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Regarding this week's reading selections, how is curriculum a shaping…

- - - - Aly - Does increased amount of material really make a difference in student achievement? I honestly believe it's not what we teach to our students, but how we teach our students.
      - Aly - Is it really necessary to have ALL students study and understand deep concepts of math or any subject? So many students ask me, when am I ever going to use this in life and my answer 9 times out of 10 is never. Not that using knowledge later in life deems something to be unimportant, just why is so much of math seem so useless to our students
        
        Brittany - Sometimes I wonder why we require such in depth learning in some subject areas. We want students to be exposed so that they can find their avenue, but is it necessary for every student to study the same thing? Could we make more routes for students to follow that peak their interests?
        
        Brittany - I always tell my students that math teaches them to think. There is a lot of problem solving and critical thinking involved in math. However, with so much material and lack of retention from year to year, I feel like math has become memorization. I think teachers have to work harder to incorporate and teach these critical thinking and problem solving skills into the curriculum. These are the skills that will benefit the students later in life.
        
        Unfortunately, it's not up to teacher's philosophy what route she chooses to take. In a modern educational setting, curriculum driven teaching approaches are forcing the teachers to cover the entire amount of materials presented in the curriculum. It's really hard to deviate from this routine, though a few teachers are still able to implement an original curriculum with more emphasis on what's really important to know. Depends on what's at stake, I guess. - Imeda
        
        Macklin-Aly I agree with you that some concepts in math students often don't use later on in life, but I think you could say that about almost any subject. To me a good education make a well rounded worldly citizen and that citizen should know a basic understanding of each subject. One way to get a basic understanding of each subject is to study it a little more deeply. The more deeply a subject is studied hopefully the more that is remembered later on in life. It has been awhile since I studied social studies but for the most part, I understand the basic parts moving parts of government and can make thoughtful decisions based on this.
  - - - Clay T - The negative connotations of Common Core, as portrayed by the media, has led to parent and community backlash against standards and curriculum. At times, these negative feelings seem to be more directed at teachers rather than the groups who passed down the standards to districts. Therefore, a misunderstanding of standards versus curriculum seems to be a major hurdle in education and its societal impact.
- - - - Such a good point. The quote in this article (p. 315) "The function of schooling in not to enable students to do better in school. The function of schooling is to enable students to do better in life." How do we know we are meeting that goal? Charla B.
  - - - Brittany - How can we incorporate these aspects into schooling? Life is messy and in order for students to become a functional member of society, they need to learn to ask questions and approach things with uncertainty. Students should not believe what they hear at face value, but find a way to prove something to themselves and form an opinion.
        
        Tyler S--This is such a great point. In this day and age of readily available information and people being able to filter their news to suit their belief system, students need to be able to decipher through all of the drivel to find the truth. This generation is going to have it harder than any before it when it comes to having unbiased news coverage.
        
        Macklin-Brittany I do think you make a good point. I think having more discussions in the classroom and talk about these questions the students should be asking and how they can know if something is true or not. With so much info today, it is hard for students to know what is true and what is not.
      - "Education has evolved from a form of human development serving personal and civic needs into a product our nation produces to compete in a global economy. Schools have become places to mass produce this product" (p. 316). I have to wonder if that is what we really want. Do we want to run our schools like factories where everyone does the same thing or do we want to produce individual thinkers developing their own ideas and unique strengths to add new dimension to our society? Charla B.
        
        "There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands."--Plato
        Also from Plato, that is related the subject:
        "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."-- Plato
        "Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men."-- Plato
- - - - "The movement for school accountability is essentially a movement for more effective topdown control of the schools" (p. 307). More control and less creativity. Charla B.
  - - - Aly - it's frustrating that this is the result of high stakes testing. I often hear though students using the excuse that i'm bad at test taking so that's why my scores are so low, rather than owning up to the fact that they did not try their hardest in their classes or to prepare for the test.
  - - - I agree, so sad. Teachers can't teach kids to collaborate and work together when they are isolated and competitive. It really changes the focus from student achievement to teacher achievement. Charla B.
- - - - Bo---Ziqi, I agree that it is often overlooked by teachers when planning for curriculum activities, and how to include cultural diversities into curriculum is also an important question that worth discussing.
  - - - Brittany - When teachers do run into cultural issues, such as the field trip, is it better to not press the issue and allow students to miss the field trip? Do teachers need to provide some other opportunity for these students so that they "do not miss out?" Should the field trip not be an option and some other alternative be considered?
        
