Upgrade Your Curriculum

Upgrade Your Curriculum

1. Collaboration is key!

   • Summary: Student collaboration has been known to improve learning and teacher collaboration can improve curriculum. Teachers looking to collaborate should look at their orbit of ability. “When one person moves into another person’s orbit of ability, his or her knowledge and capabilities grow” (Hale & Fisher, 2013).
   • Utilization: I can utilize this element by working in my Professional Learning Community (PLC) and my Digital Learning Network (DLN) to collaborate with other teachers worldwide. I have begun my PLC and DLC by reading blogs, using Facebook, and connecting on Twitter.
   • Impact: It is difficult to truly measure student improvement after teacher’s utilizing their PLCs, but I did find this research listed by The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement: "Researchers (Hughes & Kritsonis, 2007) selected a sample of schools from a database of schools with staff who had attended PLC workshops and that were possibly implementing PLCs. The mean length of time that sample schools (n=64) reported functioning as a PLC was 2.5 years. During a three-year period, 90.6 percent of these schools reported an increase in standardized math scores; 81.3 percent reported an increase in English/language arts scores between 5 points and 26 points."

2. Technology is key!

   • Summary: Technology is an important tool in classrooms, but teachers must be careful to distinguish between actual transformation, rather than mere enhancement.
   • Utilization: In order to make sure real curriculum transformations are taking place, teachers can use the TECHformational Matrix to view how using a particular technology tool influences student learning.
   • Impact: Technology usage and implementation helps students be prepared for the 21st Century, where we know no bounds.

3. Curriculum transformation happens in a spiral!

   • Summary: When teachers are ready to upgrade their curriculum, the best way to describe it is as a spiral. Spirals elicit the thought of progress, ever-changing ideas and thoughts. This word is better to define curriculum, as opposed to a loop or cycle, where the end and beginning are the same. There is no difference or evolution.
   • Utilization: As grade level meetings take place, I think the teachers should utilize the four phases of the transformation spiral in order to improve curriculum. It is a great road map to help teachers go on this journey of improvement. The four phases include: appraisal and brainstorming; commitment and communication; reactions and reflections; and revisions.
   • Impact: I think this idea has the biggest impact for me, as a teacher. It puts teaching in a new light. Really there should not be a beginning or an end. There should be a constant evolution of improvement. It is a journey.