Blog posts aren't necessarily long...so stay in the 2-4 paragraph range
for this first one. (I know you made brief comments in the opening Google Doc
introduction, but give a little more detail here.)
Being
a first year teacher, I had to pleasure of working with a mentor/veteran
teacher to help me get on my feet and keep me somewhat sane. Having this guidance was particularly
useful when looking at the school’s curriculum and figuring what exactly I
needed to cover throughout the course of the year. Being in the Bangor School Department, I was fortunate to
enough to have a curriculum that was “spelled out” and detailed enough so that
I knew the topics or areas I needed to cover, but at the same time, gave me the
flexibility to cover the content in the way I wished to present it to the
students. For example, I received
a science curriculum binder, which highlighted all of the key topics that a
grade 6 student should learn before entering the 7th grade. Under each topic were specific areas
that stayed consistent across the 6 grade science classrooms, such as common
assessments and tests. Other areas
of the curriculum were broad, and less specific, allowing me to bring in labs
or other activities to cover the topics.
Being on a team of 6 other teachers teaching 6th grade, the
curriculum for the grade level was consistent, but the way in which we
presented the information to the students was unique because we all had
different teaching styles.
On
a district wide level, 6th grade teachers got a chance to meet with
5th grade teachers at the end of the school year to discuss a
variety of topics in relation to curriculum. All teachers got a chance to share where the finished as far
as content to help plan out the beginning of the next school year. We also discussed the diversity of
students within the classroom and how this affected the pace of the content
covered throughout the course of the year. Within the middle school, teachers are meeting both with
team members and outside of the grade level quite frequently. I can recall a number of times this past
year where I met with 7th and 8th grade science teachers
to make sure I was not covering the same content, labs, or activities that
students would see in future years at the middle school.
Teacher
in-service days gave teachers a chance to get together to plan, discuss, and improve
curriculum across the content areas.
As teachers, we were able to analyze new standards, both state (Common
Core) and nation wide (Next Generation Science Standards), to see how and if
they would align with our current curriculum. After looking at these standards, decisions were made to
keep specific aspects in the curriculum and tweak other parts of the curriculum
to meet the new regulations. After
identifying parts of the curriculum that needed changing, teachers in different
grade levels formed a committee where they focused on what needed changes is
the curriculum and how they could improve the current curriculum. Making
changes to the curriculum seemed like a diplomatic processes that involved a
number of teachers spanning across grades and content areas. In accordance to the reading, I agree
that the curriculum needs to be up to speed and pertinent to what the students
are experiencing on a daily basis.
• Blog
post #2—You are on your own with this one...perhaps respond to something you
read this week and haven't had a chance to comment anywhere else.
One
of my brothers teaches 3rd grade in a school district that has
recently transitioned to mass customized learning. There has been lots of news and opinions in the local news
papers surrounding the current switch.
It seems to me that there are many mixed feelings about the change. Furthermore, it appears that teachers
and community members are not pleased with the direction the school system is
heading with the new tools based on mastery and proficiency of standards. I do not know enough about mass customized learning to have a
legitimate opinion, but I find it somewhat unsettling that a school system
could make such a huge change with what seems to be very little teacher
input. In relation to this week’s
readings, changes to curriculum are recommended to be gradual. Keeping curriculum changes gradual, and
at the same time, keeping the curriculum current seems to be a struggle. What classifies a “curriculum shift” as
a change that is too much, too soon?
