Task 1 Curriculum Design

Why do we need to consider curriculum?

Curriculum is a blueprint for learning. It can be considered a map for how to achieve desired student performance by suggesting appropriate learning activities and assessments to achieve the desired results from our students. Curriculum can also be considered a designed course specifing what the student should achieve, needs to achieve, and what the teacher needs to do to achieve the results sought from the students. It is our outline for teaching appropriate lessons to our students.

What model of curriculum fits my current role? What model are you attracted to? What would be my preference?

In Wraga's article, Toward a Connected Core Curriculum, I connected the most with integrative core curriculum. In this curriculum, subject matter is combined with personal and social problems. At the Alternative Center for Education, we work with at-risk students. We need curriculum that allows us to present core knowledge but also connect it with real-life situations. For example, my room consists of all girls ranging from middle to high school students. Teaching social skills in connection with curriculum is a priority for every subject. Communication and social interaction is sometimes taken for granted in a regular school setting. Our students need these skills to be taught, sometimes before we can begin to teach curriculum. Intergrative core curriculum provides students with the opportunities to collaborate with their peers and teachers, with whom they could apply and integrate subject knowledge to analyze common or personal or social problems (p. 93). In our center, we have a smaller classroom setting and we are able to interact directly with each student. As a result, this one-on-one interaction builds the students self-esteem and gives them confidence because they are feeling successful in learning new academic skills.


Wiggins talks about the need for a "modern" curriculum-what could this look like? Do you buy that we need a new approach to curriculum? Why or why not?

As I said above, Integrative Core Curriculum works best for me. I had a difficult time with this article. Maybe I misunderstood it but, the "modern" curriculum seems to me as if this type of curriculum is very confortational. It is OK to challenge what someone says and investigate for yourself but, it seems as if he was asking us to challenge "everything." It would wear me out thinking that much! I don't know, I had a hard time with this one. It didn't seem like it would be "fun" to learn in this curriculum style.