Educational Issues and Curriculum
Brainstorm of current educational issues which involve curriculum.
Choose 4 issues which are a priority in your school. Tell why.
January 10, 2007
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Brainstorm of current educational issues which involve curriculum.
Choose 4 issues which are a priority in your school. Tell why.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
My thoughts on this are that educational issues and curriculum is all the current events rallied around education. I feel that these current events are what causes issues in curriculum. For example standardized tests were put into place to help the state determine student progress. This information has been led to further discussions that teachers are not doing their job educating students effectively. Therefore, in turn will cause some educators to teach to the test to change those test scores.
Honestly, I am confused. Anyway, I think we are talking about the definition of curriculum and I have come to recognize that curriculum is everything that encompasses the “school day”–including fine arts, core subjects, extra curricular (get it, curricular) activities and everything else in between. I love how the book explained that curriculum originally meant “racehoarse.” I love it! I constantly feel like I am racing through the curriculum to complete the “curriculum” or get as much coverage as I can by the end of the year.
I agree with Claudine when she says, “current events are what causes issues in curriculum.” My schools theory is “if it ain’t broke, break it”–just kidding. I believe our curriculum is based around the state standards, because lets face it, we are in big trouble if we don’t meet those standards. Tests are the driving force behind the curriculum. In district 47 the curriculum is definitely “alive.” Okay, I think I lost my soap box. Talk to you all later.
Dana
I think this topic, on the whole, is WAY TOO BIG to adequately discuss here. Issues dealing with curriculum- we compiled a list of around 30 things in about 4 minutes during our last class. To discuss these issues is an exercise in futility because a lot of discussion usually runs in circles and accomplishes nothing. In my school, we have a school leadership team and these teachers work closely with the administration to discuss issues relating to curriculum (textbook adoption, uses of funds, schedules, etc etc etc). Many times, this committee discusses and discusses and discusses and never comes to a concrete solution. My opinion is this: our jobs as teachers is to educate our students to the best of our ability, using the best tools that our school can provide to the students, and working as best we can with all involved in the educational process. Yes, many factors are involved in curriculum construction. I do not mean to belittle this topic. Rather, I am trying to say (in my exhausted current state) that educators need to try to narrow down the problem in order to try to create or find solutions that will best serve our students and the community in which we teach. We all want what is best for our kids, the goal is to work together on solvable problems in order to make decisions that benefit all involved.
Dear Dana,
You are so smart. While I was reading I came across the perfect quote–”Coverage leaves students with no sense of the whole that seems so obvious to the expert–all but few most able students will get lost, and perhaps alienated.” This is so true, well what does one do? I will keep reading to see if I can figure it out.
Dana
Dana,
I think the overall goal is to try to not alienate any students. The teachers should try to deal with current events as best they can in order to deal with the constant change and hopefully these changes will help the students in the long run. It sounds, based on your previous entries, that you are doing well in your efforts to help the students you teach.
ELL, technology, SIP and reading across the curriculum are all topics that are currently on the agenda at my school. They are all related to curriculum, but in slightly different ways.
Current issues effect everything in my school. Social issues impact most students on a daily basis. It is difficult to focus on an acedemic curriculum when you’ve had nothing to eat or you have no place to sleep. Our school has to take social issues into consideration….
… is there any place where the school should draw the line when it comes to social issues? thoughts?
Now that I am “with” it I am able to answer the above question. The four issues that are a priority in my school would have to be–reading strategies, block scheduling, reading across the curriculum, and the Illinois State Standards.
Common assessment, testing, and NCLB are all issues that are arising in my school. Common assessment and testing seem to be the biggest concerns. Our school is mostly focusing on developing a curriculum that is the same across all the schools in the district and a curriculum that also teaches students strategies for taking major tests such as the ACT. They don’t want us to necessarily change the content but to incorporate strategies that they will need to do well on those tests. This is especially true in the science part of the ACT. The science ACT sections does not test students knowledge about science but their ability to intrepret and analyze data presented to them.
The four issues that appear to be priority of our school would be: map testing, which we discussed today at a faculty meeting. Peer reviews and mentoring, which all first and second year teachers in the district are required to be part of (which I finished last night! Yippee! Guided Reading, where 3rd and 4th grade teachers are being “encouraged” to participate in gradually (whatever that means). Do they really have to put “new” teachers through such “a waste of a time?”
Issues that impact curriculum that are a priority in my school:
Reading strategies - We had an inservice about “Strategies that Work” All disciplines are to integrate this into teaching. For our institute day tomorrow, each discipline is presenting an example of how a strategy is used with the content. We have also been asked to use these strategies in conjuction with peer observations.
Overcrowding- This impacts curriculum in that we have many teachers on carts and room sharing. This makes it more difficult to do some of the more creative and spontaneous lessons. Materials are not always handy, need to plan ahead to make sure everything is on the cart or out of the room if you need to leave to lesson plan, etc…
Professional Learning Communities- Each week we have grade level meetings by discipline. Every other week we meet across grade level. We have been able to have discussions about specific concepts and the way they are taught in each grade level.
MAP testing- These tests are designed to help inform teaching. There is immediate feedback as to how are students did and in which areas they may be defecient. It also ties up all the computers in the building for 2 full weeks each testing cycle. This is an impact for curriculum that is technology related.
Incorporating strategies and skills that all students should be able to learn are noteworthy goals. however, it seems to me that some school districts are manipulating the concept of curriculum to create a robot workforce that will be teaching the same exact lessons at the same time everywhere in the district. Conformity can be beneficial but also dangerous to the teachers individual creativity.
Joe,
I cannot agree with you more! Through our curriculum roadmapping they are pushing that ALL kindergarten teachers be doing the same thing and ALL classrooms should look the same. I am not a cookie cutter and NEVER will be. I have always been noted for my creativity and imagination in the classroom. The last thing I am going to do is start to CONFORM to what everyone else is doing. How does that even make me a good teacher??? I don’t follow anyones lead and never will! So there!