TE 818 Theme 4: Final Thoughts

Like I stated before I find the most important aspect of teaching (from my experience and perspective) is the development of objectives. It brings a focus and clarity to lessons for both the students and the teachers.  I mentioned in the past that I found some connections between what Tyler and Doll suggest for curriculum creation such as objectives (although Tyler's are concrete where Doll's are flexible for richness and rigor), reflection, and teaching to mastery. I find that though I agree it is important to be able to include the higher order thinking and creating a time for deeper learning, it is incredibly hard to be flexible with where these standards are heading like Doll presents with our current school structure. If a student is going to move up in class levels with different teachers it is hard to make content transitive rather than concrete. If it is possible then that would be the way to go. However, overall, I think the main importance is that there is a focus and the objectives are clear for the students to understand the focus and content.

I mentioned in my past reference that standards given by the state are not an entirely bad thing. I think the cons outweigh what would happen if schools were given free choice to teach what they want and when. However, it is important to include voices of educators within these decisions. I found an interesting article about how 11 educational leaders that were never teachers...extremely frustrating! It is important to keep all voices in mind with research to make curriculum choices.

I was asked about the common core and the ability to use the model of asking the students what they want to learn and then transforming it to meet the standards that are required by the state. I think that there is more of an ability to do this with the Common Core than there is with the Michigan State GLCE's. There are far fewer standards with the Common Core that focus on the ideal's of Doll which include depth, higher order thinking and Tyler's which includes processes and steps. With there being less standards it allows you to go in much more depth about a topic and actually allowing you to probably answer and extend more of what the children are wanting to learn. Granted, many teachers probably do not use this model often because there are mandated standards that they know they are going to teach, but this is a great teaching strategy to create an importance and reason for the students to learn. This is the closest a teacher can probably get the students to feel like they have a say in education.

Referring back to my quote "teaching is an interactive process with learning a by-product of that interaction. (Doll 271), I find this to speak to the actual classroom rather than just the standards created by curriculum creators. There is more to a classroom than the standards. Teachers still have choices in the classroom (in most places) as to how to teach content. How is it delivered, what collaborative experiences are going to be used, how are you assessing it in the classroom, and even what order are you teaching the content throughout the year. The interaction is seeing what the students are able to understand and adjusting the curriculum until the student meets the standard you are looking for and if time permits to create that richness to allow deeper knowledge for the future. However, I find it completely wrong for a state to mandate scripted curriculums that take away those choices from teachers. At that point you are disgracing their education and their ability to be the master's of their craft.