Challenging Curriculum

AMLE says:

Curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant.
Curriculum embraces every planned aspect of a school's educational program. An effective middle level curriculum is distinguished by learning activities that appeal to young adolescents, is exploratory and challenging, and incorporates student-generated questions and concerns.

It means:

Curriculum, at best, embodies every planned aspect of a school's educational program, from formal classes to guidance, clubs, interest groups, music and drama productions, student government, sports, and service learning experiences.  Activities appeal to young adolescents and let them generate and answer questions important to them.  Curriculum should be planned into longer units, rather than day-to-day lessons.  Essential questions and complex tasks are thoughtfully integrated into backwards design (skills, assessment, activities).  Students are exposed to "hidden curriculum" when they learn indirectly from interpersonal relationships and the school environment.  Educators should strive to integrate both the explicit and hidden curricula, ensuring interactions are positive and that students are valued and treated equitably.  This can be difficult, especially as state/federal guidelines such as CCLS, can butt heads with developmentally appropriate educational experiences.

Example:

Debra Pinto of Hopkinton Middle School (article here) won a Physical Education Teacher of the Year award for the middle school age group in Massachusetts by way of the MA Association for Health Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.  She created a unit on 5K running that focuses not just on physical fitness, but also on wellness and knowledge of the body.  As Ms. Pinto said, “There’s the art behind teaching physical education, but there’s that science behind teaching physical education, too.”  She notes that movement has its place amidst high-stakes learning.  The unit is for eighth grade students, who prepare for a 5K.  They learn to take their heart rate, to assess cardiovascular fitness, and then follow a training plan.  Students then continue to record data, re-assess, and self-evaluate why their cardiovascular fitness improved and how they feel.  Ms. Pinto also pursues fitness outside of the classroom, in the form of an Ironman triathlon and triathlon coaching, so that she practices what she teaches and can infuse these healthy activities into her work.  The assistant principal said that Ms. Pinto is somebody the students gravitate to.

Why it works: 

I love this example, because physical education is not usually thought of when planning curriculum.  It is clear that Ms. Pinto thought of a unit, rather than day-to-day plans, and thoughtfully used backwards design to determine a goal (training for a 5K/improving cardiovascular fitness), assessments, and activities.  Students could begin from where they were at, work towards a common goal, and self-reflect at the end.  Although there was no mention of student-generated questions, the article did mention that students answered upon completion of the training plan why their cardiovascular fitness improved and how they felt.  So, they answered questions and self-assessed.  This, to me, is a stellar example of integrating backwards design and educational theory into a realm that is not usually included in the academic sphere.  The data-driven unit is probably aligned with CCLS and academics.  Ms. Pinto obviously succeeded at integrating the explicit curriculum with the hidden, and based on the comments of her assistant principal, her interactions with students are positive.  I think by nature of the unit, they are valued, and by nature of the baseline data taken, that they are treated equitably: working toward a common goal but with differentiated content (e.g. different levels of cardiovascular fitness).

My classroom/school:

This past summer, the high school unit's theme was the Summer Olympics: Working Together and Going for the Gold.  This was great, in that it allowed for plenty of collaboration between classroom and cluster teachers, specifically the physical education teachers, as well as for a lot of flexibility.  We chose and developed activities that allowed students to target not only physical needs, such as getting energy out for one student or hand-eye coordination and balance for another, but also social skills.  This is especially important with my class, as skills relevant to peer-to-peer interactions are very emergent.  These desired skills became a six week-long unit spanning the summer, culminating in a site-wide Summer Olympics.  In this way, students were exposed to both hidden and planned curricula, positive interactions, teamwork and cooperation, and were valued and treated equitably.  In the future, I will further seek opportunities for collaboration with cluster teachers, to provide students with opportunities to gain functional skills or address physical needs, while still hitting CCLS.  Within my classroom, I will continue exposing my students to student-driven learning.  We have tried methods, such as KWL charts, to prompt students to generate questions, but with very limited success.  In the coming year, I will work to decrease the levels of support my students receive and proactively seek help from other teachers through observation and collaboration, as well as from curriculum support.

Active learning

AMLE says:

Students and teachers are engaged in active, purposeful learning.

Instructional practices place students at the center of the learning process. As they develop the ability to hypothesize, to organize information into useful and meaningful constructs, and to grasp long-term cause and effect relationships, students are ready and able to play a major role in their own learning and education.

It means:

Education is a two-way street.  Despite our official role as educators, we also learn from our students.  Heck, there have been times when I've had a student lead a reading lesson to see how well they pick up the skills, academic and social, I taught them.  Other times, I've had students do presentations on things that interest them, such as Bone Thugz 'n' Harmony.  It's great for expanding expressive speech and language skills, as well as for letting them know I'm interested in all of them and not just the parts that do math and science and bop people on the head while out in the community.  Moving on...this is about empowering students and providing them with opportunities to exercise agency in their own education.  Use "hands-joined" activities, where teachers and students work together.  This collaboration facilitates mastery of concepts, helps develop meaningful relationships, and reflects democratic processes.

Example:

8 students at Longfellow Middle School spent a day off teaching teachers how to make advanced podcasts, as part of Coulee Kids Podcast series.  Podcast coordinator Jeanne Halderson guided students in basics and let them "learn on their own" to develop advanced podcasts, using technology such as GarageBand.  Students say this is fun, that they learn collaboratively and independently, and that the opportunity to teach their teachers is unusual -- but good.  Here is the link to the podcast website.

