Fundamentals Of Curriculum

This primary textbook for graduate-level curriculum courses is comprehensive, rigourous, practical, and professional. Provides a thorough presentation of theory and research focused on how they pertain to the practice of teaching.

Offering an accessible entry into curriculum theory, this book defines and contextualizes key concepts for novice and experienced students. Leading scholars in curriculum studies provide short anchor texts that introduce, define, and situate contemporary curriculum theory constructs. Each anchor text is followed by two concise, creative keyword responses that demonstrate varied perspectives and connections, allowing readers to reflect on and engage with the personal relevance of these fundamental concepts. Useful to instructors and scholars alike, this book explains keyword writing as a teaching and learning strategy and invites readers to enter the complicated conversations of contemporary curriculum theory through their own creative, personal responses. Featuring wide-ranging, nuanced, and varied commentary on major relevant themes, as well as discussion questions for students, this book is an essential text for doctoral and masters-level courses in curriculum studies.

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Teachers are bombarded with advice about how to teach. The Fundamentals of Teaching cuts through the confusion by synthesising the key findings from education research and neuroscience to give an authoritative guide. It reveals how learning happens, which methods work best and how to improve any students’ learning. Using a tried-and-tested, Five-Step model for applying the methods effectively in the classroom, Mike Bell shows how you can improve learning and eliminate time-consuming, low-effect practices that increase stress and workload. He includes case studies from teachers working across different subjects and age groups which model practical strategies for: Prior Knowledge Presenting new material Setting challenging tasks Feedback and improvement Repetition and consolidation. This powerful resource is highly recommended for all teachers, school leaders and trainee teachers who want to benefit from the most effective methods in their classrooms.

This is an invaluable resource (sold as part of a kit) for developing a curriculum which aligns teaching and testing

Graduate students and teachers of introductory graduate courses in curriculum have many textbooks to choose from. What is special about Fundamentals of Curriculum: Passion and Professionalism, Second Edition? Content and approach: Clear, focused, and tightly structured, this text provides essential information and resources education professionals need to effectively deal with the urgent and important curriculum problems they face in schools today. Part I ("Perspectives") looks at curriculum from five fundamental perspectives: curriculum work, traditions of curriculum practice, curriculum theories, curriculum reforms, and curriculum studies. Part II ("Practice") applies these perspectives to important curriculum challenges that arise when people try to improve curriculums in schools and classrooms. Chapter features: Each chapter opens with a thought-provoking quotation and a set of guiding questions, and ends with "Questions and Projects" and "Further Studies" essays that recommend readings, Web resources, and other ways to study more about the topic. Distinctive qualities: Comprehensive. Readers are acquainted with the major schools of thought, value systems, lines of activity, and forms of inquiry in the field. Rigorous. The most rigorous research and scholarship on curriculum questions is cited and described; research and scholarship are used to ground discussions of curriculum questions; readers are introduced to the considerations involved in doing rigorous studies of curriculum questions. Practical. First, the focus is on curriculum practice. Theory, research, and other important facets of curriculum studies are presented as vitally important to practice, but the primary subject is what teachers and others do that students experience. Second, the text is practical in a more philosophical sense, taking the fundamental questions of curriculum studies to be practical questions and the primary task of curriculum inquiry to be informing decisions about what to do. Professional. Curriculum matters are approached professionally both in the sense that the text is designed to prepare readers for professional roles doing curriculum work, and also in the moral and ethical sense that attention is paid throughout the book to the responsibility of curriculum professionals in the public schools to serve the public interest. New in the Second Edition: The essential message and basic structure of the first edition is preserved, but the text has been significantly reworked to be: *leaner and simpler--the number of chapters is reduced from 13 to nine and the number of pages reduced almost as much; *more tightly focused on the ideas, arguments, and examples that are essential learning for anyone entering the study of curriculum--chapters less central to the primary concerns of curriculum professionals and scholars have been cut; *throughly updated and strengthened as an introduction to research and scholarship in curriculum studies--many new excellent studies have been integrated, and examples, references, and recommended readings included; and *more direct--the practical, professional message that is the book's main message is more clearly articulated.