Short summary of Ralph Tyler’s Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction

• Four fundamental questions to be answered when developing any curriculum
  • What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
  • What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?
  • How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?
  • How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained? (Tyler, 1950, 1-2)
• Content and ideologically agnostic

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding By Design. (Expanded 2nd edition) Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. pp. 13-34, and 105-133.

• Three stages of backwards design & Template
  • Identify desired results
    • Established Goals
    • Essential Questions
    • Understandings: Students will understand that…
    • Students will know
  • Determine acceptable evidence
    • Performance tasks
    • Other Evidence
  • Plan learning experiences and instruction
    • Learning Activities
      • W = help the students know Where the unit is going and What is expected. Help the teacher know Where the students are coming from (prior knowledge, interests…)
      • H = Hook all students and Hold the interests
      • E = Equip students, help them Experience the key ideas and Explore the issues
      • R = Provide opportunities to Rethink and Revise the understandings and work
      • E = Allow students to Evaluate their work and its implications
      • T = Be Tailored (personalized) to the different needs, interests, and abilities of learners
      • O = Be Organized to maximize initial and sustained engagement as well as effective learning
• Standards contribute to the design work in 3 ways:
  • As a reference point during design
  • For use in self-assessment and peer reviews of draft designs
  • For quality control of completed designs
• The UbD design matrix (column headers with rows for each stage of backwards design)
  • Key Design Questions
  • Chapters of the Book
  • Design Considerations
  • Filmes (Design Criteria)
  • What the Final Design Accomplishes
• Essential Questions: Doorways to Understanding
  • Four connotations of what an essential question is:
    • Important questions that recur throughout all our lives
    • Core ideas and inquiries within a discipline
    • Helps students effectively inquire and make sense
    • Will most engage a specific and diverse set of learners
  • The importance of intent – not only the question has to be essential but the intent of it should be clear
  • Topical vs Overarching questions
    • Topical are more content specific questions
    • Overarching are generalized question about the content
    • Define the intent then create overarching and topical questions
• Question starters based on the Six Facets of Understanding
  • Explanation
  • Interpretation
  • Application
  • Perspective
  • Empathy
  • Self-knowledge
• Crafting Understandings
  • Examples and non-examples of understanding
  • Definition
    • Inference stated as specific and useful generalization
    • Transferable – enduring value beyond a specific topic
    • Abstract, counterintuitive, and easily misunderstood ideas
    • Acquired by ‘uncovering’ and ‘doing’ – developed inductively, coconstructed by learners, using ideas is realistic setting and with real-world problems
    • Summarizes important strategic principles in skill areas
  • Topical and overarching understandings
  • Understandings vs Factual Knowledge

Mukai, G. (2000). Anatomy of a Curriculum Development Project. Unpublished paper. Stanford Program on International and Cross- Cultural Education. pp. 1-21.

• Example of curriculum for teaching migration, looking at Japanese migration in the Americas as a base
• Sections of the curriculum design process
  • Needs assessment
  • Conceptualizations
    • Activities
    • Organizing Questions
    • Objectives
    • Strategies
    • Materials
    • Assessment
  • Curriculum Research and Writing
    • Multiple intelligences
      • Verbal-linguistic intelligence
      • Logical-mathematical intelligence
      • Spatial intelligence
      • Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
      • Musical intelligence
      • Interpersonal intelligence
      • Intrapersonal intelligence
    • Small group activities
    • Constructivism
      • Teachers seek and value their student’s points of view
      • Classroom activities challenge student’s suppositions
      • Teachers pose problems of emerging relevance
      • Teachers build lessons around primary concepts and ‘big’ ideas
      • Teachers asses student learning in the context of daily teaching
    • Emphasis on multiple perspectives, balance, and diversity in exploring any issue
    • Utilizing content experts and teachers
  • Evaluation
    • Edit curriculum for particular context
  • Dissemination
    • Spread the word

Gardner, H. (1999). The Disciplined Mind. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 115-137.

• Designing Education for Understanding
  • University of Phoenix – designed to get a job
• Plan backwards – determine what kind of person you want to produce, then design education accordingly
• Neither breadth nor depth – but understanding the underlying principles of a discipline
• Difficulties of Understanding – need deep content knowledge from teacher
• Obstacles to Understanding – erroneous engravings on a young child’s mind – hard to change
• Disciplinary Expertise
• Four Approaches to Understanding
  • Learning from Suggestive Institutions
  • Direct Confrontations of Erroneous Concepts
  • A Framework That Facilitates Understanding
    • Performance of understanding – how to assess it?
  • Multiple Entry Point to Understanding
• Other players
  • Well-trained, Enthusiastic Teachers
  • Students Prepared and Motivated to Learn
  • Technology as Helper
  • Supportive Community