Curriculum Terms and Concepts
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Definitions
The Importance of Planning
The Elements of a Complete Teaching Guide
Using the teaching guide template to create your own
Digging deeper into curriculum development and curriculum designs
Teaching guide for this module
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Curriculum Terms and Concepts
by Craig A. Cunningham June 2000
This teaching guide is purposefully kept short and to the point to foster quick understanding of the elements and structure of a good teaching guide. A teaching guide for a curriculum web, especially an elaborate one, would be much more detailed.
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Introduction Aim Rationale Audience Prerequisites Subject-Matter Goals and Objectives Instructional Plan Materials Assessment and Evaluation Appendices Resources Glossary
Introduction
This moduled is based on the belief that planning is the most important
aspect of web-based curriculum development. Click here
to return to Menu
Aim
This module introduces WIT participants to the steps in curriculum development, and supports them as they develop an initial draft of the teaching guide for their web-based lesson or curriculum.Click here to return to MenuRationale
Planning is facilitated by a structure in which important issues are dealt with as a plan is developed. WIT provides this structure, through the elements of the teaching guide to the lesson or curriculum web.
It is possible to treat the elements of the teaching guide as just a worksheet to be "filled in" so the instructor is happy. But we hope WIT participants will take the planning process seriously, treating it as a professional, rather than perfuctory, task.
We hope that participants will be interested in why the elements are helpful, and that they will explore the optional resources provided, but we're "okay with it" if participants just follow the steps. Click here to return to Menu
Goals and Objectives
This module teaches teachers how to write teaching guides for their web-based lessons and curriculums.
At the conclusion of this module, participants will:
- agree with the importance of the teaching guide in the planning of their web-based curriculum or lesson
- know how to use the template to create a draft teaching guide
- be ready to use their teaching guide to help them refine their web-based lesson or curriculum
- be interested in historical and scholarly aspects of curriculum development and design.
These objectives correlate with recently-released International Society for Technology in Education's National Educational Technology Standards, which call for teachers who can:
"engage in planning of lesson sequences that effectively integrate technology resources and are consistent with current best practices,"
and
"plan and implement technology learning activties that promote student engagement in analysis, synthesis, interpretation, and creation of original products."
Audience
Teachers who are interested in learning how to write effective web-based lessons and curriculum. Wide range of prior computer experience, but with helpful mentors, all WIT participants will be able to create a draft teaching guide by the end of this module. Click here to return to MenuPrerequisites
- Completion of WIT Introduction to Netscape Composer module
- Interested in participating in the process of curriculum development on the web, with their colleagues.
Subject-Matter
The process of curriculum planning: development leading to design
The teaching guide as plan for the curriculum development and manual for using the design.
Issues in curriculum development: subject-centered vs. learner centered, grouping, the relation between experience and learning.
Instructional Plan
This module is designed to be self-paced, but mentors may want to have discussions of the contents (and further examples and elaborations) after participants have had a chance to read through the initial pages.
Participants read definitions and a short essay on the importance of curriculum planning.
Participants look at the assessment rubric for a lesson plan or curriculum web, and learn about how it will be used in the classroom. (Good time for mentor-led discussion.)
Participants look at a sample teaching guide (the guide for this module) and read about the elements. (Mentors can show how to switch back and forth between windows.) Discuss.
Option: form eight teams, and assign one element to each team, and have that team describe why the element is an important part of curriculum planning.
Participants use a template to create a draft Teaching Guide. They save their work, uploading it into their home directories on the server. (Mentors may want to demonstrate this process again.) This draft becomes the initial starting point in planning their web during the next few days or weeks.
Materials
Computer for each participant.
- Internet access.
- Netscape Communicator
- A set of web pages, at http://cuip.uchicago.edu/WIT/2000/curriculum/homeroommodules/curriculumTerms.
Assessment and Evaluation
Assessment: participants produce a complete draft of their teaching guide, considering the definitions and expectations offered in the first few pages of the module, and utilizing the teaching guide template (or creating their own).Evaluation: Frequent links to developer's email will help him improve this module.