Curriculum At Your Core - Meaningful Teaching in the Age of Standards

Curriculum at Your Core is a practical guide to designing curriculum that meets standards, serves personal and institutional values, and intentionally leads to successful student learning.

List of contents

Curriculum at Your Core: Meaningful Teaching in the Age of Standards
Preface: The Values That Guided This Book
Acknowledgments: The Evolution of a Values-Congruent Book
Introduction: Why Values?
·Curriculum That Serves Multiple Sets of Values
·A Place at the Table: Your Values and the Standards
·Using This Book
Chapter 1: Clarifying the Values that Guide Your Teaching
oWhy Values?
oWhat Values Are (and Aren't)
oA Place at the Table: Your Values and the Standards
oClarifying Your Values as a Teacher
oMaking Values Statements
oRendering Values from Academic Documents
oAvoiding Your Values
oBarriers to Teaching By Your Values
§Getting Stuck in Self-Limiting Beliefs
§Avoiding Uncomfortable Feelings
§Disregarding What Matters Most
§External Factors
oJust Noticing
Chapter 2: Designing Curriculum Using Multiple Sets of Values
·Teachers' Values vs. Students' Values
·Learning What Your Students Value
·Teachers' Values vs. Other Teachers' Values
·Values Clarification for Groups
·Teachers' Values vs. Institutional Values
·Working with Institutional Values
·Accounting for Multiple Sets of Values
Chapter 3: Using Values to Focus Units
·The Unity of a Unit
·Ringmasters and Drovers
·Making Titles Matter
·Essential or Valued?
·What Essential Questions Sound Like
·From Values to Essential Questions
Chapter 4: Organizing Lessons in a Values-Congruent Unit
oGathering
oChoosing What to Include -- and What to Let Go
oBeginning a Unit with What's Familiar
oIntroducing New Material
oChoosing Instructional Methods
oCreating Meaningful Contexts for Student Work
§Projects
§Cycles of Instruction, Practice, and Application
oRegularly Returning to What Matters
oUsing the Calendar
oMaking a Lesson Calendar
oMaking Adjustments
Chapter 5: Values-Congruent Assessments
oKinds of Assessment Tasks
o"Values-Dense" Assessments
oStudents Choosing How They're Assessed
oWhen and How Often to Give Assessments
oHelping Students Reach Outcomes You Value
§Provide Multiple Models of Excellent Work for Students to Analyze
§Teach All the Skills Students Need to Do Well
§Allow Class Time for Students to Reach Your Expected Level of Quality
§Modify Assignments to Fit Students' Needs
oWriting Assignment Guidelines
§Consider What to Define and What to Leave Open-Ended
§Set Yourself Up to Give Values-Congruent Grades
§Copy Valued Expectations from Assignment to Assignment
§Look for the Impact of Unintended Bias
oProject-Based Assessments and Values
oAdjusting Some More
Chapter 6: Aligning a Unit
oA Values-Aligned Unit
oResistance to Alignment
oGetting Aligned
oCommon Problems in Aligning a Unit
§Problem: When the Lessons and Assessment Don't Match the Essential Question
§Problem: When the Teacher Values Knowledge or Skills but Doesn't Explicitly Teach Them
§Problem: When the Assessment Task Measures What's Easy to Measure Instead of the Valued Understandings
§Problem: When Teachers Assume Students Will Construct Valued Understandings for Themselves
§Problem: When the Essential Question Seems So Important That the Unit Goes On Too Long
oAssessing Your Unit
Chapter 7: Designing a Values-Congruent Course
oCourses as Heaps
oOngoing Strands
oCourse-Level Essential Questions
oDesigning a Meaningful Assessment Mix
oMore Factors in Creating an Assessment Mix
§Media
§Group Size
§Locations
§Stakes
oCharting an Assessment Mix
oSequencing Your Course
§Creating Balance Between Competing Values
§Building On Students' Existing Knowledge and Skill Sets
§Creating a Progression of Ideas
§Upcycling Student Work
oThinking Flexibly About Sequence
oAssessing Your Course
Chapter 8: Optimizing Your Students' Experience
oGaps in the Curriculum
oMaking a Values Map of a Program
oRepetitions in the Curriculum
oOptimizing the Curriculum
oProgrammatic Assessment Mixes
oRemoving Barriers to Optimizing the Curriculum
oValues Conflicts
oIntegrating Diverse Values
§Writing Programmatic Essential Questions
§Mapping Values in the Program
§Seeking Multiple Valued Practices
Chapter 9: Connecting Disciplines Using Values
oFinding Connections
oWhen Good Cross-Disciplinary Efforts Go Bad
oCross-Disciplinary Essential Questions
oUsing Cross-Disciplinary Essential Questions
oOverly Broad Essential Questions
oTwo Kinds of Cross-Disciplinary Units
oOrganizing a Multi-Class Unit
§Begin with a Shared Experience
§Create a Multi-Class Project
§Refer Frequently to the Essential Question
§Make an Adjustable Unit Calendar
oMulti-Class Assessments
oGetting Colleagues Interested
oOvercoming Logistical Barriers
oGoing for It
Chapter 10: Increasing Values Congruence Over Time
·The Evolution of a Values-Congruent Unit
·Unintended Consequences
·Shifting Priorities
·Changing Times
·Action Research
·Critical Friends Groups
·Values-Congruent Professional Development
·Setting Goals
·Specific
·Meaningful
·Active
·Realistic
·Time-Limited
·The Teacher You Want to Be
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Lauren Porosoff has been a teacher for 14 years, has served as a diversity coordinator and a grade-level team leader, and has led a school-wide curriculum mapping initiative. She regularly supports teachers and administrators in crafting assignments, designing curriculum review processes, and planning professional development.

Summary

Curriculum at Your Core is a practical guide to designing curriculum that meets standards, serves personal and institutional values, and intentionally leads to successful student learning.

Product details

• Authors: Lauren Porosoff, Porosoff Lauren
• Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 10.09.2014
• EAN: 9781475813111
• ISBN: 978-1-4758-1311-1
• No. of pages: 139
• Subjects: Education and learning > Adult education/adult education classes > Adult education class / course materials (language); Humanities, art, music > Education > Education system; EDUCATION / Curricula, Curriculum planning & development, Curriculum planning and development, Common core;Teaching standards