Recap and Overview of the Curriculum Writing Process AUSSIE Consultants Mike Staunton & Martin Wilson 1

Recap and Overview of the Curriculum Writing Process

AUSSIE Consultants Mike Staunton & Martin Wilson

1

Quality Curriculum Components

The Curriculum and the Unit

2AUSSIE Consultants Mike Staunton & Martin Wilson

What are Units?

Units are Building Blocks: The flow of the design is from ‘whole to

part’. All of the units ultimately combine to build

the curriculum.


What is a “unit”?

A Unit is a coherent set of activities and

assessments, organized around an essential

question, a theme, a performance, an idea, or a

text.

A Unit is big enough to help us avoid - micro-managing our lessons overlooking important performance goals

A Unit is small enough to help us avoid - vague and unhelpful planning, typically ending in “coverage”


What is “Curriculum”?

1. The ‘formal curriculum’ is as

defined by State Standards,

Performance Indicators, etc



2. The ‘operational curriculum’ is as

set out in a text or similar resource,

or a planned unit of work, generally

based on the appropriate Standards.



3. The term ‘curriculum’ can refer to

what is actually taught (the running

track analogy).



4. The term ‘curriculum’ can also refer

to what is actually learned (the act

of running).


Task. Discuss the differences between these curricula.

Essential question: Why are there differences?

Guiding questions: What are the differences? How can we close the gap?


Closing the Gap The process that we are using to write our

Course Map and units seeks to MINIMIZE any gap by focusing on assessment of student understanding, and not just assessment of content and skill.

Understanding lies at the heart of the process (ref p 12-14 of the Packet).


Curriculum Philosophy The process that we are using is

underpinned by the belief that the

curriculum is not found in the text book.

The process positions you as the subject

expert. The text, the web, etc, are merely tools. http://www.phschool.com

AUSSIE Consultants Mike Staunton & Martin Wilson 11

Don’t forget differentiation!


That is – differentiated instruction is where teachers can adapt…


Assessment decisions

What is good… diagnostic assessment? formative assessment? summative assessment?


Remember the steps…(N.B. The following steps are a more detailed version of p.2 of the Packet)

Step 1 Determining the Course Map

Step 2 Determining the questions and the

assessment

Step 3 Building the content

Step 4 Determining the strategies/

activities

Step 5 More detail re assessmentMike's Stuff\UBD_5 Steps.doc


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Recap and Overview of the Curriculum Writing Process AUSSIE Consultants Mike Staunton & Martin Wilson 1