Curriculum and Planning:

Curriculum and Planning:


How will we plan and prepare ourselves, our teachers, our parents and our students for curriculum redesign?

With a major shift in educational thinking, teachers will need to stay current with developments in technology and events shaping our province and our world. Looking at the past may be a strong indicator of how to handle future changes. What has worked or not worked in the past in preparation for new curriculum? Part of the preparation process will include a self-reflection of our own practices coupled with a willingness to embrace change and improvement that is relevant to our classrooms and schools. We must be intentional in all that we think, say, and do as teachers. I think preparation will best take place by being flexible, open-minded, inclusive, and patient. We will have to communicate with each other about our concerns regularly. I concur with David Warlick’s quote, “We are not preparing children for our future, we are preparing them for their future.” Their future will definitely look different than ours did; we have to remember that.

In our district, we are expected to have our year plans outcome-based and ready in the fall. I base my year plans on the general curriculum and then fine-tune my daily lesson plans with more specific outcomes per unit and lesson. I ensure enough flexibility to allow for differentiation in terms of allowing more time, asking fewer or different questions, utilizing alternate formats of reaching the outcome, and planning enrichment activities for those who need them. I will need to continue to focus on a more student-centered, constructivist approach to learning to meet educational expectations in the future, as the need for them is very real in every grade I teach. These key practices from Dewey, Piaget, and Montessori have produced great success in my classroom, but I know I need to further develop differentiation.

As Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the end in mind.” What is the purpose of education? To well prepare our youth for successful futures. Because youth are dynamic and the future is uncertain, change will be always be inevitable, so it should be viewed as positive and be embraced. In order to prepare parents and students for curricular change, I must be the change-agent role-model, promoting it and helping them to not feel threatened by it. I need to be emotionally and academically ready myself to prepare them. How I accomplish that is to remember that I will still use familiar frameworks such as UBD, CCC, UDL, and PBL in my teaching, I will still plan around the 8 Cs and the 3 Es, and I will still teach the curriculum. Those are my constants. My destination (student success) has not changed - only my road map (delivery) has. Remembering that quells fear, which is a major part of a teacher’s job.

For me personally, I will prepare myself through keeping current with technology integration, continuing to self-reflect on best practices, checking with students for understanding, and relying on the Master’s program to help develop my skills in leadership.

How might this change our current planning practices and those of our colleagues within our school district?

John Dewey said, “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” This statement screams change. Current planning will transform from content to skill-based objectives to prepare students to be 21st-century learners and doers. Instead of subject-based content, I predict we will be exclusively teaching authentic, real-world outcomes and plan more projects, field trips, discovery-based learning through driving questions, complete integration of technology, full inclusion, extensive differentiation (perhaps tailor-made per student), and more experts and presenters at schools to promote awareness and questioning of current issues and topics as they arise. In a nutshell, planning may be as streamlined as asking a driving question such as “What pollution exists in our city and how can we reduce it by 50%?” and let the students discover the answer using the educational frameworks and resources necessary.

What work do we have to do as instructional leaders in this area?
Administrators need to lead the change we want to see in our children. We need to keep in mind the “No child left behind” policy and lead student-centered education through researched practices in our schools, provide the resources to accomplish that, and drive the passion behind the process to ensure success for all learners. We need to regularly monitor the results and ask, “Is it working?” We need to measure the results to make sure we stay on track. My recommendation is to keep our focus on our goal (learner success), our tool (education through competencies and curriculum), and our proof (engaged, ethical, entrepreneurial learners).

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela