How do you determine what students should take...

I was tasked last staff meeting to determine what classes my students should take next year and I am a little nervous at the prospect. I know I am fully versed on their capabilities and their motivations but I still hate to give limits to students. Then come the phone calls about the fact that it is not their student but instead your teaching or your subject area. Do you know how many parents tell me that chemistry just does not interest their student so they do not try their hardest.

What does this have to do with curriculum well everything. When we set up the science department program of studies we do so with the student's progress in mind. We try to determine what the most logical sequence of classes and levels of class we will need. It is like planning a road map for students to take and with all good maps there are areas for u-turns and alternative routes which what is exciting for students. I want students to explore our electives and challenge themselves with harder classes.

My final thought is why do we encourage students to reach for the stars if we are going to put Plexiglas ceilings in?

How to map?

When I sat down to start working on the biology curriculum I started to realize that I did not know much about what other teachers where covering within my own subject area let alone the whole scope of science in the building. So I talked with our curriculum coordinator and she said I have just the tool for you to use to see the science curriculum at a glance. She sent me the curriculum mapping guide. What is a curriculum mapping guide you might ask...well it is all of the standards laid out with boxes for each division of science from 9th through physics and honors sections verse basic sections. It is a tool that is so great because you can sit down with your department and start from point A and move through giving each teacher a chance to say "hey that is what I do."

The next thing that is so great that it is a conversation starter as far as assessments go. You have a way to ask co-works what they are doing and what they are having success with without insulting or being awkward. Face it sometimes when you ask for resources or questions you feel like you are either questioning their abilities or seeming like a slacker and stealing their ideas. In high school the sharing environment is not always as friendly as some lower grades.

I am rolling out my first mapping session in March and I am a little nervous and hoping everyone in my dept. will be as excited!!!

How do you where to begin?

How do you begin to gather the scope of a curriculum from top to bottom for a district? Can you believe the test scores knowing that not all students really take the test seriously? How do you assess the what is really affective practice verse what is a dead lesson that teacher's don't want to let go? I keep coming up with questions without many answers on how to make this a reality. I know that all curriculum is a work in progress and that the minute you fix one piece you have to adjust the pieces you knocked loose. The biggest part is finding teachers who are willing to admit that there are parts of their subject areas that are not working for their students.

I think the place to start is with a curriculum map for each core subject K-8 and then each individual subject 9-12. By building these curriculum maps we can look for holes in each subject area. Seeing these maps allow for a curriculum coordinator to gather an idea of what the short falls of the current curriculum and begin to develop one that works. Allowing teachers to build these maps and coordinate with their K-12 counter parts gives a sense of ownership and pride in what they are teaching, or at least that is the overall goal.