Curriculum in its Social Context

The reading focused on how educator’s can reflect on their own teaching and learning in the mode of reflection through story telling. Moreover, the reading emphasizes how educators do this not only through their work teaching at a job but also through the lives they live – how can an educator’s own life point to curriculum making? The quote that stood out to me the most was on page 7: “I do not believe that people need to be told what to do. They can be advised or guided but not told. We can all think for ourselves. In the same way that we are born with the capacities to walk and talk as part of our genetic inheritance, we are born with the capacity to think, to make choices, and to reflect critically on our actions.” I chose the above quote because this describes one aspect of what I try to do as a teacher: encouraging students to think and act for themselves, not be dependent on me as a teacher or other adults in their lives. I want them to take ownership over their own learni...

“Are we playing ‘Quizziz’ today?” one of my students asked excitedly. “Quizziz” is an online game where students can play against each other. I use it in my Biology classes as well as my math classes. The students love it and ask for opportunities to play it – often students who are often operate on a lower level than others. They are always engaged and, I think, always learning. They play to see if they beat their own score as well as “level up” in front of their classmates. They enjoy choosing their own avatar names as they are learning new material. “Have you ever tried Quizlet Live, Ms. P?” one of my students inquired. I had not, but I was interested in trying it. Our review class for the next Biology quiz transformed from boredom to excitement as students played Quizlet Live for the first time in Biology. The Quizlet website randomly mixes students into teams. To win, each team must get 12 questions right in a row, or they start back at 0. My period 4 Biology class in pa...

At my school, students K-6 th take an Outdoor Exploration class for 1 hour per week. Last year, I had the privilege of subbing many times for this class. At first I thought it was a not a worthwhile class, but I have very much changed my mindset of the class. Where I work, most of the students live in Washington D.C. and many have never been out of the Washington DC metropolitan area. I was just spending time with a student who has never been to the beach, though we are close to the beach. She also has never experienced a night under the stars. She told me about all the places she wanted to travel. I was sad, thinking about the life I had growing up compared to my students. I grew up in the suburbs with parents who were very intentional about having my sisters and I play outdoors. We did trips as a family that were spent primarily in nature. Learning about nature and enjoy the beauty of the Earth has taught me so much about the world we live in and has made life much mor...

Many would say that curriculum encompasses all the material students learn, the methods used to teach the students, and the order the material should be taught. However, one teacher told me that good teachers understand that “you are the curriculum”. The teacher, with their knowledge and expertise, paired with their knowledge of the students and their background knowledge, can put together a much better curriculum than one that is mandated by the school or the county. Teachers are teaching students, not the material. Each student is unique and may need something different. Ideally, all students should be challenged at the level they are at: the curriculum should not be too challenging or too easy.  Of course, this is difficult to attain with one teacher and many students in a classroom, but teachers should have that mindset in order to serve the students best. If teachers consider themselves as being the curriculum, they will be pushed to consider what they know and what th...

Hello! My name is Sarah Pankratz, and I teach at Cornerstone, a private Christian school in SE Washington, DC. This is my 4th year teaching full time and my 5th year at the school. I have been teaching high school math, and this year I am teaching Biology too. My concentration for this Masters at MSU is in Math & Science Education. I hope to teach overseas some day and have some informal experience teaching ESL. Some of my goals professionally are: 1) to grow in creating engaging lessons for students to get them excited about biology & math, 2) to have students conceptually understand math and make real-life connections, and 3) to foster a love of learning that will take students past high school.  Initial Definition of Curriculum: Curriculum encompasses the whole of student learning in a class, including projects, lessons and their specific objectives, class materials such as textbooks, notes, and worksheets, and anything the teacher adds on in teaching the material....