Cycle Two: How Should a Curriculum Be Created? How Should Its Success Be Evaluated?

“Cycle Two: How Should a Curriculum Be Created? How Should Its Success Be Evaluated?”

These questions pack a lot of punch and there are so many schools (pun intended) of thought regarding these questions; thus they are very difficult to grapple with, let alone answer. I’ll start off by saying that an effective curriculum should be one in which students work at a pace appropriate for their learning while being assessed in a performance-based way. That being said, a successful curriculum would also hold all students to a high standard of academic rigor; however, the means by which students achieve said rigor might be different. I came to these initial (and I say initial because they are such difficult questions to discuss) answers through synthesizing our readings for the week.

Salman Kahn’s TEDTalk was incredibly inspirational and really helped lead me to my view that students must have the freedom to work at their own pace in order for a curriculum to be successful. He made two analogies that made complete and utter sense. One, he said that the way in which current schools operate in the sense that after the test, the class moves on, is analogous to giving a unicycle to a child who is already struggling to make turns on a regular bicycle. Two, he also mentioned that sometimes “good” students’ understanding of concepts become like “swiss cheese” when skills and concepts are not completely mastered prior to moving on. As an English teacher, this use of analogy really helped me to understand his essential argument for the videos, a flipped classroom, student self-pacing, and the importance of mastery in education. This video pertains mostly to grading practices but has some telling images and words directly from students about “needing more time” or just “needing another chance” that really remind me of the Khan academy principles.

The next criteria I pointed out as imperative for a successful curriculum involves the use of performance based tasks, and I’ll preface this statement by saying that it might sound snobby, or perhaps elitist; but here it goes--I’ve never thought of music or arts teachers as cutting edge in the realm of curriculum or assessment. In fact when my friend and colleague, a former art teacher at my school, took a position as an instructional coach, I was nearly dumbfounded. That being said, Leslie Siskin’s (2009) chapter truly opened my eyes to the fact that many arts courses are performance based, and always have been. In that sense, I think about the efforts my school has made to move toward a more skill-based curriculum, one in which students need to demonstrate mastery of a concept through performance of a task before moving on.  Throughout the past few years, we have strived to move toward a proficiency based model versus a strictly credit bearing system.

We partner with Move on When Ready (MOWR) and the Center for the Future of Arizona (CFA) to provide our students with the Cambridge Curriculum I’ve discussed in previous posts. Through using these systems it is our hope that students will graduate when they are ready (potentially at the end of their tenth grade year) after passing a series of examinations. Together, teachers and students determine “readiness” in the four core subject areas plus Fine Art and Spanish. Students at my campus may take these exams as many times as they need to in order to demonstrate proficiency. Additionally, their courses are not dictated based on their “grade status” (ie sophomore, junior, etc). Students are enrolled in courses based on their need. For instance, freshman last year took biology; however, a certain number of students were not yet ready for the Cambridge Biology exam. These students will be enrolled in biology again this term in order to help better prepare them for the end of course exam. Similarly to Kahn Academy’s student-driven-pace, I hope that this model my school began implementing is similar to what Eisner (2009) meant when described good schools “increasing variance in student performance.”

Additionally, it’s worth noting that the Cambridge exams I mentioned earlier are phenomenal. I might ruffle a few feathers by saying this, but if teaching to the test is wrong, then I don’t want to be right (when it comes to the Cambridge exams). For example, the First Language English exam, taken at the end of the course, focuses on reading comprehension through asking students to perform written tasks. After reading both a fiction and non-fiction passage, students construct a directed writing response (often a letter, journal, newspaper article, etc) that responds to a prompt in order to demonstrate comprehension of the passage (which is usually very British). Next, students are asked to analyze the writer’s use of language by choosing a total of eight quotations from the passage to discuss writer’s effects. Lastly, students construct an objective summary of the non-fiction piece. Did I mention that students do this in two hours time? While this test is technically a “standardized” test taken by students all over the world, a great deal of data can be gleaned from it. Not to mention, the number of skills that students demonstrate through performing the tasks on the exam are innumerable. Thinking about the exams, plus the fact that students can move through the curriculum at their pace helps solidify my school’s choice to adopt the program.

In tandem with MOWR and the CFA initiative, as a staff we have made strides to move toward a proficiency-based model in our classrooms. Students are offered unlimited re-dos and re-takes on tests and other assignments; the only caveat being that they attend teacher office hours for re-teach. These school policies are rooted in the same notions that Salman Kahn discussed when he talked about students working at different paces, or perhaps taking longer to master one concept, then mastering it, and flying through everything else at an increased rate of performance. Furthermore, as a campus we have also developed some “common elements” as Tyler (1949) would describe them. These elements include a specific way to teach students summary writing in all courses that aligns with Cambridge. To me, these ideas also resonate with Siskin (2009) and the notion that currently many students finish high school without high standards and that high standards must be established for all students within a school, not just some. I wholeheartedly agree with this and would argue that my school is well on its way toward achieving this through our partnership with MOWR and Cambridge. We’ve ensured that students are held to the same standard; however, timing can be different based on different student’s needs.

In my discussion of curriculum, Cambridge, and Kahn Academy, I still seem to have left out one important aspect about effective curriculum. Here it is, ultimately, curriculum is rooted in the experience of a particular student (Tyler, 1949). These experiences are not the same for any two students in a course. Therefore, schools and teachers must take this into consideration when enacting curriculum. Learning experiences must be diverse enough to “prove satisfying to the students involved” (p. 66).  Here is a pdf of a program called “The Multiple Learning Experiences Model” it is definitely worth taking a look at for more information on some of the ideas brought up by Tyler (1949). It seems to me, as a whole, the "traditional" school in the U.S. today struggles in many ways to meet the needs of students through these varied experiences while also maintaining high standards for all students.

While there are limitations and successes of any developed curriculum, I would argue that success be measured using performance tasks and that students have the opportunity to work at an appropriate pace based on their need. Obviously these criteria not all inclusive; however, they are of utmost importance in my view. This Rick Wormeli article, while focused primarily on Middle School, aligns very well with my philosophically.