Weren't there always curriculum standards? An educational forum : politicians, kids, and teachers offer thoughts on education. The origins of the current wave of public concern. The response of the educational community. Recent calls for reform. Responses to the calls for reform. A summary : systemic change, restructuring, and reform.
Are new standards necessary? Some charismatic differences of opinion. The media influences opinion on standards. The liberal reservations about standards. Standards in other countries. Influences on curriculum : state legislatures and education departments. Local control of education. Influences on curriculum : professional organizations and universities. Influences on curriculum : the university. Influences on curriculum : commercial materials. Influences on curriculum : the teachers' right to choose. Influences on curriculum : parents. Getting ready to design curriculum.
What we now know about how learning happens. An exciting conference. Educational philosophy : Piaget and constructivism. Recent interpretations of constructivism : radical constructivism. Social constructivism. A compromise. The changing nature of the concept of intelligence. Multiple intelligence theories. The information processors. Measuring cognitive ability. Cognition, metacognition, and goals. Interest. Real experiences and technology in the instructional process. Connecting research to practice : summary hypotheses.
Choosing standards and designing them down. The curriculum committee meets. A bit of history. Defining standards in new terms. Curriculum enactment. Getting started on planning curriculum. A template for action.
Constructing creative classrooms. Organizing the environment. The setting. The actors. The script.
How are we doing? Measuring success. Standards and their measures. The purposes of measures or assessments. The consequences of assessments. Where should Meg, April, and Brad begin? Traditional versus alternative assessments. Challenge 1 : establishing validity, clarifying and covering constructs. Challenge 2 : developing levels of performance, grading. Challenge 3 : writing rubrics. Challenge 4 : sharing results with students, parents, and the community.
Where do we go from here? Where will the leadership for needed change come from? Teacher professional development. Teacher networks. Using technology and its networks for building curriculum. Technology for communicating with our public.
