I NTELLECTUAL C HALLENGE : M AKING C URRICULUM W ORK FOR U S Betz Lund

A RE H IGH A CADEMIC E XPECTATIONS O NLY F OR T HOSE C OLLEGE B OUND ? Short answer: NO! Not everyone goes to college Consider our graduates Trade school, job force, military Paradigm shift: from college prep to intellectual challenge Try to focus on multicultural curriculum that challenges each student

E XPECTATIONS P AST AFFECTING FUTURE Be realistic about our students HISTORY of poor academic performance Not a guarantee a future of it Don’t let that history determine their future with us We already focus on positive relationships and environments for them Keep it up! These help students find success and motivation to succeed

B ELIEVE TO A CHIEVE If we believe they can they will EFFORT and DETERMINATION and PERSERVERANCE Our attitude affects their ability to reach potential Not going to be easy We can make a difference for more students Curriculum needs to go beyond playing catch up Ignore achievement gap, focus on students learning Eliminate remedial classes Push higher academics Eliminate boring classes

R AISING THE B AR To increase student achievement We must believe that our students can succeed Must be willing to work to make it happen Teaching should be FUN More than paper and pencil work over and over We need to be more focused on teaching Responsibility Creativity Critical Thinking

T EACHING B EYOND E XPECTED Expect more than the state standards Teach them above and beyond standards Breaking a few rules Study which standards can be removed Teach the essentials We need to choose a mile long trench an inch deep or a shorter trench that goes deeper Less standards mean deeper understanding

B LOOM TO THE R ESCUE While developing curriculum remember to include examples of 5 or 6 parts of Bloom’s taxonomy Evaluate how the textbook, and current materials address the levels Push students to use more than the just the lower levels More: evaluate, decide, measure and test Less: list define, tell, quote, and name

K NOWLEDGE IS A P ROCESS N OT A S EQUENCE Need to shift from seeing knowledge as a hierarchical viewpoint Tends to focus on the procedural lower level thinking Focus on the process of knowing Mastery of a topic is less important than being able to manipulate content Students learn material and how it connects to them rather than memorize definitions from scholarly experts

U NIVERSITY S TYLE C LASSROOM Comprehension driven-not fact driven “Comprehensible Connectors” Use students’ prior knowledge to help them to learn and remember new Multicultural perspective will help this Mini-lectures Smaller shorter chunks of information Teach note taking Small group work Students helping students Connect to other topics Utilize technology

E NABLING S TRATEGIES AND S CAFFOLDING Help students think more complexly Modeling -what to do and thought process behind it Scaffolding is four part enabling strategy 1. Build knowledge and connect it to themselves 2. Work through example students will do alone 3. Teacher and student construct together 4. Students work independently Be careful not to over scaffold and over map out what students are asked to do.

W E CAN DO THIS ! Classroom is an intellectual space Teach and apprentice our students Students produce knowledge They do NOT consume it Break away from the Prescribed We are who we teach We are creative, intelligent and knowledgeable So let’s teach the way that does right for us all