Guide To Curriculum Planning

A Teacher’s Guide to Curriculum Design for Gifted and Advanced Learners provides educators with models and strategies they can easily use to create appropriately complex differentiated lessons, questions, tasks, and projects. This must-have resource for both gifted and regular education teachers: Includes specific thinking models for teaching English language arts, social studies, and STEM. Is ideal for teachers who are looking for ways to differentiate and design lessons for their highest achieving students. Provides multiple examples of how to embed complexity within standards-based lessons. Highlights units and models from Vanderbilt University's Programs for Talented Youth curriculum. Helps teachers provide the necessary challenge for advanced learners to thrive. The models have been vetted by content experts in the relevant disciplines and were designed to guide students to develop expertise within a discipline. Definitions of widely used terms, such as depth, complexity, and abstractness, are explained and linked to models within specific content areas to support common understanding and application of schoolwide differentiation strategies.

"With imagination and serious reflection, the author has generated a detailed resource with exercises, worksheets, staff development activities, and sample maps to assist any staff developer or curriculum designer. This book particularly connects to those who are at the beginning levels of their mapping journey." —From the Foreword by Heidi Hayes Jacobs A step-by-step guide to successful curriculum mapping initiatives! While curriculum mapping is recognized as a highly effective method for serving students′ ongoing instructional needs and creating systemic change, the means for putting this data-based decision-making process into practice may not always be clearly understood. This in-depth resource speaks to teachers and administrators with varying levels of curriculum-mapping experience and describes how teacher groups drive the process by engaging in collaborative inquiry as they review one another′s curriculums for gaps, redundancies, and new learning. The collected data assist in designing month-to-month instructional plans for all grade levels and subjects, resulting in a curriculum that is coherent, consistent, and aligned with standards. Drawing on her experience in working with thousands of educators across the country, Janet A. Hale offers specific steps for coordinating and sustaining strong mapping efforts that become embedded in school culture. The author explores the stages of contemplating, planning, and implementing a curriculum mapping initiative and helps the reader examine critical components that affect a learning organization′s progress through each phase. The book presents powerful tools and features that significantly enhance curriculum mapping efforts: Samples of four types of curriculum maps—Diary, Projected, Consensus, and Essential Guidelines for deciding what type of map to use to begin the process Assistance for selecting a Web-based mapping system Reflective questions at the end of each chapter A complete glossary of terms A Guide to Curriculum Mapping includes extended coverage of the challenges of curriculum mapping, offers encouragement and advice from educators who have successfully implemented a mapping initiative, and provides the necessary clarity to put curriculum mapping into action.

Curriculum and curriculum issues are at the heart of current debates about schooling, pedagogy and learning. This book will enable practitioners, scholars and academics to understand how to re-design or to suggest changes to curriculum structure, shape and content. Grounded in theory and philosophy, the book also offers practical help in grasping this controversial area. Inside, the authors: provide practical planning templates support and provoke analysis, discussion and experimentation include definitions of key terms and reflective questions incorporate practical examples and case material based on their work worldwide on curriculum design and evaluation.

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

This book, the second in the Perspectives on Higher Education series, brings together a number of insights into a key area of higher education: curriculum planning, design, and implementation. This book is designed to provide educators with the knowledge and skills needed to design, develop, and evaluate university curricula, programmes, and courses. It is aimed at those involved in programme development and delivery at many levels, from the most experienced administrator or senior professor through to the new teacher.In this manner, beginning from the initial steps of curriculum design all the way through to quality assurance and how to evaluate whether your curriculum has met its intended aims, this book is intended to be a short and easy-to-reference guide for educators at all levels.

Get all the tools your after-school program needs for a well-balanced program. This resource provides an overview of learning and child development; offers tips and tools for selecting, planning, developing and evaluating after-school activities; and demonstrates how to link these activities to sample learning and quality standards. The book also introduces the reader to curriculum resources focusing on seven key learning areas believed to be central to comprehensive, high-quality, after-school programs.