Why it works:

The entire premise of the Coulee Kids Podcast series embodies active, purposeful learning.  The practice, enabled by Ms. Halderson, is entirely student-based.  It allows them to construct advanced knowledge through experiential learning and to demonstrate mastery of their skills/knowledge by teaching it to their teachers.  If that doesn't scream two-way street and "hands-joined" activity, I don't know what does!  From the students interviewed, it is obvious that they feel confident in their technological and teaching abilities, and that they feel ownership over their learning.  This is a great example of how one might implement active learning to develop meaningful student-teacher relationships and democratic processes, not to mention hitting a bunch of CommonCore Learning Standards -- which are really pushing technology.

My classroom/school:

Something I have worked very diligently on with my students is social skills, which are in turn linked to functional skills.  Even for those who do go out into the community with their families, acquiring social skills as early learners who fall on the profound end of the autism spectrum is very difficult.  To address this deficiency, we (students' families, my paraprofessionals and I) identified areas where students needed to be able to practice or generalize social and functional skills.  Depending on individual abilities and needs, I wrote social stories or modified newspaper articles about the place where we would go.  We practiced in school before venturing out into the community: restaurants, parks, cafés, libraries, book stores, grocery stores (a very hard one!), the dollar store, the toy store, etc.  For the two "highest functioning" students in my class as far as social skills go, we let them after some time lead us out into the community and tell us how to act.  Allowing them to teach us (staff, teacher, other students) how to enter a store (calmly and quietly!) demonstrate mastery of the skill, empowered them, and helped develop trust between staff and students.  Other students who needed more support taught us one step or a couple steps that they mastered.  For example, Meghan (name changed) mastered how to pay for things in a store.  She taught us to wait in line, hand money to the cashier, to wait for change and the receipt, and to pick up the bag at the end of the store.  Another student taught us how to safely cross streets and read traffic signs.  In my classroom, we strive for as many "hands-joined" activities as possible, but we also need to provide students with some support to ensure safety.

Value young adolescents

AMLE says:

Educators value young adolescents and are prepared to teach them. Effective middle grades educators make a conscious choice to work with young adolescents and advocate for them. They understand the developmental uniqueness of this age group, the appropriate curriculum, effective learning and assessment strategies, and their importance as models.

It means:

Educators should enjoy working with adolescents, know with whom they're working, and work to better their lives.  Address the fact that students at this age are changing physiologically, emotionally, developmentally.  Design curriculum, lessons, and flexible assessments (or as flexible as your school will permit) that address or leave room to address issues at large that young adolescents encounter -- bullying, puberty, identity formation -- as well as individual issues that are equally relevant to the lives of students -- diversity, special abilities, needs, and interests.  Validate their existence as intelligent young beings who have something to contribute to society.  It's not that young adolescents are dumb; they simply are in the process of acquiring the life experience that their adult counterparts have hopefully already acquired over the course of years.  Help them acquire it, through integrative learning and interdisciplinary studies.  Economics and "social studies" are inextricably linked in the real world; why shouldn't they be in school?  Educators need to be role models for students, modeling the behavior they hope their students to develop.  They need specific preparation before teaching middle level students, as well as continuing professional development opportunities.  

 

Example:

Wilson Middle School has a Girls' Group.  Candace Shay, a seventh-grade science teacher at the school, created it in 1997 for her master's degree, and found that adolescent girls have low self-esteem compared to boys.  She wanted them to learn self-acceptance.  When Jena Waters, who was raised by her father and grandmother and had difficulty finding a female mentor as a young adolescent, began student teaching, Ms. Shay invited her to help out.  She mentored the after school group, which meets each week to discuss positive body image, etiquette, professional success, self-esteem, and bullying, and became the coordinator.  Meetings have anywhere from 25-30 girls to standing room only and feature a new topic each week.  The group proactively recommends those who have been bullied or who may have low self-esteem.  To celebrate the positive changes or development in members, the group had a special event with spa services, dinner, dessert, and a guest speaker who is a (female) leader in the community. 

Girls' Group meeting. Source

Why it works:

Wilson Middle School is fortunate enough to have two teachers, Ms. Shay and Ms. Waters, who not only enjoy working with adolescents, but also care enough to proactively create an avenue to target and aid young women in forming positive identities.  The issues that Girls' Group addresses helps to ensure that these young women have a safe place to go to for help.  Having a culminating event as described above not only shows them a "real-world" role model (although Ms. Shay and Ms. Waters are undoubtedly also role models for these young women), but also exposes them to integrative learning: learning from a woman who has gone through some of the changes they have gone through, and succeeded to a leadership role in agencies serving the community, is a powerful message.

My classroom/school:

My school is actually rolling out with a Girls' Club of its own, but not inspired by this article.  It is meant to address the fact that 50 new students are coming to my high school site, although only 3 graduated, and that about 20% of them are girls.  Combined with the young women already attending my site, there is a blatant need to support females since they are in the overwhelming minority.  There is also a blatant need to help them form positive identities, especially with respect to body rights.  Many of the students, male and female, are unaware of body rights whatsoever, and especially among female students, there is a high rate of sexual abuse.  This club will help teach them about body rights, and also address personal interests, girly stuff (e.g. painting nails, boy bands), and whatever else is interesting to them.  Needless to say, the head honcho -- aka principal -- of my school is a very powerful female herself, who is well known in the ASD and special education community.