At the elementary school level, teachers who think about how-not just what-students learn often notice what cognitive researchers have also shown: Children learn best in a social context that supports them in a web of caring relationships. From the Developmental Studies Center (DSC) in Oakland, California, new curricula in reading and mathematics is available that explicitly links those subjects to
Now a freshman at City College in New York City, Jason was a senior at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx when he wrote the following as part of a “reading autobiography” required for his graduation portfolio. “In class, he looked as if he were never paying attention,” said Nancy Mann, Hamer’s principal, but his reflection revealed
A big issue for me is maintaining a focus while leaving room for the serendipitous. Much of the good teaching I have done has involved seizing the moment and running with it. For example, a student will have had experiences or an insight that I did not anticipate when planning the unit. Something impacting the curriculum will happen in the
What does a year-long “academic literacy” course look like? One example offered by the teachers involved with WestEd’s Strategic Literacy Initiative uses three long units that build on each other, as follows: From September through November, the class focuses on “reading self and society”–finding and exploring written materials that interest each reader while building and reflecting on new skills and
Teachers at the Parker School in Fort Devens, Massachusetts created their own curriculum template, juxtaposing “texts and resources” that describe content area knowledge with “tasks and activities” that elicit key skills they want students to practice: responding to text, creating new work, and performing or demonstrating their understanding. All the year’s projects in every content area reflect the school’s Essential
If curriculum is to reflect the goals of a school and the needs of its students, it makes sense for teachers to develop it them-selves. But how might they do it, and when? And is it better to adopt or adapt materials ‘off the shelf’ or should students and teachers be creating curriculum together? Five math and science teachers are
Much of the “quiet crisis” in adolescent literacy has to do with empowering students to use language critically– seeing it not as a barrier but an entry into a world they can question and shape. As jason sat Through his seventh-grade classes in those days–the room crowded to bursting with New York City students like himself–he learned to tune out
by Carol Lacerenza-Bjork, National Re:Learning Faculty memberAt West Hill High School in Stamford, Connecticut, English teacher Carol Lacerenza-Bjork and her ninth-grade students developed a curriculum that would achieve their objectives by giving more attention to fewer required texts. Here is her account of how that year-long course took shape, as they planned backwards from the outcomes they aimed for: DEFINING
Alexander, Wallace M., with Carr, Dennis, and McAvoy, Kathy, Student-Oriented Curriculum: Asking the Right Questions. National Middle School Association, Columbus, OH: 1995. Brady, Marion, What’s Worth Teaching? Selecting, Organizing, and Integrating Knowledge. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY: 1989. Burns, Rebecca Crawford, Dissolving the Boundaries: Planning for Curriculum Integration in Middle and Secondary Schools. Appalachia Educational Laboratory, Charleston,
How can you tell when someone is a good reader? What do teachers look for when they are trying to understand how well someone reads? Asking students this question helps begin to unpack and demystify the reading process, say researchers from the Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) at WestEd, the federal regional educational laboratory in San Francisco. Not everyone realizes how
The Atlas Communities project has put together a design tool (forthcoming) that suggests using the following categories in planning curriculum: Generative topics . . . * Are developmentally appropriate. * Are broad and complex. * Are interesting to students and teachers. * Are important for understanding responsible citizenship and the disciplines. These criteria can help you make decisions about what
Of course, intellectual learning includes the amassing and retention of information. But information is an undigested burden unless it is understood . . . . And understanding, comprehension, means that the various parts of the information acquired are grasped in their relations to one another result that is attained only when acquisition is accompanied by constant reflection upon the meaning
Cutting things out of the overcrowded curriculum presents our only chance for getting students to go deeper, think harder, push past complacency to the habits of mind Essential schools hold dear. But what goes and what stays? And who decides? PRETTY MUCH EVERYBODY agrees: “Less Is More” is the toughest of the Coalition’s Nine Common Principles to explain and to
