Journal 1

Stephanie Peterson ED 6 023

R eflections Journal 3/11/15 – Class Discussion What is curriculum? •
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The tools utilized to develop desired skills for students. What teacher’s teach and what student’s learn. The road map to a desired destination. Units and lessons that teachers teach.

What does quality instruction look like? •
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Relationship building Active involvement / Modeling Connections to prior learning Engagement in lessons Accessibility

Although these positive statements reverberate and align with many of my professional and personal beliefs of what education should represent, I am also realistic about an “all to real” issue that is plaguing our profession. This issue is the lack of teacher autonomy and the adverse effect it has on both curriculum and quality instruction. It is my belief that a strict canned or prepackaged curricula seems to undermine and hamper the teachers’ ability to provide a curriculum that is both relevant and fresh. Today’s students are demonstrating new ways of exploring and absorbing vital information. Therefore, in today’s classroom, it is crucial that curriculum is adjustable and designed to meet the individual needs of the students that the teacher is entrusted to teach.

Technology has replaced many of the traditional avenues of information gathering. Today’s students have access to many more tools than what was available to past generations of learners. These tools are providing an increased pace of relevant learning and expanding the students opportunities, while creating new challenges for instruction. Often canned or prepackaged curricula with preset criteria strive to embody both rigor and relevance, but in todays’ classroom a multitude of different learning styles and varying levels of understanding can be present at any given time. Rigor and relevance for some students undoubtedly represents the knowledge gap of other students. Therefore, it is the teachers' duty and responsibility to gauge the individual students understanding of information, and solidify both the pace of learning and depth of understanding. It is my view that the lack of teacher autonomy today paves the way for unreasonable micromanaging of teaching strategies. This often creates a task matter for teachers versus an in-­‐depth journey of increasing knowledge and understanding for students, resulting in an overall adverse effect on quality instruction. In an online article: Defining Curriculum, the writers’ view that was expressed also mirrors my own views.

Curriculum, it turns out, is indeed much more than the idea of specific subjects as represented by the trivium or the quadrivium. And, it can be characterized not only by what it does include but also by what it intentionally excludes. A key concept to keep in mind is that the curriculum is only that part of the plan that directly affects students.

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Stephanie Peterson Reflections Journal

C lass R eading

Educational Leadership: The challenge of College Readiness Research suggests that one of the major reasons that students falter in college is the gap between their high school experiences and college expectations. Many first-­‐year students find that their college courses are fundamentally different than their high school courses. College instructors expect students to draw inferences, interpret results, analyze conflicting source documents, support arguments with evidence, and solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, draw conclusions, offer explanations, conduct research and generally think deeply about what they are being taught. College courses also move at a faster pace, often requiring students to read eight or nine books in the same amount of time that it took them to read only one in high school. This research highlights a frightening trend for students as they enter into higher education. Often times what we feel is relevant during high school, middle school and elementary, tends to prove that it is irrelevant towards the higher education experience, nor is it proven applicable to the necessary needs of the community workforce. I agree with the article in the fact that the development of college readiness standards is the first step towards ensuring that the content and grading in high school courses are in sync with the post-­‐secondary experience. It is my belief that raising the standards will, in turn, benefit those students whom are not seeking the post secondary experience and by providing a more enriched and in-­‐depth curriculum opportunity. The increased level of both relevance and rigor will allow all students to be more evenly prepared for the wide variety of educational and workforce opportunities that they may take on in their future. Three Curricula (1979) •

School culture contributions to competition: In many ways the school is reflective of the community culture. Schools should seek to improve the focus on the values, beliefs, and norms for both the school community and the community outside of the school. Social viewpoints, political situations and cultural circumstances influence the curriculum that is taught in schools. The courses taught in schools ultimately influence the kind of options one is able to consider, and the alternatives one can examine an issue from.

Curriculum can expand or limit the perspective with which one can view a situation from, eventually guiding and shaping the community at large.

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Explicit – Traditional Teaching / this type of curriculum is what appears in documents and teachers' plans.

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Implicit – The teacher is of central importance. Teaching where the message that is being learned by students is that the teacher is in control, including being the knowledge authority, and is the center of attention.

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Null – What is internally left out of curriculum / Not teaching some particular idea or sets of ideas may be due to mandates from higher authorities, to a teacher’s lack of knowledge, or to deeply ingrained assumptions and biases.

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Explicit Goals of education: instruction that clearly outlines what the learning goals are for the students and offer clear, unambiguous explanations of the skills and information structures they are presenting.

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Initiative vs. Compliance – responsibility vs. accountability / compliance = grades Page 2 of 2