The curriculum planning project was
probably the most challenging and time consuming project we had in this course.
It took a lot of thought, planning, effort, and creativity. Despite that this
project had many components and took lots of time and preparation, I gained so
much out of it. I have never created a curriculum plan before, and considering
this will be something I will have to do as a teacher, I’m so glad I got to
practice with it. We were split up by grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8), and we each
had to create a curriculum plan for our bands. Sarah, Kaitlin, and I worked on
K-2. First, we had to figure out a general curriculum plan outline; we had to
figure out where we wanted to put domains for each quarter/semester (and for
how many weeks the domain would be covered) for each grade level. This took a
lot of careful thought because we wanted to make sure the order of our domains
made sense, properly built off of each other between each quarter, semester,
and grade, and allowed the students to access prior knowledge. Then, for each
grade level, we had to think about our objectives, which would be our main
focus domain, the review, objectives, a modeling and exploratory/investigation
task, and an end of the semester activity. The main challenge was thinking
about the modeling and exploratory/investigation tasks because we wanted them
to be hands-on, interactive, student-centered, engaging, and meaningful. Our
goal was to create valuable activities that deepen and extend the students’
understanding of the concepts. Also, the end of the semester activity was a
HUGE challenge. I think this was primarily challenging due to the fact that we
had to incorporate multiple domains within the activity. However, for both the
modeling and exploratory/investigation tasks and the end of the semester
activities, I think my group ended up coming up with innovative and rich
activities for each grade level. Lastly, we had to provide a justification for
the order of our curriculum plan, CCSSM SMP standards, and NCTM standards. We
also had to create a video about our curriculum plan so our peers could learn
about it. My group members and I decided to include a Powerpoint in our video (which
we narrated) along with some other visuals. I think our video ended up being a
success and clearly conveyed our curriculum plan. Throughout this process, I
learned the reality of curriculum planning in an actual classroom. It is
something that teachers really need to be proactive about. Teachers cannot wait
until the last minute to plan, but rather they need to be organized and take
the time to carefully plan an appropriate curriculum. I also learned the
importance of creating engaging, interactive activities as well as making sure
the content builds off of each other within the grade and throughout the grade
levels. It was a great experience to create this curriculum and made me feel
more comfortable and knowledgeable for when I have to do this in the future.
It was really interesting to watch
the 3-5 and 6-8 videos in class, because it was neat to see how they organized
their curriculum as well as to see how the content and domains overlapped/built
off of each other. I observed that in
lower grades, the domains are similar and build off of each other really well,
and in the upper grades, the domains also seem similar and build off of each
other really well. In other words, it appears that K-2 flow really well, 3-5
flow really well, and 6-8 flow really well, but where I see the largest gap is
between those grade bands (i.e. between 2 and 3 and between 5 and 6).
Furthermore, I noticed that some of the domains (i.e. Geometry) are seen
throughout all grade levels while some of the domains (i.e. Numbers and
Operations in Base 10, Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Measurement and data,
etc.) are overlapped between K-2 and 3-5. It appears that K-5 has the most
overlap/similarity of domains, but the content is most different in 6-8
(probably because students are starting to work with more challenging,
abstract, and critical thinking concepts). Moreover, it seems that in 3-5 they
really start digging into fractions, which students didn’t do in K-2, and in
6-8 they build upon the fractions in 3-5 by discussing ratios/proportions. I
think overlap between grades is actually helpful for students, because it
reminds them of what they already learned (prior knowledge) and prepares them
for the next concept that builds off of that first concept. Additionally, I
noticed that measurement and data is not covered in 6-8 and that may because
they continue to work with measuring and data within geometry. I learned a lot
throughout this process and cannot wait to apply what I learned from the
curriculum plans in the future.
Thanks for a great summer session course! :-)
