report

1. Curriculum Design Models
What are curriculum design models?
Educators are designers of learning experiences for students, and are
designers of assessment procedures of those learning opportunities.
Designing curriculum requires more skill and understanding than selecting a
text book and following it page by page. Designing curriculum incorporates
the broader curriculum goals and standards, the learning needs of our
students, the resources available and the means by which we will monitor
the effectiveness of these practices and strategies. Just as an architect
designs structures to be built, so too can a teacher be considered an
architect of learning experiences that learners will build.
Why is this important?
To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of
your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better
understand where you are now so that the steps you take area always in the
right direction. - Stephen R. Covey
Learning in the 21st century demands that we help students understand
rather than just remember. In discussing the need to teach for
understanding, Howard Gardner suggests that students need the capacity to
take knowledge learned in one setting and apply it appropriately in a
different setting. The methodology to build understanding requires a different
approach to curriculum development, an approach that takes the evidence
of understanding as a starting point and builds the learning experiences for
students towards demonstrating that understanding.
The critical nexus between the need for a design methodology and effective
technology integration in curriculum is articulated clearly by Michael Fullan,
when he argues:
...the more powerful that technology becomes, the more indispensable good
teachers are. Technology generates a glut of information, but is not
particularly pedagogically wise. This is especially true of new breakthroughs
in cognitive science about how learners must construct their own meaning
for deep understanding to occur. This means that teachers must become
the pedagogical design experts, using the power of technology -
something they are not yet prepared to do, but is part of the getting out there
story. (Fullan, 2000, 582)

2. What does the research tell us?
This focus on design provides us with considerable opportunities for change.
In Bridging Research into Practice, the accompanying publication to How
People Learn (National Research Council), a framework is proposed to help
guide the design and evaluation of environments that can optimize learning.
These include making schools and classrooms learner centered, knowledge
centered and assessment centered.
One model for developing curriculum for understanding is that developed by
Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in Understanding by Design. This model
proposes three stages:
Stage 1: Identify desired results: what is worthy of understanding?
Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence in which the assessment of
understanding is thought of in terms of a collection of evidence over time
instead of an event
Stage 3: Plan learning experiences & instruction