When student projects culminate with an artistic performance, says Brown education professor Eileen Landay, they set in motion a “community of practice” that opens students up to learning, as her diagram below shows. As they build skills in repeated rehearsals, she said, they regulate their own behavior; and the feedback they get has an obvious, logical purpose. “It creates a
Roser Gine and her New Mission High School colleagues have experienced the challenges and rewards of designing the mathematics curriculum for their recently founded, small, student-centered school. Based on a 2003 Fall Forum workshop led by Gine and New Mission teacher Stephen Cirasuolo, this article documents New Mission’s process of creating a challenging, meaningful, standards-based mathematics curriculum, offering compelling advice,
Central Park East Secondary School in New York uses these overarching questions to focus attention on habits of mind in every class and every subject: From whose viewpoint are we seeing or reading or hearing? From what angle or perspective? How do we know when we know? What’s the evidence, and how reliable is it? How are things, events, or
Robert P. Moses’ Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights opens a portal in history, connecting Moses’ experiences in the 1960s southern civil rights movement to the current-day Algebra Project, which he established to teach math to middle school students. By putting the historical struggles of blacks to gain voting rights in Mississippi during the 1960s side by side with
Many Essential school secondary teachers have found help for struggling readers in the activity called “reciprocal teaching.” Aimed specifically at improving comprehension in the subject areas, this strategy has teachers and students enter into a dialogue in which they summarize, generate questions, clarify, and predict various things about a segment of text. Teacher and students take turns leading the dialogue,
Technological Resources The Homework Page. Information of value in researching school projects is at http://www. tpoint.net/Users/ jewels//homework.html Global Education Resources. Contact http:// www.clark.net/pub/peace/ OED1.html Kid Lists. Anchors to 82 sites children and their parents might enjoy. Contact http://www.clark.net /pub/journalism/kid.html Awesome Lists. Innovative sites with practical value and professional expertise. Contact http://www.clark.net/ pub/journalism/awe-ie.html Educational Resources. Online resources and projects for students
Mathematical Modeling 1. In Roser Gin?©’s Midlevel and Graduate classes this year, students have used math models and mathematical reasoning to explain the impact of epidemics on the world’s population (vehicle: “Investigating Epidemics Through Mathematics”). The goal of this project was to examine how different epidemics have spread in order to make predictions using identified patterns. Students applied their knowledge
Dan Drmacich at Rochester’s School Without Walls developed the following guidelines for his staff to use in constructing learning experiences. 1. Brainstorm. Teachers and administrators, students, and small groups should list all topics, issues, themes, and problems that students would like to learn about (depending on course flexibility). Don’t limit your brainstorming by eliminating what normally are regarded as irrelevant
“The more you empower kids, the more they can do,” said one Providence actor after working with Rhode Island public school students in the Arts/ Literacy Project, based at Brown University’s education department. The following factors are fundamental to the approach, which links local artists with classroom teachers and students to create performances and boost literacy: Literacy and Performance Objectives.
In his 1992 book Smart Schools: From training memories to Educating Minds, David Perkins suggests reorganizing the curriculum around “generative topics” that provoke what he calls “understanding performances” which not only demonstrate a student’s understanding but also advance it by encompassing new situations. With his Harvard University colleagues Howard Gardner and Vito Perrone, he devised several standards for such topics:
Jim Burke, Reading Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techniques (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann—Boynton/Cook, 2000). Emily Cousins, Amy Mednick, and Meg Campbell, Literacy All Day Long (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 2000). M.E. Curtis and A.M. Longo. When Adolescents Can’t Read: Methods and Materials that Work (Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books, 1999). C. Cziko, “Reading Happens in Your Mind, Not Your Mouth,” California English 3, no.
Teachers in all Gorham, Maine schools now prepare at least one project using the design template that follows (which is still in draft form). “It’s meant to help teachers organize their classroom practice in ways we hope will result in increased understanding,” says John Newlin, a social studies teacher at Gorham High School who serves as a district coach to