Writing my own Curriculum Design Script

Elise LeComte

4027 Greenmount Drive Wilmington, DE 19810

Phone: (302) 528-6672

Email: elecomte@antioch.edu

Advisor: Jimmy Karlan

I give Antioch permission to share my paper electronically & in print for teaching purposes

In a world…where curriculum designers are born…

“But I’m so tired of reflecting,” I confessed to my roommate as I began to write yet

another paper on my learning style for my Conceptual Human Development class. As a

second semester graduate student, I found myself constantly analyzing myself after every

classroom activity. Why did I get frustrated today? Why am I so excited about this project?

Why am I losing focus? What is it about Physics that scares me? Every Friday I left Antioch

University more puzzled, empowered, and determined than the last. In my Curriculum

Design Class, was challenged to create an original curriculum for fifth and sixth graders

centered on the concepts of force and motion. When I delved into the world of Physics, I

thought to myself, “self, why did you choose something that you know so little about?” The

answer was simple; it was completely new, exciting, and a little dangerous.

The Back Story…

Although Curriculum Design seemed to fly by within a matter of months, I believe

that I have learned more in one semester than my entire high school and undergraduate

experience combined. When I had taken my one hundredth trip to one of Keene’s local

coffee shops, typed my last student response line into my worksheet, and Google searched

my last witty Physics comic, I had one of my favorite “Aha” moments of the year. I cared so

much about my curriculum not because of the grade, not because of what was expected, but

because it was the most challenging assignment I have ever had. Throughout my years as

an educator, whether I had been leading students on nature hikes in New York, or student

teaching in the classroom, I realized that I was afraid to let my students struggle. I thought

that if students were met with frustration, real risk, and the unknown, that they would

throw away their science books and vow to never speak the name of Isaac Newton again.

What I slowly began to uncover through my readings, learning reflections, and final

project is that students are used to being handed formulas. They are accustomed to

standardized tests, one-answer homework assignments, recipe based activities, and blindly

accepting the theories of the world’s greatest scientists. Students are taught that Charles

Darwin’s theory is the only theory even before they can pronounce the word Evolution.

Wynne Harlin, author of Primary Science Taking the Plunge writes, “All these ideas, and the

ones learned from hearsay, could be easily tested rather than accepted. Children’s science

education should make them want to do just that and should provide them with the skills

to do it” (Harlan, 3). In our Problem Solving-Science course, we learned that students are

intrinsically motivated when they have the chance to modify their own theories. We were

challenged to create a sealed biosphere that could sustain the life and reproduction of a

single organism. When the majority of our organisms were barely surviving, we did not get

angry, we did not complain, but instead we asked, why? When students are allowed to

make mistakes, mess about, and rearrange their own ways of thinking, they begin to see

science as not a section in their trapper keeper, but a way to approach all aspects of life.

Our every day experiences become miniature experiments, each idea and approach a new

and exciting hypothesis. Instead of saying, “My teacher wants me to do this,” or “This is the

right thing to do,” students ask themselves and others, “What would happen if I did this,” or

“Why doesn’t nature work this way?”

Curriculum Design was first described by my professor as similar to “script writing,

or architectural drawings.” I was intrigued and confused until I started to take mental

snapshots of my experiences. I scribbled quotes and passages in hopes that I would be able

to draft a screenplay and play the part of a future teacher. When talking to my classmates, I

found that everyone was becoming a character in their own script, a romance in design, a

dramatic documentary, or comedic adventure, and I was excited to discover my role.

The Opening Scene…

On the first day of our Curriculum Design class, we walked into the classroom and

sat in rows of desks. Our professor stood in front of the room. The lights were dimmed. We

heard the familiar hum of the overhead projector as the course requirements were listed in

size 12 Times New Roman on a power-point slide. In this moment, I learned just how much

education and emotion as deeply intertwined. My brain went numb and I found myself

taking notes on words scrolled across the screen, rushing to write them down before they

were lost forever. My inquiry-based teacher had an ulterior motive as he turned on the

lights only to reveal that what we had just experienced was a simulation. We all let out a

nervous sigh and the smiles returned to our blank faces. We were curious, excited, and

undoubtedly still a little scared. Then, we were introduced to our ultimate challenge:

“Fifteen area teachers are hoping you will help them design a one-month science unit for

their class. They want a problem solving and inquiry-based unit that builds off of students’

initial conceptions, cleverly creates conceptual dissonance, involves both perceived and

real risk, real problem based when feasible, imbued with embedded assessment, contains a

meaningful summative assessment, is playful, and motivating. And we have only 14-weeks

to pull it off.”

