Transformative Curriculum Chapter 3
Transformative Curriculum Design and Planning

What are Curriculum Design and Planning?

Curriculum design-- gives teachers and others an image of the curriculum to be developed, much like an architect gives clients a drawing of the house to be built for them.

A curriculum design guides teachers' and students' classroom curriculum planning.
Transformative curriculum designs support both the 3S scaffolding of transformative education and the 5C scaffolding of transformative teaching.

Purposes of a curriculum design:

  1. To guide classroom curriculum planning
  2. To guide the development of plans for student assessment
  3. To inform the community, board of education, and all professionals what is worth learning and what teaching approaches are congruent with that learning

Three basic parts of curriculum design:

  1. A platform that sets out the general aims of student learning and the central assumptions about the teaching-learning relationship
  2. An overall vision of the relationships and flow of content, organizers, materials, forms of student engagement, key characteristics of the classroom, and scenarios of possible learning activities
  3. An overview of what is to be assessed, alternative forms of assessment that might be used, how the assessment will take place, influence further classroom planning, and inform others.

Curriculum designs may encompass all aspects of a school's education program or focus on a particular subject area.

Design is not a prescription for what teachers do.

Transformative curriculum designs assume that teachers and community members are capable of reflecting on and interpreting the design.

Teachers engage their students in curriculum planning by posing legitimate questions about organizing centers, activities, assessment strategies, and time frames that students can bring their experiences as students and learners to.

The Mainstream Approach-  Curriculum is designed according to state-provided textbooks, goals, and objectives (one-size-fits-all)

The mainstream approach classroom planning involves four specific tasks:

  1. Identifying objectives
  2. Selecting learning activities and materials
  3. Organizing learning materials over time
  4. Evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum

The Transformative Approach-  Assumptions about learners, learning, knowing, and teaching are directly related to the 3S scaffolding of transformative education.

When designing and planning curriculum, stakeholders consider these four interrelated steps:

  1. Deliberating about a school-based curriculum platform
  2. Rendering an overall vision of the curriculum
  3. Assessing student learning
  4. Planning the curriculum in the classroom

The Process of Designing and Planning Transformative Curriculum

Before you begin designing and planning curriculum familiarize yourself with your national and state curriculum standards, the use of various types of organizing centers, the process of curriculum mapping, and storytelling as a tool for sharing insights.

Organizing Centers-  Centers are the materials used.  Centers attract students' attention and hold it long enough to engage them in the ideas or perspectives of the content.

Curriculum Mapping-  a framework for systematically examining the relations among several elements:

  1. What students do with content and materials for what length of time in a typical classroom
  2. Goals and objectives
  3. Student outcomes at the end of a unit or course

Key Questions and Suggestions

What should be involved in designing the curriculum?
What does a curriculum design committee do?
Collecting and analyzing narrative and observational data
Examining standards and projections for the future
Constructing a platform and developing a vision
Creating a plan for assessment
Conducting community forums about the curriculum design
What is involved in planning curriculum?
Dealing with conflicting perspectives
Planning holistically
Talking about curriculum

Questions:

  1. Should a curriculum plan be detailed and include assessment?

According to this chapter assessment should be included and the curriculum plan should be very detailed; does this not "go against" the constructionist (the student decides what the content to learn is) view?

  1. Should (or should not) we use a detailed curriculum?

This chapter indicates that a curriculum guide is good and should even be fairly detailed but also indicates that curriculum is not a prescription for what to do.  What is it's function???

  1. What is storytelling?

Telling stories of experiences that can lead to greater understandings???

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Notes taken from:

Henderson, J.G. & Hawthorne, R. D. (2000). Transformative curriculum leadership (2nd). Upper Saddle River: Merrill.