I have recently been reflecting on curriculum development. I have developed a lot of curriculum in my career, and it is important for me to reflect upon and refresh my own understanding of the process. Here are some of the things that I think I have learned:
So where does curriculum come from? I have always thought of curriculum from a holistic perspective. What I mean by holistic is that it includes and is driven by a variety of sources: Essential Questions, the Project or Summative Assessment, the Themes or Content in the unit, the Identity of the students themselves, and the Standards that you wish to teach.
I have always valued and tried to construct a "curriculum that matters" to the students in front of you. What I mean by this is that the actual objectives, goals, and content of the unit ought to intrinsically matter to the students you are working with. This means that for each unit, I need to consider why would my students in this year care about the content and skills that are embedded in the unit. I need to even include them in this conversation about why we are doing it and to ask them to assess the objectives and purposes of our unit of study.
When I think about the genesis for unit construction, I have learned that ultimately, it must start with who my students are and the community from which they come. The identity and needs of the students must be the starting point. Once I know who they are, what their interests are, and what their skill levels are, I can start to construct a responsive curriculum that matters to them. This should be somewhat obvious when you consider teaching a unit in different contexts: an affluent private school, a rural-poor public school, an urban-poor public school, a suburban school...these different contexts will require different approaches to whatever the unit of study is. Yes, there will be a lot of overlap, but how we engage and connect the students to the learning will be different.
From this point, after I have a deep understanding of my students and their community, curriculum can be build from a couple starting points:
1) I may build the unit based off the content and themes that I have to offer. (This may be a book, a topic in science, a math concept, etc.)
2) I may build the unit based off the standards that I want to teach. (This may be a discrete set of skills that I know my students need to learn and be able to perform in any subject.)
3) I may build the unit based off the summative assessment or project that I have in mind.
4) I may build a unit based off an essential question or set of questions that the students are curious about.
All of these are different foundations for unit construction. It is crucial to understand that ALL of these elements are ultimately necessary. You must have content, standards, a summative assessment, and essential questions. However, I am suggesting that I might start with a brilliant project idea and then gather content, standards, and questions around that idea. Or, I may have really interesting essential question and then build content, standards, and the summative assessment around that.
My analysis is ultimately derived from Wiggins and McTighe Understanding by Design where they advocate for backwards design. Ultimately, I agree with them that you must have your ultimate goal in mind before you start planning out lessons. I just believe that the goal can be constructed from different starting points. The reality is that a teacher can step inside a classroom and be handed a book or concept that they are supposed to teach. Based on the content that they have been given, they must figure out a way to map out and determine what an appropriate and authentic project may be.