        Araceli. Hi Brittany, I think as an alternative, it could be interviewing someone by skype from the field trip
        
        Jaclyn- I find it very courageous for the teacher to want to talk with the parents to see if the students could go. But all the reasons given why they couldn't go seem valid. some parents just don't find extra opportunities as part of the curriculum so don't even give the trip any thought. School is 8-3 everything outside of that time is for family. One opportunity I see is for students is to visit with the families in their community for a weekend. Especially the cultural entrepreneurs like the family that owned a tea shop. And it seem like families of other cultures depend on their children to help out with translation or childcare. these students shouldn't feel left out but really they are developing something much greater than just going to a river for an overnight.
        
        Bo---I know some immigrant families in which the parents do not speak English at all, at first, I was amazed. How could they survive in this society if they do not know the language. However, they seem to be living a good life, they depend totally on their kids to interpret for them. And their kids used the language skills they learnt at school to help with the bills, grocery shopping, etc. Yes, sometimes, they do greater things than we think, however, I still think it is meaningful if they could go for a field trip with their peers just to enjoy the time with their friends.
- - - - Brittany - It is interesting that school is the function that we use to teach students anything they may "need to know" for the real world. As in your example, once technology became a large part of our world, we began teaching students how to use technology. I agree that this is important, but we are shoving more into school and are still disappointed with the results. Is there a way to "revise" our current curriculum so that as a nation, we believe that we are properly preparing students?
        
        Brittany-such a good question. Less is more. What can we eliminate to use our time to teach well and deeply what we are teaching? Charla B.
- - - - Brittany - Does the curriculum need to change to adapt to the students of the current world?
        
        Tyler S--Yes, the Curriculum does need to change for our current world. More importantly, I feel like a bigger issue is content delivery and diversifying the instruction to all students. "We want to accommodate the full diversity of academic needs" that students bring to the classroom, says Susan Demirsky Allan, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the Grosse Pointe, Mich., public schools. "We know those differences are out there, and we have to recognize that reality," Allan says. "Teachers can't assume they have 25 clones sitting in front of them." Without differentiated instruction, any child who varies from the norm will suffer, she contends.
  - - - With hundreds of ethnic groups coming under one umbrella it is rather challenging to create a universal version of curriculum that will incorporate the nuances of various cultures. Maybe, instead of trying to invent an overgeneralized cultural phenomenon out of the curriculum, it would be more appropriate to set apart curriculum from any cultural biases. In other words, as it was believed that curriculum has nothing to do with religion and those two were segregated, maybe there is a way to make it possible for curriculum to stay out of the ethnic-cultural themes. -Imeda
  - - - Valerie - "If you can make a positive relationship with a student, you can teach them darn near anything. It is the relationships that come first." -Jeff Charbonneau, 2013 National Teacher of the Year
      - Jaclyn - Valerie Amen to that! "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all" Aristotle
- - - - Tyler S--Do students have the opportunity, in other words, to choose how to prove their learning? This makes it more difficult on the teacher for grading purposes, but is where a rubric can come in handy. This is one of my favorite things to do in the classroom, give the students choices on how to create their assessment.
    - - Tyler S--Service based learning projects are some of the best ways I have found to get students invested in what you are doing. This gives them a "why" for everything they are learning. The key is to make sure the project ties in with the curriculum and that they have some choice in the project to help with buy-in.
    - - Tyler S--This is where I really agree with Eisner. I am a big advocate of career academies for many reasons, but the thing that gets students engaged the most in their learning is the pathways offered for them. They can choose not only classes, but their core courses are taught "through the lens" of the academy to keep their interest. It is an amazing model that I would like to see expanded.
    - - Tyler S--As any teacher knows, engagement is the key to student success in their classroom. You can be the leading expert in your field, but if you can't get your students interested in your content you can throw the best lesson plan out the window. We have to give students choices in their learning and adapt to them, not the other way around. A way that, frankly, is the out-dated traditional way of teaching and learning.