What I learned about myself and curriculum planning

During the course of this semester, I have engaged in several different aspects in development of curriculum planning. We have used the UBD format to construct a brand new curriculum for "novice" teachers in which we thought of ourselves as administrators. The UBD format used the "backward design" in which a mission statement was developed first, followed by goals and objectives, assessment, and then the actual learning experience. It is often "normal” in education that teachers first develop the learning experience without a goal or mission in mind. I learned the value of the "backward design" and how much more sense it makes when developing curriculum or even basic lessons. I also learned about other subject area CCCS, when becoming an administrator or supervisor one often has to observe teachers in other content area. A basic understanding of the content area is needed to make constructive criticism. This semester has been a great experience for me to continue to develop the skills needed to become a school leader.

Supervision and school culture

Question of Interest/ Relevance: How can supervision impact school culture?
Supervision through administrators and/or supervisors plays a large role in help creating and shaping individual school cultures. "Culture makes almost all the difference and is at the heart of lifeworld of schools- the place where our values and commitments are stored, grow, and are protected (Sergiovanni, etc. page 331)”. Supervisors need to encourage teachers to be more effective in making their teaching coincide with the curriculum.
Supervisors need to promote clear expectations and social interactions with one another to teachers and students. People need to know what is expected of them, how they fit into the total scheme of things, what their responsibilities are, how they will be evaluated, and what their relationships with others will be. Schools need to provide opportunities for students and teachers to interact with others, this interaction helps people define and build up their own self-concepts and reduce the anxiety and fear they experience in the work environment.
A positive culture gives everything a person does more meaning and a clear objective. Teachers respond to work not only as a result of psychological needs but also as makers of meaning. Communities also play a major role in shaping the culture of a school by giving the school a foundation to work from. When all the external factors come together the highest level of culture can be achieved through artifacts, perspectives, values, and assumptions.

Leadership in Schools

Leadership is the backbone and cornerstone of production and excellence in United States education. American educational has been under controversy because of the achievement on test scores when compared with other developed countries. Research has pointed to several strategies on how to tighten the gap with other countries. As a leader in a school or school district, it is one of their main responsibilities to produce maximum effort out their faculty by using some of the research. As I look into the future and hopefully see myself as some type of formal leader in a school district, it is important to examine and understand my own assumptions and practices as a precursor to develop a vision of educational excellence.
As a future leader, I believe it is crucial to compare and contrast with your previous experiences to make necessarily changes on your future school. I believe one of the most important factors that directly contributes to student achievement is the school climate. I am very fortunate to teach in a school that has a great school climate and would like to transfer that same type of climate to my future school. The kind of school I would like to become a leader of is a school that is student friendly where the teachers know the individual student and have a personal relationship so they know what teaching method is best for the individual and how to motivate them. I believe that students achieve best when they feel that the teachers have true compassion and care for each individual student.
By placing school climate as top of my leadership priority, I believe that my leadership style of dynamic supportive will contribute to a great school community. A dynamic supportive is a person that can take charge but does not always have to because others will. As a leader of anything, it is important to get a long with others and have the respect of the followers. Being a dynamic supportive, I truly care of students and want to help them out to succeed in life. I think teachers and students learn and achieve more when they feel they are in a caring community. I would like to create an environment that is not looking for individuals to break the rules but rather looking at the brighter side. I feel that when you create this type of environment, a leader can place more trust in the faculty to do what is best for the students. By placing more trust on teachers, they will be more excited to come to work each day; therefore, producing a healthy work environment. On the contrast, I understand by being this type of leader it can easily be manipulated and taken advantage of by others. When leading through a dynamic supportive style, it is crucial to recognize when a manipulative situation is occurring so it can be prevented.

Core Curriculum Content Standards

The state of New Jersey in 1996 created the original core curriculum content standards to be implemented by schools in the state of New Jersey in order to provide regardless of residency, a "thorough and efficient" education. New Jersey’s standards were created to improve student achievement by clearly defining what all students should know and be able to do at the end of thirteen years of public education. The NJCCCS include nine subject areas: visual and performing arts, health and physical education, language arts, math, science, social studies, world languages, technology, and career education. Each content area has numbered standards (e.g., 3.1, 5.2) followed by a descriptive statement. The descriptive statement provides a brief overview of the content and skills enumerated in the standard.
I am currently a health and physical education teacher for students in grade levels Kindergarten- 8th grade and did a lot of research on Health and Physical Education content standards during my professional and undergraduate career. My group critiqued the Technological Literacy content standards and learned an area outside of our comfort zone. Some of the similarities between the two content standards include: information is broad which allows teachers to be creative in implementation, encourages life long learning in subject area, organized in the same manner, do not consider special needs students, user/teacher friendly, and constantly builds and carrier over from one grade level to the next. Some of the differences are in organization because health and physical education is almost two independent subject areas, physical education standards are more detailed in nature (six standards in health and physical education, two in technology literacy), the physical education standards better organized through its layout, and the physical education standards are more reader friendly. The knowledge that is most valued in the technological literacy is basic computer skills, ethnics in computer usage, and importance of technology in society. In the physical education the knowledge that is most valued is nutrition, personal health, importance of exercise, and the benefits of a lifelong healthy lifestyle. This knowledge in the core curriculum content standards is representative of the aims of public education, because it promotes lifelong learners and a thorough and efficient education in the individual content area.

