…….Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on a never ending reel…..

That’s awesome about eliminating extraneous content. It does seem that so much of our TEKS are too specifically spelled out…

I did look at your TEKS standards for Biology, and as an experienced biology teacher (15 years), I would consider it a very full plate. In fact, it’s unrealistic.

We’re fortunate that in Illinois that the standards are not that prescriptive, and enable us to have more latitude in the instructional content of our coursework. In fact, we are going through a district-wide curriculum process now (developing a guaranteed and viable curriculum)where we are actually “pulling the weeds” and eliminating extraneous content as it relates to what we currently teach relative to the state standards, so that we do indeed have time to spend to develop true understanding.

Thanks for your posts…they are thought-provoking.

I agree with the point that we need to emphasize student engagement and learning more than “covering the content.” With so many curriculum standards to meet, however, I am not sure how we can help teachers escape their perception of being overwhelmed with content unless we REDUCE the number of curriculum requirements. This is the depth v breadth problem. We know we want students to go in depth in their studies, but we feel like we can’t because there is too much material to cover.

Ultimately I think we need to consider this not just from a big picture standpoint, which is perhaps easier but less useful since none of us can directly “change the system,” but also at a classroom level. Part of the answer there may involve getting students to help teach content to their peers in class. While students won’t get into the same amount of “deep study” with the topics they don’t research themselves and they hear others present, they will still get exposed to that content. The content they research and present themselves, however, will be learned better because of greater depth they get into when they TEACH the content.

Enid Public Schools here in Oklahoma has been asking students as well as teachers to develop digital curriculum kits for different curriculum areas, and I think this is a move in the right direction. They’ve even had students at their alternative campus develop kits, and their levels of reported ENGAGEMENT (which was one of the main points that started this thread of discussion, I think) was very high.

No one has enough time to cover all the content that is out there, and no one ever will. No one will also have the time, by themselves, to develop high-quality digital curriculum lessons for all the content standards they are expected to cover. Given these realities, I think we need to work toward a regime where teachers can create, share, and remix the digital lessons of other teachers that can be dropped right into a course management system like Moodle. Assessments included. Once those kits are “built,” however, the work is not finished– I think the act of getting students involved in the process of creating these should continue.

Good discussion here that’s keeping me thinking too, thanks for getting this going!