UPGRADING THE CURRICULUM
Step 5: Insert ongoing sessions for skill and assessment upgrades into the school calendar. It seems a contradiction in terms to make
changes for the future only when time happens to be available. A formal work session to review upgrades can replace the old-style “staff devel- opment day.” The notion of teachers meeting once or twice a year is equivalent to having an annual “student development day.” Rethinking the current use of professional development days should be considered not only to ensure that the map is kept current, but also to move toward active instructional and curricular reviews. If teachers knew that there was a built-in, recurring time set aside to update their curriculum and to meet and discuss current practice, they would be more likely to upgrade their curriculum and expand their instructional repertoire.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills:
Going Deeper
Integrated directly into this review cycle is the natural tendency to include 21st century skills. This motivation is valid, but there are cau- tions. The generic 21st century skills endorsed by many state depart- ments of education, national organizations, and businesses often refer to those espoused by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (see www.21stcenturyskills.org). The fact that a wide-ranging group of busi- ness, political, and education organizations could come to the table and agree on goals for U.S. students is admirable if not remarkable. The part- nership’s model is broad and inclusive, refl ecting the type of language that is seen in mission statements. It is a tool that has become a com- mon reference point for many organizations. As a general organizing framework, it does not purport to provide the specifi city necessary for direct applications in a school, and for this it has been roundly criticized
as well. Jay Mathews (2009), education columnist for the Washington Post, referring to the sweeping nature of the mission statement, writes,
“This is the all-at-once syndrome, a common failing of reform move- ments. They [the partnership] say changes must be made all at once, or else. In this democracy, we never make changes all at once. . . . So please don’t tell us we have to.” His concern refl ects a concern shared by others when he says, “But I see little guidance for classroom teachers in 21st- century skills materials. How are millions of students still struggling to acquire 19th-century skills in reading, writing and math supposed to learn this stuff?”
The partnership does provide links and resources that directly relate to the general skills in place, such as creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration (see www.21stcenturyskills.org). In truth, except for specifi c media skills, the entries do not look signifi cantly different from skills that might have been proposed 30 or 40 years ago, or as Mathews notes, perhaps even earlier: “It calls for students to learn to think and work creatively and collaboratively. There is nothing wrong with that. Young Plato and his classmates did the same thing in ancient Greece.” What has changed is the knowledge base, which has grown, and the tools for communicating and sharing what students are learning as they cultivate these skills in a new world. These tools have given students new forms to convey their ideas, changing the immediacy and range of input that is possible. Most of us would agree with Mathews on the through-line of critical thought and collaborative action espoused by Plato, but I would argue that new forms open the possibility of new ways of thinking. Just as the Greeks are credited with refi ning the process of how we perceive the world, the fact that we assimilate immediate time-and-space communications requires new skills for processing and sorting that information. Just as Euripides and his fellow dramatists gave the world a new form with theater, new forms give us new platforms for thinking. What has also changed is that business, political, and cultural institutions are partners with schools in emphasizing the importance of these shared profi ciencies. If educators work only with the general skills and do not revise and focus them, it is diffi cult to apply them to real-world practice.
To make the 21st century skills meaningful to specifi c learners, the key is to translate them into highly discrete classroom applications con- nected to the assessment types and to the curriculum content. Integrat- ing these skills when deep into the curriculum mapping process is a natural way to ensure their genuine development in the classroom.
Teachers are familiar with various assessment types within their les- son plans that will stimulate direct engagement in the upgrade process.
Here is an example of how this match between skill and assessment might transpire in an initial draft of a lesson plan:
Let us take one of the 21st Century Partnership skills and attach it to one of the assessment types from our brainstormed list of alternatives.
Here is a skill directly from the chart under #2 regarding Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Identify and ask signifi cant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions.
Mr. Eldridge, our high school social studies teacher, is working on an economics unit on Issues and Realities—Sustainability, a contempo- rary content issue. He has posed the following content questions: How can we design a solar collector to run our high school? What points of view and considerations will we need to take into account?
If the means of sharing fi ndings is a video podcast based on interviews from community members, and the means of presenting the plan is through a computer-aided design (CAD) program, then we begin to see how curriculum design can be upgraded to match the needs of our learners.
Mr. Eldridge Revisited
At the beginning of this chapter, Mr. Eldridge wanted to know where to start in his desire to become a teacher who uses 21st century tools that students can relate to. He was willing to learn. In this chapter, I have attempted to make a case for straightforward revision of curriculum and accompanying lesson plans to replace dated assessment types with newer forms of expression. When students are engaged in the types of products and performances that are ongoing in the larger contempo- rary world, they are more motivated to respond to those forms and to
create them as well. The deliberate and formal work of identifying new options and working to target replacements is a sensible place for a fac- ulty to begin. We also considered the importance of applying both past and present-day skills with precision. Many groups and organizations are posing important policies and frameworks to assist us in engaging our learners to develop profi ciencies. I believe that Mr. Eldridge and his colleagues will do best when they zoom into their actual classrooms and align those skills to the critical content they wish to explore with students and the assessment types that students will produce as evidence of their learning.
Yet changing our assessments and skills is a different type of upgrade than altering content. They are codependent elements when designing curriculum, but very different. Wrestling with content decisions will demand deliberate debate and discussion.
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