Blog 11

Prompt: How can curriculum mapping assist you?  Do you have one?  Does your school/district curriculum map?  Where would/will you start in creating a useful curriculum map for your classroom? 

I believe that curriculum mapping is most useful for students, although it seems like they are the stakeholder that isn't at the table making mapping decisions. Curriculum maps help teachers organize their lessons in a manner that maximizes student understanding of material. For some topic areas, like mathematics, order of instruction can be very important for mastery. Curriculum mapping also helps students connect their learning across disciplines and enrich comprehension. In short, curriculum mapping assists me in planning, starting with the end goal in mind. 

Our district has a curriculum map that is based on a wiki used by several districts called Beyond Textbooks (BT). I've been told that map is aligned with Common Core, although the standards are still labeled as Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards. Some of the standards are also organized in an order that I find confusing and out-of-place. This is just my opinion, however, and it's probably due to the way in which I was taught specific standards when I was in high school. Regardless, our district insists that we stick closely with the BT curriculum. They claim that students in other districts on this curriculum show significant improvement on the AIMS, and I'm also sure that is tied to some sort of funding. It usually has to do with money.

For the most part, I do follow the curriculum on BT, although I don't see where the mapping is relevant across disciplines. I recently had a chat with our biology teacher and we talked about how it would be nice if his standard on genetics and probability was aligned with my standard on probability, combinations, and permutations. It would make sense to have the math teacher cover these topics so students could apply it to biology. There has been some talk about curriculum mapping opportunities at the district level, but the Board has told us that any changes in the curriculum must be district-wide. For most planning, it is departmental here. I meet with my team lead and we discuss how we are progressing along in our classrooms and what standards must be covered next. It's difficult because the majority of our students are missing basic fundamental math skills so the pacing has been atrocious. Still, if there is no change in the status quo, our students will just keep failing and failing and failing. Something needs to change so that our students can all succeed.

I think that being a first-year teacher makes it difficult to map a curriculum well. For me, I'm actually re-learning most of what I am teaching to my students. This is good because I can relate to their understanding a little better than if I was a math major or expert. Still, I feel like the trial and error period is necessary to build a more holistic view of the year. After this year, I feel like I will better prepared to join the discussion on what students need to know and what order works better for them.
 

Blog 10

Prompt #10:  Do you differentiate instruction? Why or why not? What is the importance of differentiating instruction? What impact does it have on student learning?

Quite honestly, I don't differentiate instruction for every lesson. Sometimes I feel like it is not necessary since I introduce completely new material and assume that all students do not understand it. With this mindset and backwards planning, I build up to a standard slowly and try to take into account all the essential questions that are necessary to comprehend and complete the objectives. I try to teach as if all of my students do not understand any of the material, and include as much reference to prior knowledge as possible. I also reiterate previous concepts in detail just to ensure that there are no questions about previous objectives either. This leads to much chagrin with my high-performing students, however, since I take great pains to help my lower-performing students. The main reason I do not differentiate instruction as often as I would like is due to the time constraints I face. The amount of work that is demanded from this position is preventing me from spending extra time on developing differentiation strategies for my students. I also am still experimenting with different teaching methods and do not know which method works best for students of each performance level yet.

Differentiating instruction is very important for keeping students engaged, developing deeper understandings, and keeping students invested in the material. If students are not appropriately challenged with the material or understand the instruction clearly, self-efficacy generally decreases and learning suffers. The idea of a one-size-fits-all education is flawed because all students learn from different types of instruction and students perform at different levels of competency. In order to maximize performance and understanding, instruction must be differentiated for each individual student.