It's curriculum time! Yes, curriculum with a lowercase “c.”
You've done the heavy lifting: five hours to internalize the grade-level content standards and complete a few of the major assessments for the grade and content you'll be teaching this coming school year.
So, what's next? The curriculum.
This task is lighter and may not even take the allotted two hours—unless you decide to nerd out, which I fully support.
Curriculum designers put incredible work into packaging a year's worth of learning into a book with instructions, supplements, assessments, a teacher's guide, and aligned standards. It's fascinating and sometimes we amazing classroom teachers believe we can do better...
However, I strongly discourage classroom teachers from "creating their own curriculum."
Why? Because we are not curriculum designers, and designing curriculum is both an art and a specialized skill. It's probably a course that should be included in our teacher prep, but until that happens, let's leave it to the professionals.
When we try to create our own curriculum, we often aim too high or too low, leave things out or including too much - but curriculum designers get it just right!
Now, don't worry there is time and space for you to get your designing on and that's when you are curating your Curriculum (capital "C"). This is where you bring in supplements and enhancements that make the lesson meaningful and memorable for your students. In an upcoming post we will get into this more.
But for now, let's get into reviewing the curriculum your school or district has provided.
Pro Tip: Use the student materials, not the teacher manual. The teacher manual has soooo much information, it can be overwhelming. But don't throw the manual away, it will be very useful for planning your instructional moves for each lesson.
Let's Begin
Start with the front cover: Look at the title and images.
Inside front cover: Check the copyright year. Anything before 2015 may not be aligned with grade-level content standards.
Table of Contents: Review the topics and note their order. Keep your professional hat on—you're the expert. If you've been teaching the same grade and content for at least a year, you know the flow, where students typically need more time, and the interruptions that can occur throughout the school year.
Now, you're ready to review the first unit you will be teaching. Note, I said the first unit, not the first chapter. Sometimes the first unit may not align with the first interim assessment, so you might need to reorganize the order of the units.
Next, Grab your post-it notes.
For this step, review the entire section on the first unit you'll be teaching—from the opening lesson to the end-of-unit assessment. The goal is to understand how the curriculum developers structure teaching and learning.
Consider:
Whether grade-level standards are listed
The flow of each lesson
The number of lessons in each unit
If the sequence of questions within a lesson is leveled from easiest to more challenging
If the lessons within a unit are leveled
If the cool-down is included in the student materials
Complete a review of the first two or three units you will be teaching.
Note: As you go through each unit, you will feel inspired. Use the post-it notes to jot down ideas you want to remember for enhancing the unit and/or lessons.
And that's it. Unit(s) review done.
Comment: Is two hours enough time to review the first two to three units?
Next Up: Unit Zero, the unit you teach before your first content unit. Let’s go!
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