Designing Curriculum: Identifying the Proper Teaching Knowledge

When educators begin to do design a new curriculum for their school or classroom they must begin by understanding the standards that they are given. Whether teachers are working with general standards that have been decided by the state, county, or at a national level, they must be confronted from the beginning due to the high stakes testing that correlates with these standards. Part of understanding these standards includes finding embedded concepts, or the specific knowledge they encompass (Solomon, 2003, p. 92). With careful interpretation, we can identify these concepts within a set standard, or specify certain standards upon which to focus our instructional time. We accomplish this by asking if the knowledge in the standard is essential and enduring. Students should also be able to apply the information in other areas once it has been learned. Pearl Solomon suggests we "design down" our standards and shares her "template for action" to aid in constructing curriculum in The Curriculum Bridge (2003, pp. 92- 93). This provides a set of questions teachers may ask themselves while they design their curriculum around the most important standards, or parts of standards, which students need to learn in order to be successful, and move forward in their education.

When developing a learning experience to coincide with our curriculum we begin by selecting a standard to examine more closely. I have chosen ELA2R3 The student acquires and uses grade-level words to communicate effectively. The student:

a. Reads a variety of texts and uses new words in oral and written language.
b. Recognizes grade appropriate words with multiple meanings.
c. Recognizes and applies the appropriate usage of homophones, homographs, antonyms, and synonyms.
d. Determines the meaning of unknown words on the basis of context (The Georgia Department of Education, 2006).

This is a standard that I have previously identified as a "power standard" (Laureate, 2003). I had determined that it contains "essential knowledge" and believe that it requires more than just brief exposure.