The Conflict…

When I bunked down in the Keene State library curriculum section, I was knee deep

in Physics how-to classroom guides, but as I leafed through each section, the word “demo”

was the first word for every lesson. I though back to my elementary school experiences in

which my teacher stood in front of the class, tall, poised, and knowing all the answers. She

masterfully showed us experiments that wowed us with colors, smoke, and mirrors. Like a

magician, she performed for our amazement. Were impressive demos really the answer to

explaining Physics, the very genre of science that explains how nature works? I formed my

own hypothesis in the library: If these densely professional, researched science texts are

filled with demos and recipe-based labs…then they must be effective teaching tools. I

returned to class the next day with a macro view of my curriculum, peppered with inertia

and force and motion demos. I attempted to create a cohesive thread with the theme of

sports throughout, and a guiding question of “Can YOU break the rules?” When I work-

shopped my scope and sequence, I discovered that these miniature lessons, although

interesting on paper, lacked both cohesiveness and student discovery. Even though these

experiments were “tried and true” classroom activities, recommended by teachers for

teachers, each one lacked the student ownership needed to create a classroom challenge.

My hypothesis needed some work.

The Montage…

The theme of Coherence came up again and again in our curriculum study. At first,

this simply meant to me that all activities had a common link, such as a gaming element or

a daily activity. When I began designing, I thought, Physics is the study of movement, so my

coherent curriculum could be centered on the types of ways that one moves while playing a

sport. It was not until I met with my advisor that my true understanding of coherence

began to take shape. I thought back to our first day of class in which we each described a

powerful learning experience. In our readings, the word “experience” popped out of the

pages and triggered exciting learning reflections of my time at Antioch. Experiential

Learning quickly became a focus of my new curriculum, with the theme of seatbelt safety

tying the unit together.

I began to visualize my unit as a living, breathing thing, in an Education by Design

classroom. The Experiential cycle diagram that we read about reminded me of a snail, with

its curved intertwined shell, composed of mineralization over time. Perhaps the most

important factor of a scientific experience is that it takes time: time to process, time to plan,

time to test, time to make mistakes, and time to change and reconstruct how students see

the natural world. Almost naturally, I found myself designing with this model in mind, first

outlining the learning standards that I aimed to achieve, and then introducing the problem

or challenge for students to solve (Mobilia 14-23). I imagined a classroom bustling with

students working on challenge boards, chosen with both freedom and interest. I pictured a

collaborative learning environment, with students as the center focus, each individual

striving to meet a personal goal of learning.

Based on a true story…

As a future educator, I believe that such a collaborative environment stems from

learning about real-life problems. Meaningful contexts have been proven to boost student

morale and intrinsic motivation. Real-life problems help to contribute to a Post Modern

learning environment, in which break the barriers between the science classroom and the

outside world. When fully developed, these real-life problems can have an authentic impact

on not only the students in a classroom, but also the entire school community (Mobilia 22-

23). Through designing, I have learned that real-life problems lend themselves to

interdisciplinary study, as every problem has multiple solutions. For example, the need for

a composting system in a school involves public relations, trial and error, construction

techniques, past experiences, and teamwork. In academia, public relations could include

organization skills, language arts, artistic design, and even gathering statistics through

school polls. Trial and error in designing provides a real-life scientific method, while past

experiences illustrates how history shapes our lives. Construction could encompass lessons

on stable structures, right angles, and even the importance of safety when designing and

implementing a project. I believe that the more hands-on a project is, and the more hands

working on the project, the more subjects can be incorporated naturally.

Humanizing the characters…

One of our assignments for class was to bring in something to burn, our pedagogical

fears. I tried to think of what to burn as a future educator, but somehow I kept falling back

into the oversized shoes of a nervous middle schooler. I was secretly struggling with such

high levels of anxiety that at times I could barely open a text book without tearing up. I was

standardized so much as a student that I was not entirely sure that my teachers knew my

name. I sat in back of my biology class, with my three close friends. Together, we beat the

system. We handed in nearly identical homework assignments, split up to find “the smart

kids” and join their lab groups, and even called each other the night before exams to make

sure “we knew” exactly what the questions might be. Why weren’t we “the smart kids”? We

were certainly bright, enrolled in AP history and English, what was it about biology that

made us “dumb”? I put all of these words in quotations because adolescents are quick to

label themselves and each other. I am one of the lucky ones. I was able to break free of my

quotation marks and transcend my fears. As a student, I coasted through the system

because of fear and inflexibility. My learning style was not being met and I was lost in a sea

of standards.

