Curriculum at Your Core: Meaningful Teaching in the Age of Standards

About the Book

Curriculum at Your Core is a practical guide to designing curriculum that meets standards, serves personal and institutional values, and intentionally leads to successful student learning. Identifying which understandings, knowledge, and skills are “most important” for students to learn is always a question of values, so getting clear on values gives teachers a starting place to design cohesive units, courses, and programs. Written by a teacher for teachers, Curriculum at Your Core includes stories, examples, and case studies from across grade levels and subjects, as well as exercises, protocols, and templates teachers can use when writing values-congruent curriculum. Some key features include:
stories of failures and successes in designing curriculummetaphors from everyday life to help teachers understand curriculum design as a process rooted in values and culminating in meaningful learningexamples of essential questions, assessment guidelines, lesson calendars, unit plans, and curriculum mapsexercises and templates teachers can use to create and assess curriculumprotocols designed to encourage inclusive participation and critical reflection when colleagues look at curriculum together

Table of Contents:

Curriculum at Your Core: Meaningful Teaching in the Age of Standards
Preface: The Values That Guided This Book
Acknowledgments: The Evolution of a Values-Congruent Book
Introduction: Why Values?
Curriculum That Serves Multiple Sets of ValuesA Place at the Table: Your Values and the StandardsUsing This BookChapter 1: Clarifying the Values that Guide Your Teaching
Why Values?What Values Are (and Aren’t)A Place at the Table: Your Values and the StandardsClarifying Your Values as a TeacherMaking Values StatementsRendering Values from Academic DocumentsAvoiding Your ValuesBarriers to Teaching By Your ValuesGetting Stuck in Self-Limiting BeliefsAvoiding Uncomfortable FeelingsDisregarding What Matters MostExternal FactorsJust NoticingChapter 2: Designing Curriculum Using Multiple Sets of Values
Teachers’ Values vs. Students’ ValuesLearning What Your Students ValueTeachers’ Values vs. Other Teachers’ ValuesValues Clarification for GroupsTeachers’ Values vs. Institutional ValuesWorking with Institutional ValuesAccounting for Multiple Sets of ValuesChapter 3: Using Values to Focus Units
The Unity of a UnitRingmasters and DroversMaking Titles MatterEssential or Valued?What Essential Questions Sound LikeFrom Values to Essential QuestionsChapter 4: Organizing Lessons in a Values-Congruent Unit
GatheringChoosing What to Include -- and What to Let GoBeginning a Unit with What’s FamiliarIntroducing New MaterialChoosing Instructional MethodsCreating Meaningful Contexts for Student WorkProjectsCycles of Instruction, Practice, and ApplicationRegularly Returning to What MattersUsing the CalendarMaking a Lesson CalendarMaking AdjustmentsChapter 5: Values-Congruent Assessments
Kinds of Assessment Tasks“Values-Dense” AssessmentsStudents Choosing How They’re AssessedWhen and How Often to Give AssessmentsHelping Students Reach Outcomes You ValueProvide Multiple Models of Excellent Work for Students to AnalyzeTeach All the Skills Students Need to Do WellAllow Class Time for Students to Reach Your Expected Level of QualityModify Assignments to Fit Students’ NeedsWriting Assignment GuidelinesConsider What to Define and What to Leave Open-EndedSet Yourself Up to Give Values-Congruent GradesCopy Valued Expectations from Assignment to AssignmentLook for the Impact of Unintended BiasProject-Based Assessments and ValuesAdjusting Some MoreChapter 6: Aligning a Unit
A Values-Aligned UnitResistance to AlignmentGetting AlignedCommon Problems in Aligning a UnitProblem: When the Lessons and Assessment Don’t Match the Essential QuestionProblem: When the Teacher Values Knowledge or Skills but Doesn’t Explicitly Teach ThemProblem: When the Assessment Task Measures What’s Easy to Measure Instead of the Valued UnderstandingsProblem: When Teachers Assume Students Will Construct Valued Understandings for ThemselvesProblem: When the Essential Question Seems So Important That the Unit Goes On Too LongAssessing Your UnitChapter 7: Designing a Values-Congruent Course
Courses as HeapsOngoing StrandsCourse-Level Essential QuestionsDesigning a Meaningful Assessment MixMore Factors in Creating an Assessment MixMediaGroup SizeLocationsStakesCharting an Assessment MixSequencing Your CourseCreating Balance Between Competing ValuesBuilding On Students’ Existing Knowledge and Skill SetsCreating a Progression of IdeasUpcycling Student WorkThinking Flexibly About SequenceAssessing Your CourseChapter 8: Optimizing Your Students’ Experience
Gaps in the CurriculumMaking a Values Map of a ProgramRepetitions in the CurriculumOptimizing the CurriculumProgrammatic Assessment MixesRemoving Barriers to Optimizing the CurriculumValues ConflictsIntegrating Diverse ValuesWriting Programmatic Essential QuestionsMapping Values in the ProgramSeeking Multiple Valued PracticesChapter 9: Connecting Disciplines Using Values
Finding ConnectionsWhen Good Cross-Disciplinary Efforts Go BadCross-Disciplinary Essential QuestionsUsing Cross-Disciplinary Essential QuestionsOverly Broad Essential QuestionsTwo Kinds of Cross-Disciplinary UnitsOrganizing a Multi-Class UnitBegin with a Shared ExperienceCreate a Multi-Class ProjectRefer Frequently to the Essential QuestionMake an Adjustable Unit CalendarMulti-Class AssessmentsGetting Colleagues InterestedOvercoming Logistical BarriersGoing for ItChapter 10: Increasing Values Congruence Over Time
The Evolution of a Values-Congruent UnitUnintended ConsequencesShifting PrioritiesChanging TimesAction ResearchCritical Friends GroupsValues-Congruent Professional DevelopmentSetting GoalsSpecificMeaningfulActiveRealisticTime-LimitedThe Teacher You Want to BeBibliography
Index

About the Author :
Lauren Porosoff has been a teacher for 14 years, has served as a diversity coordinator and a grade-level team leader, and has led a school-wide curriculum mapping initiative. She regularly supports teachers and administrators in crafting assignments, designing curriculum review processes, and planning professional development.

Review :
Curriculum at Your Core celebrates the vitality of teaching and the inescapable fact that the teacher and her lessons are inseparable. Porosoff knows that the thoughtful teacher matures as she revisits her values each day while writing and executing lessons. At a time when policy-makers emphasize standardization, Porosoff counterbalances that trend by reminding us of the core humanity, courage, and brilliance of the teacher. Using numerous vivid and current examples, Lauren Porosoff offers a unique and often neglected approach to comprehensive curriculum development—that of values. She shows step by step how to use the teacher’s values effectively in this era of standards, while anticipating what problems may occur along the way. An additional plus is that she has a delightful writing style that makes this book an enjoyable read. Lauren Porosoff’s book poses and helps answer essential questions at the core of all education: what is worth teaching, why is it valuable, how do we make it meaningful to our students? Hers is an important and timely contribution to the debate about education in our country and beyond. Smart, heart-felt, and user-friendly, informed by theory but firmly anchored in everyday practice, this book is a must read for all teachers, those at the beginning of their career seeking practical advice as well as those seasoned professionals looking to reflect on their craft.