Initially, my ideas of curriculum were very limited in that it only included ideas that were drawn directly and very specifically from national standards. Since taking this course, my ideas about curriculum and what can be included in curriculum, and even how to incorporate non-content based items into the curriculum have changed drastically. My original beliefs can be seen in the first image where curriculum is passed down from the national curriculum, to the school’s curriculum, where educators teach their curriculum based of of those that are provided for them at the national and school level (See Bottom Image). The second image better describes the direction in which my ideas of curriculum have moved to (See Left Image).

 

Curriculum is everything that students learn in the classroom, including formal content based curriculum and informal curriculum such as behaviors, self-regulation, goal making, skills, etc. “Curriculum in the schools is most often defined as course offered, the content within courses, or the totality of the learning experience a school provides its students. Sometimes it is defined as everything a student encounters in school, which brings forth in addition to the formal curriculum the conception of the hidden (or unofficial) curriculum” (Perrone, 95). Because students are learning from everything they encounter in the classroom, it is logical to incorporate both aspects of formal and informal curriculum as aspects of curriculum building that teachers should be intentional about. Because students learn so much about themselves and how to handle various social situations within the classroom, this knowledge must be intentionally incorporated into thinking about the curriculum in a classroom. Tomlinson and McTighe assert that “quality curriculum should play a central role in meeting the core needs of students for affirmation, affiliation, accomplishment, and autonomy, but it is the teachers’ job to make the link between the basic human needs of students and curriculum” (16). This means that in addition to teaching formal curriculum, educators should be conscientious of teaching the skills necessary to understand and process social situations that allow students to build better relationships in the classroom. While this may sound extensive, what this really means is providing students with the skills needed to work together in group projects, communicate their problems or frustrations with other students, or how to respectful engage with their peers or professional engage other adults in the space. These skills, especially the communication skills necessary for group work, were often brought up as issues in the classroom that went unaddressed among the students in the dialogue project. Multiple students expressed their displeasure with being unable to work with other students in group work and their preference of working individually as a result. Rather than throwing students into such situations and hoping for the best, addressing these types of problems as a group should be incorporated as a necessary and meaningful part of the curriculum.

 

While I have spoken about the informal curriculum at length in this section, the rest of this section and the rest of the tabs will delve deeper into what more formal curriculum might look like in curriculum. Along with being able to know how to do certain things (exhibit specific skills), students need to be able to know the content and understand the big ideas behind them (See Left Image). It is important for students to learn the content, but what is more important is that that they understand the larger ideas that are being presented and can apply them in areas beyond the next test, the class, or even their education. As the following sections will describe, there are many formal structures that can inform how one teaches, but being conscientious of what other learning are happening in the classroom is also really important.