So what was my pedagogical fear as a teacher? The answer lied in a piece of paper,

specifically a Scantron sheet. Marketed by the company as “an assessment tool for

teachers,” the half sheet of paper seems harmless to the naked eye. But the so-called tool is

just that, naked, stripped of all of the information you’ve learned. It’s just you and those

white and green lines, and there are eighty of them. Did we learn eighty things? I start to

panic, but really that is a lie, because I started panicking a week ago when my teacher

announced that the test would be cumulative. When a student asks, “what does cumulative

mean?,” he replies, “You should know that by now.” My biggest fear is making my students

feel this way because it is easier or a fast way to organize all of my grades for the semester.

One might argue that these tests are used everywhere, from driver’s license tests to college

degree exams, however I feel that this is the most common excuse for even the most

seasoned of teachers. Beverly Faulk, author of The Heart of the Matter, describes this

epidemic as “norm referencing” in which tests assess skills and facts, rather than real-life

content (Falk, 101). I was determined to break free of this assessment mold through a

curriculum of hands-on, minds-on activities centered on a culminating project.

The script transcends the small screen…

While taking Curriculum Design, I quickly found that I was experiencing a “class

within a class,” in which I was learning to be a creative, authentic, coherent teacher by

being a student. I began to view my own learning at Antioch and Keene State College as a

tool to understand student learning processes. While taking Conceptual Human

Development and Curriculum Design during the same semester, I began to notice cohesive

and democratic components that tied the seemingly separate classes together. In

Curriculum Design, we learned the importance of student choice in all aspects of the

classroom. I was able to experience this first hand through my Human Development class,

when we were given the choice in how to approach an assignment. Sue Gentile’s syllabus

read like a modern-day challenge board with projects like, “create a symbolic

representation,” “write a film review,” or “interview a middle school student.” I was

delighted to find that I could express myself in ways that I never thought imaginable in a

school environment. When we shared our projects in small groups, I was amazed to see

how many different outcomes there were. When I went back to the drawing board with my

own curriculum, I strived to include multiple paths with multiple solutions.

I could also directly relate my readings from Human Development to Curriculum

Design. We learned through reading Teaching with the Brain in Mind, the importance of

music as a mental stimulant. Sure enough, Jimmy played a variety of soft, upbeat tunes

during one of our convening sessions and the brainstorming skyrocketed. In my final

project for Sue’s class I was challenged to create my own theory of human development. I

was so inspired my readings in Curriculum Design that I created a hybrid of the two classes

in a 3D model shown below:

The model of my ideal classroom culture was based on the developmental stages of

middle school students and my new found beliefs as a curriculum designer. The classroom

included picture windows for mental stimulation, desks formed into a circle for class

collaboration, a miniature solar system unit in which students constructed their own

theory of the solar system, a challenge to build an ecosystem to support a real-life

classroom turtle, and posters for a culminating end of the year maple syrup project based

around photosynthesis. The classroom included a “wall of misconceptions” for students to

add to, a conversation alcove for debates and moral dilemmas, guiding questions on the

walls, miniature challenge boards, and journals for free writes. Drawing on my experiences

in class, I created a corner for celebration and ceremony, when I learned how powerful our

ceremonial burning of pedagogical fears could be for middle school. I even found that I was

able to incorporate my readings from both classes in my miniature construction, as I added

a bird study and outdoor area from my knowledge of David Sobel’s authentic curriculum

and Maria Montessori’s emphasis on teaching about the natural world. The model also shed

light on my own authentic play-inspired fascination with “small worlds,” just like my

students. Not only did my final project illustrate students messing about, but I was in turn

messing about with materials myself. It seemed that everything was finally connected.

Rooting for the Underdog…

When two classes were combining to be the ultimate coherent experience, my

political economy class was a constant struggle. As a student looking to teach students, I

explored my academic battle for answers. I learned that although the class was challenging,

I lacked guidance and clear objectives. My teacher did not appear to be working backwards,

as she presented us with pieces of curriculum, rather than a take home message. Even

though I was swamped with work, I longed for a culminating project, a chance to teach

others, and an opportunity to make change in my school. I was met with papers, readings,

and articles and soon found myself lost in a sea of inconsistent, individual work. I was

lagging in the class, unable to find my role in giant group discussions. A breakthrough

occurred towards the end of the semester.

