Curriculum audits and design criteria

When you are designing curriculum and your units of study where does one begin? Do you think about creating exciting and engaging experiences for youth? Do you start thinking about how I will cover my "content" through the newly released Common Core Standards? Or do you begin thinking about how and why you will teach your unit in alignment with what you have already covered so far this year? If you answered, "all of them," then most likely you are experienced and passionate educator with so many more questions waiting to be answered when designing your unit of study. For one to design effective units, I suggest first conducting a power and needs analysis for your unit. What strengths and areas for growth do I believe need to be addressed for not only my students but also for me as a teacher (i.e., facilitator of learning) as well as the community at large (this is particularly relevant for urban communities who tend to be typically disconnected from the youth inside the school walls)? Who are my students and how do they learn best? What are my long-term goals and how can I begin to design with the "end in mind?" Rather, than think about unit design as a linear process that evolves from straightforward thinking, I encourage teachers and school leaders to "toggle" between several parts of the process. For instance, when designing an authentic performance task, I asked educators to create an entry document that clearly spells out the expectations for the transfer, the assessment tool and process (critically important) as well as models and non-models, low-medium-and-exemplary levels of student work and outcomes. Examining the three documents, the entry document, the assessment tool, and three (3) examples of student work simultaneously allow the designer to explore the three for not only alignment but also strengthens the credibility and reliability of each leading to greater chance of transfer and high quality work. To many classrooms fail to rely on the age-old method of apprenticeship, of taking this idea about modeling, and a gradual release method of instruction (with plenty of exemplars of both outcomes and process) to encourage multiple modes of thinking and acceptable end results; not only are these documents critical for developing greater understanding and increasing opportunities for transfer but we create spaces in our classroom for greater exploration rather than simply arriving at the correct answer. In this way, we create equitable classrooms and the differentiation simply a naturally occurring element of sound instructional practice and effective planning. Additionally, these documents, the entry document, the assessment tool (both process and product) and student exemplars need concrete class time which allow students to become familiar with the expected outcomes and required tasks. Facilitators can begin to ask questions that can include: Do you understand what is being asked of you and why? What challenges do you expect as you do this work? What concerns you as you begin to explore the entry document, rubric and student samples? Which exemplars do you believe are the ones which received the highest marks? Why? Taking class-time to provide substantive dialogue, perhaps, even creating all these documents as drafts and having students constructively criticize the three, could create greater ownership of the teaching and learning process not to mention empower youth to feel that there are not depositories of knowledge but active participants in the relationship to knowledge.

Jumping through the hoops

How do we best ensure that we design courses in higher education that truly prepare future educators for the real challenges of the classroom? What can we do as professors or as reformers that best prepare potential teachers to be engaged with the content in our courses so that they are not just "jumping through hoops" to complete program requirements and to check one-course off their list? The answer may lie in simply thinking about how we would like to learn: in a highly engaging and relevant manner that speaks both to the heart and mind of teaching and learning.

Now, if this sounds vague thats probably because it is. Teaching to the heart and mind of a teacher can be both unclear, given the range of opinions on what "good teaching is" and often challenging because even within the profession we have different measurements that range from portfolio assessment to posting teaching ratings based on students ability on high-stakes test scores, which is happening as we speak in New York City. However, if we really dig a bit deeper and consider this: we are in the business of shaping both the hearts and minds of young men in our classroom and if we as so called gatekeepers of the profession do not explore what changing hearts and minds entails that we have truly missed the mark in terms of preparing future practioners. If we have the opportunity to design a course where teachers can learn reading and writing strategies in science and math areas, then lets really make an impact when we collect student work, and reflect upon our practice. Can we truly take a clear look inside of ourselves and be critical of our own practice or is this too much to ask? By taking a closer look at our hearts, our passions, our own fears, our own ability to identify those areas that we have the best opportunity to demonstrate growth, then and only then can we do better by our students. To simply our conversation around great teachers is certainly notable, but what about emerging greatness or those future educators who just need extra inspiration, motivating and skill building to reach higher ground.

Its notable that physicians and surgeons would not imagine entering into an operating room without first performing hundreds of hours of clinical on human subjects. We as patients would not want a physician even examining us in the clinic if he or she had not had exhaustive preparation for diagnosing everything from the common cold to pneumonia. Then why when perhaps, the most important training of our teachers, who are presented with tomorrows leaders and our future every single day for an entire school year, do not have the opportunity to undergo similar experiences with youth? How can we design coursework that blends both theory and practice so that all of our teachers have both the confidence and competency to succeed to directly impact student achievement? Its our hope in this course, that the opportunity to change both the hearts and the minds through transformational reading and writing experiences in the math and science classrooms, youth will be empowered to see themselves as agents of change, actively engaged rather than empty receptacles ready for a deposit of static and often unretrievable knowledge.