Summary
For this curriculum unit, I knew that I wanted to accomplish two things: 1) design a unit that could easily be implemented in one of the urban, priority schools in my district, and 2) the unit should be engaging, multimodal, and standards based. Currently the priority schools are undergoing systematic, curricular, and employee changes. There is a strong possibility that social studies will not be scheduled as a discrete course, but instead it will be absorbed by English Language Arts. This curriculum unit takes advantage of the tools and skills of the English Language Arts, while at the same time uses the disciplinary content from geography. This is not how I would have social studies taught and instead it is a compromise. I think that my personal practical knowledge is apparent in that I understand that subjects cannot be taught in isolation. Integration, combining the skills of language with the content principles, are key to the materials that were developed.
I also reflected and found evidence of my ideology for curriculum, that of a constructivist viewpoint. Students make meaning and seek to make connections. Grant and VanSledright (2014) described learners from a constructivist lens as, “webs of meaning and understanding are modified and reconstructed by experiences both in school and certainly out of school, all in ways difficult to predict and anticipate (p. 48). Knowing this I have tried to provide multiple experiences for the learner. As curriculum planners we need to provide multiple opportunities for students to make meaning. Inquiry and problem solving are the teaching strategies or methods that I have always navigated toward in my teaching. I am tolerant of different student products as long as the objective of the lesson, or in this case the standard, is met.
Commonplace consideration and reflection is a new tool for me. Previously I made assumptions that I know what knowledge the students bring with them. I am often amazed that teachers will say, that the students don’t know something, like the three branches of government for example. How did the teacher come to this conclusion? Considering commonplaces, especially that of the learner, is important. Tyler (1949) described the importance of learner consideration as “experiences should be appropriate to the student’s present attainments, his predispositions, and the like….If the learning experience involves the kind of behavior which the student is not yet able to make, then it fails its purpose” (p. 67). The commonplaces provide a tool to analyze curriculum and classroom situations. Likewise, reflection forced me to stop and think about the other “curriculums” apparent in my unit, especially the hidden and null curriculum. I was pleased with the hidden and could justify the null through my reflection.
As a final word on the curriculum planning experience and readings, I know that like a house, curriculum reflects the environment in which it was built. It is subject to adjustments and modifications. No one knows the curriculum as well as the developer and the developer knows that anyone else using the curriculum will not be able to replicate, with complete accuracy, the curriculum. Once the unit that I have provided has been implemented, I am sure that adjustments will have to be made. Like a house, the foundation will remain, but the house may need a new coat of paint and some furniture rearranged. That for me is the reward of developing curriculum, to see how someone else will take what I’ve developed and make it their own, but most of all I welcome the opportunity to see how the materials will be modified to meet the expectations of stakeholders and more importantly the learners.
