Current Events Susan's Article: March 11, 2009 Curriculum - Mapping Our Way to Relevance

Current Events March 11, 2009 Curriculum - Mapping Our Way to Relevance

This article reflects my current views on instruction. Traditionally, instruction was strictly subject oriented and based on root memorization. This appraoch might have worked in our generation, but will no longer works for our 21st century students. They live in a global world with a continuous information stream through many sources, including social networking. As adults we do not live our lives in subject based compartments - so why should be teach this way. A few years back, I had the wonderful experience of creating two interdisciplary units - one on Gas Laws in chemistry with my algebra 2 colleague and one on the Nuclear Chemistry with my history colleague. The students were exposed to the same concepts from two different perspectives in a collaborative effort. They realized the interdependence of the subject matter and performed better on our summative assessments than their counterparts involved in traditional instruction - our control group (this was a pilot program initiated by our administrator at the time who has since retired) . Griessman sets the stage for schools to rethink their approach to instruction. "Perhaps the school day ought to be divided into subjects more relevant to our lives: communication, problem-solving, and professional skills". "Better yet, what if the school weren't built around subjects at all? What is it were instead built around real-world problems and solutions? What if disciplinary content were so integrated that assessment could be based on genuine achievement, not on short-term retention of disparate facts and algorithms?" Imagine that, authentic instruction and assessment. This would be a major shift for schools and would require an enormous effort to rewrite curriculum to address this collaborative, interdisplanary, solution focused approach; but imagine the gift we would be giving our students - assessment based on "real solutions to real problems for a real audience" and "a learning environment more relevant to their future".