Curriculum Planning

How is curriculum organized? Expanding Communities Generalizations/Big Ideas Goal-Oriented Topical Culture Universals (Primary Grades)

What tools will you need for curriculum planning?

Before you begin to plan a unit, you will need to understand and research the content! You will also need to understand the students’ prior knowledge about the topic you are covering.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Inquiry into Student Prior Knowledge and Learning Inquiry into Curriculum, Content, and Planning Inquiry into Teaching

Content Gathering Model What are some possible themes or topics with the Immigration umbrella? How might we expand this umbrella to include facts? Where might we get these facts?

What is a Generalization? Generalizations are relationships between two or more concepts. May also be described as big ideas or goals.

Examples of Generalizations New inventions lead to change in ways of living. As human beings interact with the physical environment, both they and it are changed. Because the peoples of the world are interdependent, the behaviors of one group of people affects the lives of the other groups. Families are a primary means of socialization in all cultures. Written laws clarify the rules by which a society operates and promote fair and equal treatment of its members. The survival of a multicultural society relies upon most citizens agreeing to a core of commonly held values (e.g., justice, equality, liberty). Compromise is necessary in most situations because continuous conflict has severe consequences.

Goal-Oriented Topical Curriculum Planning Goals phrased in terms of intended student outcomes-capabilities and dispositions to be developed within students.

Cultural Universals Food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication, occupations, social rules, government and laws. Develop understanding about how that aspect functions in local community, contemporary U.S., past, and other cultures today. Put familiar into historical, geographical, and cultural perspective.

Types of Goals Understanding Appreciation Life Application

Your Task: Think of a generalization/big idea about democracy that you have encountered in your own experience or feel important in developing democratic citizens

Concepts and Conceptual Thought Concepts: Ideas; Abstract categories or classes of meaning; Refined and enhanced over time. Deals with meaning of words. Can be concrete places, objects, institutions, events, ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Examples of Concepts  island, village, city, nation, river,democracy, revolution, power, poverty, equator, holiday, supply, scarcity, ocean, colony,family war map suburbs prejudice transportation desert community freedom, culture, mountain, boundary, North, peace, assembly line, earth, nationality, money, neighborhood, waste, shelter, conflict

Key Ideas to be Developed What knowledge is fundamental to the accomplishment of the instructional goals and how might this be developed in students?

Your Task: Identify the key concepts or key ideas that are implicit in the generalization/big ideas that we have discussed as we have explored the various aspects of effective democratic social studies.

Facts Facts are necessary for building conceptual knowledge and generalizations. The teacher needs to make judgments as to 1) whether the factual information is needed to elaborate on or explain main ideas, 2) the extent to which it is frequently used in ordinary living, 3) whether the information is likely to remain important for a long period of time, and 4) whether the information is an important part of the common culture and is therefore something

Examples Fact: New Orleans typically is warmer in the winter than Milwaukee. Generalization: Climate varies from place to place.

Your task: How do you make sense of the relationship between facts, concepts, and generalizations? What are some underlying facts that will need to be taught in order to teach the generalization and concepts you wrote earlier?

Generalizations and You Working with a partner, find the generalizations, concepts, and ‘big ideas’ in the worksheet. Consider: In what ways do these generalizations or big ideas influence our ability to model and instruct effective democratic social studies? In what ways might these statements be rewritten in order to alter the goal of the ‘big idea’ or generalization, or make it mean something different?