Tired of being unmotivated and embarrassed of my underachievement, I asked my

professor if instead of writing a standardized three page biography on an activist, if I could

create a curriculum instead. I chose Rachel Carson and was delighted to find how relatable

her life was to a seventh grade audience. When I turned in my project I was nervous of the

outcome, but ultimately felt pride in my work. I was surprised and honored to receive my

first ever “Outstanding” grade. Curriculum Design has taught me that when a student is free

to choose their own medium, they will achieve the best results. Each student has their own

unique strengths and if allowed for and designed for, will be able to shine in their own way.

I had labeled myself as “dumb” in political economy, just as I had in biology. However, I

learned that day that with the right creative outlet, and with the freedom to choose in a

democratic environment, students can find their niche in any classroom. When dynamic

educator Bob Coulter visited our Curriculum Design classroom, he described a personal

experience in which a student was so taken aback by democratic choice that she broke

down in tears saying, “I don’t know what you want me to be interested in” (Coulter, Bob).

My goal is to provide a community in my future classroom that dissolves the pressures of

impressing a teacher and instead celebrates student choice.

When faced with a moral dilemma, would you stay

silent?Curriculum Resource

for 7th grade

Elise LeComtePolitical Economy

The Sequel…

I am in the process of re-designing my curriculum and what I am realizing the most

is a need for concrete examples. My Physics class at Keene State College was an incredible

resource throughout the semester, as my professor made the familiar strange and the

abstract concrete as we rolled cars down ramps, calculated our calorie intake, and

constructed stable structures out of fragile spaghetti strands. With thoughtful advice from

my cohort members in the collaborative environment of our convening session, I paid

specific attention to my micro lesson on graphs. Instead of simply having students write

about what they see in each graph line, I took the suggestion of the cohort and transformed

the recipe based worksheet into a real-life problem in which students were challenged to

reenact each picture with a remote control car. My roommate encouraged me to make

more use of film clips so that students could visually see cars in motion and the different

forces on the road. I began to weave different learning styles into my design through more

experimentation and time for review of new knowledge.

Deleted Scenes…

My convening session helped me to not only see the value of student feedback first

hand, but also convinced me of the importance of extracting the essence of a lesson. When

reading The Case for Constructivist Classrooms, what struck me the most was the chapter on

“Time versus Coverage,” Jacqueline Brooks stresses that constructivist teachers aim to ask

one big question so that students will have both the time and resources to answer it

(Brooks, 39). My physics curriculum lacked the time necessary for such in-depth thinking

and I set aside a day to refine the essence of each lesson and cut out what was extraneous,

such as lessons on reaction time. By keeping one main focus of the study of inertia through

the egg lab, my cohort members excitedly showed me that this would allow for more

student discovery. This synthesizing provided room for a chance to “engender

contradictions” through a school bus seat belt moral dilemma and allow for more

experiences for students to confront their initial hypotheses through discrepant events and

truly take part in the learning cycle model (Brooks, 112-116).

Back to script writing…

At first when I turned in my curriculum, I was terrified with the realization that I

would have to redesign what I had spent so much time on. I thought I had chosen the

perfect setting, characters, plot, and costume for what promised to be a feature length film

in design. Bob Coulter mentioned in passing a quote that I found to be so inspiring, “If you

can’t slightly reformulate something, than you don’t understand it” (Coulter, Bob). Through

all of my rough edits, screen tests, and box office successes and flops, I am finally beginning

to understand the design process. I look forward to taking my indie graduate school

background to the big screen of public schools.

Now Playing…The Curriculum Designer

Sources Used:

Articles & Chapter Excerpts

Beane, J.A., ed. (1995). "Introduction: What is a Coherent Curriculum?" Toward a CoherentCurriculum, ASCD, Alexandria, VA.

Mobilia, Wendy and Gordon, Rick. Education by Design: Level 1 Coaching Kit, Critical Skills,1998, pp. 14-23 (“Broad Idea #1-Experiential Learning”).

Slattery. Introduction to Curriculum Development and Postmodernity. In CurriculumDevelopment for the Postmodern Era. (1995).

Sobel, David. Authentic Curriculum. Summer 1994.

Books

Brooks, Jaqueline Grennon. The Case for Constructivist Classrooms. New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001. Print.

Harlen, Wynne. Primary Science: Taking the Plunge. Portsmith: Heinemann, 2001. Print.

Falk, Beverly. The Heart of the Matter. Portsmith: Heinemann, 2000. Print.

Jensen, Eric. Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. Print.

Classes

Conceptual Human DevelopmentCurriculum DesignPhenomenal SciencePolitical Economy & SustainabilityProblem Solving Science

Speaker

Bob Coulter