Aug 27 - Week 2 - Meeting 4: Curriculum Design

 

 I

 Unit: Curriculum

Theme: Curriculum Design


Introduction

 

 Allow me to introduce you to Doug Neill, a curriculum designer who has decided to share publicly his creative process when designing a curriculum. He emphasizes defining and understanding his audience in order to create an empathy map in order to build something useful for them. Based on this, the course material will be not only more meaningful to students, but transforming, consistent and relevant.

 

II

 

Learning Objectives 


III

 

Main Lesson 

 

 1

Based on the ending statements of video "The American Curriculum (Part 2), In the 1970s, the implementation of the SATs resulted in going back to the basics.

 

 The Curriculum Wars by Tom Loveless

 https://www.hoover.org/research/curriculum-wars

 

2


Curriculum Design Part 1: The High-Level Planning (9:17)

Part 1 of 4 episodes on Curriculum Design in Doug Neill’s “Verbal to Visual” series.

Part 1 explores the questions that must be considered prior to detailed curriculum planning: Who’s your audience? What is the transformation sought? What is the mode of this curriculum? Using his own thinking about the “Verbal to Visual” series, Neill models how answers to these questions shape curriculum design.

 

 (1:58 - 8:24)

 The Verbal to Visual Classroom (Adapting it to the Moving Body)

Pieces to Have in Place Before Designing the Curriculum

1.  Understand who is your audience and what sort of situation they are currently in, who your students are and where they are in their particular stage of development.

2. What is the transformation that those students (your audience) will go through as a result of engaging with this curriculum you are designing.

3. What is the container for this curriculum (are writing a book?; are you teaching in a high school semester long class? are you producing a set of online videos? Thus, understand the container or context surrounding the learning experience.

 

 Question 1

1. When planning on writing your own  curriculum:

Who’s your audience? 

What is the transformation sought? 

What is the mode of this curriculum? 

 

2

Curriculum Design Part 2: The Clothesline Method (6:59)

Part 2 of 4 episodes on Curriculum Design in Doug Neill’s “Verbal to Visual” series. 

Part 2 shows how Steven Pressman’s “Clothesline Method” can be used to sequence and plan learning activities to effect transformation and support curriculum goals. Neal emphasizes the creative potential and inherent flexibility of this method.

 

(0:30 - 4:29)

Curriculum Desing / Part 2: The Clothsline Method 

Step 1

a. Where students art at

b. Transformation

c.Where you want them to end

Step 2

a. Add some depth (details) to each unit (explain what will happen in each of them).

b. Fell free to move ideas around

c. Plan the mechanics of the course


Question 2

 

2. In which way is Neill's method creative?

 

3


Curriculum Design Part 3: Producing The Material

Part 3 of 4 episodes on Curriculum Design in Doug Neal’s “Verbal to Visual” series.

Part 3 details a visual note-taking technique for creating course materials based on “empathy maps” of  students and their learning needs.



(0:40 - 2:11)

 

 

Producing the Learning Materials

 

Creating the empathy map

 

 

 Question 3

 

 3. Why are empathy maps important to develop the curriculum?

 

4

 

Curriculum Design Part 4: Iterate Over Time (8:36)

Part 4 of 4 episodes on Curriculum Design in Doug Neal’s “Verbal to Visual” series.

Part 4 reflects on how to make effective adjustments and improvements to curriculums over time.


 

 

 

Students gather in groups and discuss the article "Elementary Education." (10 main groups: 1) History of, 2) Colonial Period, 3) Early National Period, 4) Public Schools, 5 & 6) The Common School, 7) African American, Native American & Non-Public, 8) Goals, 9) Curriculum & Organization, 10) Standards


Question 4


4. Why are adjustments and improvements to the curriculum necessary?

 

IV

A Note to Remember

 The curriculum has to reflect the mores, values and principles of the community for which it is developed. The “Clothesline Method” can be used to sequence and plan learning activities to effect transformation and support curriculum goals. One way of putting this into practice is by creating empathy maps, which allow us to know our students' needs. Since the curriculum is a living document, improvements and adjustments should be made to make it current.


V

Case Study

 

 Collaboration Days for Curriculum Design



 

VII

Discussion Questions

 

1. When planning on writing your own  curriculum:

Who’s your audience? 

What is the transformation sought? 

What is the mode of this curriculum? 

2. In which way is Neal's method creative?

3. Why are empathy maps important to develop the curriculum? 

4. Why are adjustments and improvements to the curriculum necessary?

 

VIII

Activity

 

 Share your work with the rest of the class. Create your group portfolio and create your first post.


IX

Journaling

 

X

Glossary

 

mores 

empathy maps


 

XI


Sources

 

Elementary Education  

https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1950/Elementary-Education.html

 

XII

 

Students' Work 

------------------


Competency Based Curriculum 

 https://www2.dadeschools.net/students/cbc/index.asp

Dance

Curriculum

Who is your audience? 


What is the transformation sought? 


What units do we want the students to learn? 



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