In my last post, I promised that I would begin to outline a vision for curriculum and resource development in the Common Core era. Before I begin to share that vision, I think it is important to understand some of the institutional barriers that impede our ability to provide teachers, students, and other stakeholders with all of the resources needed for successful curriculum implementation.
Let me know if this sounds familiar. Summer is fast approaching and a newsletter is shared identifying which curriculum projects will be sponsored during summer workshops. As a teacher, you are always interested in earning some extra money (and you have a passion for developing curriculum resources and/or assessment) so you sign up. After three or fours days off in the summer, you report to a local school (the air conditioning takes 4 or 5 hours to kick in) and you are given your charge. In the next 7 days, you and your team of 8 teachers will develop the new Algebra 1 course; taking time to develop pacing charts, identify content standards, develop unit outlines, learning objectives, lesson resources, sample assessment items (align to state assessments), rationale, teaching suggestions, and strategies for differentiation. All the while, you have to be cognizant of emerging brain research, learning styles, district initiatives, support for ELL students, and you have to master the district style guide which ultimately results in as much time editing as creating. All of this has to be done in a 7-day period, regardless of whether or not you are feeling creative. In the end, the product developed by your team represents nothing short of a miracle. Central office staff and editors clean up the document over the remainder of the summer. They slap “DRAFT” across the front page and distribute to teachers at the one and only district wide professional development day; giving all concerned a whopping three days to peruse the document prior to full scale implementation.
I have seen and have been part of this process numerous times in my 16 years in the business…both as a participant and a curriculum leader. The problems with this model are almost too numerous to name. (but I will try) First, starting with the end in mind, the fact that teachers receive the new set of guidelines during the first week back to school, with almost no time for review, is a major problem. The DRAFT designation is not enough to excuse away the critical reflection that is sacrificed to the process. Second, publishing companies spend millions of dollars developing programs over several months/years. The process of developing work of such import in such a short time is a gamble…leaders are gambling that developers will bring their very best ideas to the forefront in a high-stress, high-volume process. I don’t know about you but I rarely do my most creative work under pressure. Finally, (for this publication) it is truly impossible to account for the multiple factors listed above, even if you create a team of representative stakeholder to participate in the process. There are just too many things left to chance.
This all too familiar process makes me very nervous when thinking about the emergence of the Common Core State Standards. In this era of reform, understanding actually matters. Designing experiences that take into account both conceptual understanding and procedural knowledge is not a choice...we simply need to bring about a national balance. (for the first time in our history) I have spent a great deal of time observing classroom instruction. In fact, our team has informally observed over 330 teachers in the past three months. During those visits, we gained a deep understanding of what teachers need in order to elicit student behaviors defined by the Standards of Mathematical Practice. Do we have time to develop these resources…or will we leave teachers vulnerable as we change virtually everything? In the next post, I will share some of our team’s observable trends and begin to share what I feel teachers will need to successfully transition to the Common Core. With that foundation in place, I will share a vision that wil rely on unprecedented collaboration.
Until then, take care….
Bill
(William_barnes@hcpss.org, @billjbarnes)
