Comments on: Should teachers customize their lessons or just stick to the ‘script’?

By: Sally Bergquist

Sally Bergquist — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 21:27:35 +0000

Being aligned with standards is a very small piece of what is needed in good curriculum. Standards have to do with content, not design. I have used several curriculums that got excellent ratings on EdReports and they were designed so poorly that it was shocking. For example, constantly missing the mark on the amount of time a lesson would take in real life, giving students tasks with no preparation in previous lessons, and introducing two new difficult concepts in one lesson. Most curriculum is filled with this type of poor design around pacing, lack of organization, and ignoring cognitive overload. I have sometimes wondered after trying to be faithful to a district curriculum and teaching a ridiculous lesson whether a curriculum was actually tried out on real kids before going on the market. The problem is, I don’t think there is any regulation around that.
What if getting a curriculum on the market was like getting a new drug on the market? What if it had to be proven effective by trials? Can you imagine if drugs were approved simply by a website that said they had all the right ingredients? That’s kind of what we’re relying on.
Because of this focus on the standards, what publishers have done in teacher’s manuals is to list standards the lesson is supposed to meet, rather than concrete objectives for the lesson. Standards are for the end of the year. This is confusing for teachers because it looks “right”, yet it focuses on where students “should be” rather than where they are.
Until curriculum has to go through a rigorous process of proven success (and not just the publisher saying it’s based on “evidence”), forcing teachers to stick with it is like making them test an unproven medicine.

By: Tonya Whitaker

Tonya Whitaker — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 18:44:35 +0000

As a community college professor who teaches developmental reading and writing to recent high school grads, I completely endorse teachers who take the standards and create their own methods to engage students in learning. Obviously, this by-the-book approach does not prepare high school graduates for their futures. Employers and professors are teaching graduates how to think critically and write complete sentences. Making money off children (talking to the likes of Pearson) is past its prime.

By: Luke Rabelhofer

Luke Rabelhofer — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 17:00:25 +0000

It seems like there are two things going on: one side says our curriculum is rigourius, the other says our curriculum is culturally relevant. The last thing discussed is the most important. Teachers should be able to work with the curriculum sellers to create rigorous, relevant curriculum.

By: Terri Haakenson

Terri Haakenson — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 01:41:43 +0000

Published curriculums are not state specific. They throw in all sorts of things that aren’t necessarily needed. Teachers are trained and experienced teachers know how to use canned curriculum as the base then make it work for the students they currently have. Every day to year is so different in needs and concerns that a canned curriculum won’t be the end all to use. Scripted curriculum is not needed and insults the ability of teachers to use it to the best capacity to meet student needs. Most curriculums are created like that’s the only thing that is taught. There is simply too much to try to get through and do a meaningful job of it. This article and its research seems like curriculum companies sponsored it. To degrade what teachers use to supplement the curriculum is to push the publisher’s product. Teachers are incredible, knowledgeable, and the ones on the front line. Maybe they should be allowed to do their job instead of lining the pockets of those in the business of making money.

By: DuWayne Krause

DuWayne Krause — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 22:29:54 +0000

We have seen this article before, referring to math curriculum. Mr. Steiner, once again is pushing published curriculum materials. I have examined a number of published math curriculums and they are terrible. They do a poor job of teaching math concepts and they are not progressive. A common trait of published math curriculums is that they “jump around, all over the place”, in no logical order. I have never seen so many response letters as to when the article about published math curriculums was printed. If I remember correctly, all but one of them expressed dissatisfaction with published math curriculums.