Curriculum Planning for Intellectual Challenge

Elena Stanescu- Bellu

Why an Intellectual Challenging Curriculum?

High Academic Achievement

High Expectation

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Intellectual Challenging Curriculum

Academic Support

Why are teachers’ expectations important ?

“What teachers are willing to try in the classroom, relationships teachers build with students, the extent to which teachers encourage students, and the general climate teachers create-all of which affect learning-grow out of expectations”(Jussim, Eccles, Madon, 1996)

All students can achieve when “ the teachers and school believe they can and take responsibility to make it happen” ( pg.128)

Both high-achieving and low achieving students are more likely to fail lower level courses and do better in upper level courses;

Whether students enter college or not, complex thinking skills are essentially for securing a job in the future;

How to raise expectations ?Systemically expectations can be raised by:Strengthening the curriculum’s academic

challenge and student academic support;

Teaching an intellectually rich curriculum, responsive to one’s students as opposed to a test prep curriculum;

Thinking beyond students’ level of performance and even beyond closing the achievement gap;

Eliminating the lower level courses;

How can a curriculum be planned so that it is academically demanding and teaches a variety

of academic skills ?

•Curriculum planning for intellectual challenge can be connected to planning around “big ideas”, and in relationship to (and possibly) with one’s students

• A intellectually challenging curriculum addresses higher order thinking • a useful planning tool is Blooms’ taxonomy which

identifies six level of thinking and lists verbs which describe each level

How to use Bloom’s taxonomy ?

The six levels of thinking identified by Bloom are: knowledge, comprehension, application,

analysis, synthesis, evaluation

1. Make an inventory of the levels of thinking addressed by the current curriculum

2. Identify thinking most likely to be developed through one’s planning and teaching

3. Project beyond the students’ current grade level to the kinds of thinking they should be developing in order to be succeed at higher level of schooling;

How to assist students in learning ?

Building enabling strategies into curriculum helps students to think more complexly than they currently do by themselves.

Enabling strategy

Temporary support system built by the

teacher to assist students in learning to think complexly

Examples of Enabling Strategies:

1. Modeling – the teacher not only shows students how to do something , but also talks them through the thinking process;

2. Scaffolding a useful strategy to bridge students’

current academic performances with potential

Students learn how to do something new and complex gradually, in stages.

Teachers’ perspectives about knowledge and teaching influence curriculum planning and teaching in the classroom

Different perspectives about Knowledge

Developmentalist perspective -The teacher individualizes instruction and tries to connect curriculum with his/her students

Hierarchical perspective - The teacher focuses on drills on the “basics” as preparation for higher level work sometimes in the future

Different perspectives on teaching

Teaching as intellectual apprenticeship

the teacher - the senior practicing intellectual who is apprenticing young people in

complex academic work

Teaching as primarily a process of transmitting knowledge

Academic expectations, teachers’ view on knowledge and curriculum content influence students’ profiles

as learners.

Learning profiles

Students - intellectual workers, self directed learners and producers of knowledge

Students - knowledge consumers, who learn a prespecified content and develop practical skills

“If teachers plan and teach challenging and interesting curriculum and provide academic support as needed, students will tend to rise to the occasion”

(Sleeter, pag 129)