Curriculum Ideas

Draft: Designing a curriculum:

1. As we design our lesson plans, we could incorporate some ideas that we learn from the work of educaiton theorists. Here’s a list of education theorists: John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, David Ausubel, Jerome Bruner, Friedrich Froebel, Robert Gagne, Howard Gardner, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Abraham Maslow, Maria Montessori, John H. Pestalozzi, Jean Piaget, B.F. Skinner, Edward L. Thorndike, and Lev Vygotsky.

2. Keeping 1-9 Curriculum Standards in mind as we design our lesson plans.

3. A conceptualist approach in the process of design: Elliot W. Eisner advocated the conceptual approach in curriculum design and his definitions of aims, goals, and objectives were as follow: “Aims refer to the general direction of learning; goals are more exact statements, and objectives are the most exact statements of all.”
As we were designing the English curriculum, we were developing the lessons or each scenario around goals provided by the school autorities. The teaching objectives were a bit vague in that the team decided that lessons should not be held in lecture mode, thus, Eisener’s method in curriculum design better fit our situation. Eisner belived that instructional activities not founded in predetermined objectives should be included and that objectives be added after teaching has taken place is acceptable. Our curriculum was further discussed and revised after several teaching try-runs.

4. Follow curriculum design guidelines by answering the following questions: (These questions are taken directly from Casas (2006) in the Journal of Curriculum and Teaching.)
a. Is there a hidden curriculum?
b. Is the curriculum appropriate for the intended grade level?

c. Is the curriculum integrated?

d. Are there opportunities for technology and community resources to be utilized?

e. Can teachers easily implement this curriculum?

f. Can parents easily understand the curriculum?

g. Is the curriculum learner-centered?

h. Is the curriculum free of gender bias?

i. Is the curriculum free of religious and socioeconomic bias?

j. Does the currculum follow a conceptual approach to curriculum design?

A good idea for writing class

A common classroom activity, for instance, is to have students read the blogged entries of others and write persuasive reactions — one in agreement, another in disagreement — and post these writings as comments to their classmates’ blogs. Initially, the students struggled with the task, but they eventually learned the goal was not necessarily to find an idea with which they personally disagreed but to find another side to an idea and write persuasively from that perspective.

Techlearning > > A Day in the Life of Web 2.0 > October 15, 2006

This is a great idea for my reading and writing class next semester.

However, with this type of writing assignment, I find it difficult to give students feedback on grammer/structure errors. It would take me more time compared to having hard copies to circle and put down corrections. So, my question is, how do ESL teachers usually give feedback efficiently on blog postings?

Hello world!

Hello! Sorry for starting late! My name is Jane. I just got my Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Central Florida in 2004. I am currently teaching in the department of Children English Education at the National Taipei University of Education in Taipei, Taiwan. This is my third year of teaching. ^^