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A Trip Down Curriculum Lane

10/Feb/2011 09:37 PM
We started to work on our final projects for the Assessment in E-Learning class this week. Part of the project is to develop four learning objectives and assessment tools that are linked to Bloom’s Taxonomy for a future online class that we will teach. I envision an online class about differentiated instruction that will be used as professional development for teachers. As I thought about this class, I knew had to have an idea of the “big ideas” and the goals that participants will learn. Once that was achieved, specific objectives could then be written. I soon realized that I was creating a “unit” of learning, just like when I was teaching.

I can remember a few incidents that dramatically changed who I was as a teacher. One such incidents was a week long class I took in the early 90’s. The class was about developing instructional units for middle school students. We learned how to design units that incorporated Bloom’s Taxonomy with product based learning. It was the first time I had heard the terms “rubric,” “multiple intelligences,” and “learning styles.” The instructor was incorporating current research in gifted education into classroom instruction for all students. I loved the idea of it all and fully embraced the concepts. I started planning and teaching with these ideas immediately. I even used the unit design in my Master’s thesis on integrating different subjects into a middle school science class. In a way, my story reminds me of Dr. Cynthia L. Corritore from Creighton University and how she transformed her teaching.

It has been 13 years since I planned my own instructional units. For the final project of this Assessment class, I started to use the old familiar planning grid I used to develop a unit. On the grid, Bloom’s Taxonomic levels are written across the top and down the first column from simple to complex are the concepts or big ideas of the unit. I posted an example of the planning grid on the discussion board and some of my classmates liked the style. One asked if I owned the copyrights. Of course I don’t, but I thought I should try and find out to give credit to the real author. I couldn’t remember who presented to me way back when, so I searched and found it! I’ve been using the Curry/Samara model for curriculum design. It was like finding an old friend. I did make one mistake though. Instead of the two highest levels of Bloom’s (Synthesize and Evaluate) that I used, Curry & Samara use Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking.

For the final project, I have decided that each module will be a separate big idea. From there, I developed learning objectives and activities. I also took Dr. Khalsa’s suggestion to include a separate assessment field, and my classmate’s suggestion (Thank you, Ellen) to include an analysis of current students. You can view the draft document here.

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