Technology Standards Handout

Critique of the NJCCCS for Technology:
The Core Curriculum Content Standards in Computer and Technology Literacy foster curriculum development by providing teachers a foundation of what is expected to be taught and the various grade levels. The curriculum outlines a wide variety of topics that should be taught by the end of grades four, eight, and twelfth. Each of the topics has progress indicators that help guide through the core themes. Some of the core themes of the standards are:

1. Basic PC Usage (Keyboarding & Operating Systems)
2. Understanding the Impact of Technology on Society Through Different Designs and Systems (Ex: Medicine, Agriculture, Energy etc.)
3. Solving Problems Through Technology

Strengths of the Content Standards:
One of the strength of the curriculum is it allows the teacher their own independent implementation of how to teach the curriculum to their students. The curriculum is broad which allows teachers to implement and teach to their personal strengths in knowledge. Besides that, some other strengths of the technology curriculum are:

1. Skills and concepts are continuously built from one grade level to the next
2. Targets useful and real life skills that are applicable to daily life
3. User friendly—only two standards in total

Weaknesses of the Content Standards:
Some weaknesses in the technology curriculum at times it can be very “wordy” and hard to follow (using vague language such as appropriate and adequate). The curriculum is very broad and can be easily misinterpreted without a clear direction. Because it so broad, students from different school districts could be learning completely different educational themes from one another without a cohesive and more detailed outline for the teachers to follow. Other weaknesses also include the following:

1. Don’t consider advantages technology has for students with special needs
2. Has vague goals for students (partly because the standards are so broad)

Essential and Topical Questions

After last week's discussion in class, I decided to explore essential and topical questions a little further. To be honest, I had an idea what essential and topical questions were but never really understood how powerful they can be when used properly in teaching. As a Kindergarten- 8th grade teacher, I only believed that essential questions could be used with "older" students in middle and high school. After listening to the discussion, what a neat teaching strategy it is and how it can used to introduce new concepts. I believe that an essential and topical question engage the learner to think outside the box and makes them think beyond the typical boundaries. By definition there is no one true correct answer to an essential question so the possibilities are endless.
This week I was teaching nutrition in one of my 6th grade health classes. I introduced nutrition by asking a topical question of "why are the majority of Americans considered unhealthy?". This question got several students involved in class discussion, and it started of somewhat of a debate. This question leads to several other questions which lead into my lesson of nutrition.
When designing a curriculum, it is important to think of essential questions. It gives the curriculum a little more structure and gives the entire school year a somewhat of a theme. Topical questions are then asked to a more specific topic with a more definite outcome. What an awesome teaching strategy!

Eduring understanding

The purpose of education is to teach students to fully understand the core concepts of each subject area to maintain an independent life. Often more emphasis is placed on "good grades" than true understanding. There is a monumental difference between understanding and memorizing. Just because a student receives an A on a test or quiz, it does not mean that he or she has truly understood the true objectives. To truly understand, one must be able to teach the concepts to another. The Schooling by Design (SBD) text, offers six facets of understanding: - explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge.

Each student has different background knowledge that arrived from a variety of experiences. In order for a student to truly understand, they must connect their background knowledge with the new information to draw connections and interpretations. In physical education, often a lesson is taught through some type of modeling; in result, the students must demonstrate the skill to the best of their ability. If done properly, students can help one another by teaching different physical activity movements and concepts. Physical education by nature allows students to be teachers and demonstrators. Students who are lacking the skills can observe other classmates in hopes of correcting their own mistakes.

Students need to connect subject material to one another. For example, students in physics class learn equations that require mathematics. Often a student can not use what they learned in math class and use it in physics class. In order for true understanding, teachers need to cross curriculum teach from previous knowledge.

I believe that in education, students are not truly understanding on hole. Critical questions need to be asked to connect it to real life situations. A good question emphasizes requires the student to interoperate the new information and draw their connections and conclusions.