The author: Keith Lenz, senior research scientist, University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. A version of this article originally appeared in the March 2001 issue of Stratenotes, a newsletter for SIM Trainers.
Return to Article ArchiveBuilding on what we know about curriculum, teaching, and diversity, teachers must approach planning in smarter ways. We believe that "smarter" planning involves three components: content, process, and integration. This article will focus on the first component, content, and the related requirement to think differently about how we select content to reflect learning expectations specified in state and local standards. We will use the image of a curriculum "pie" and slices of that pie to consider curriculum in light of standards-based reform.
The sheer quantity of information requires us to constantly determine what to include in a course. The field of social studies, for example, incorporates a vast amount of information covering the entire development of all the civilizations. Curriculum developers group this information into disciplines such as history, civics, geography, etc., to focus learning. Within the discipline of history, courses focusing on the history of the world or on specific countries (e.g., History of the United States or History of Canada) are created.
The question for historians and curriculum makers is what makes United States history worth knowing? We create courses to help us teach important sets of information linked by big ideas that organize and help us understand a body of knowledge thought to be important.
Let's take a look at how we can think about course design. We use a circle to cluster the information that would be included in a course. As we consider the information within this circle, we need to remember that a course is based on or revolves around a set of critical ideas, represented by stars, that define how the larger set of information should be organized and understood. The figure shows these ideas as a set of stars clustered at the center or core of the circle. These ideas should be drawn from content area standards set at the national, state, district, school, department, or classroom level. They represent what is essential for all students to learn. However, more importantly, they must represent what is critical for all students to know in our society, and they must provide an anchor for all the other information that is presented in the various units in a course. In addition, decisions related to instruction, activities, and evaluation must revolve around ensuring mastery of this critical information for all students.
Using the image of a pie to represent the curriculum of a course, we can then extend our thinking about curriculum design to the unit level. The figure above shows the pie sliced into pieces that may be thought of as units in a course. At this level, we can begin to think in more detail about how we will organize curriculum experiences for students. The point or narrowest part of the slice represents the critical content that all students should be expected to know and demonstrate. At the very center of this narrow area, a star is used to indicate that the content in this unit that is targeted for all students should be selected based on the degree to which it supports understanding of a critical idea, concept, or, as Wiggins and McTighe (1998) propose, an "enduring understanding" that rests at the heart of the discipline.
If all students should be able to master this content, what percentage of the content do you think this can be? It is important to remember that as classes become more diverse, it is going to take us longer to teach the same content each year. Therefore, it is important to select the set of concepts that helps organize the rest of the information in the unit and then to identify the supporting content that is absolutely critical to unlocking the discipline and the rest of the content included in the unit. The critical ideas and content in the narrowest portion of the slice should be thought of as the content that unlocks understanding of the larger body of knowledge at the broader end of the slice. Each teacher must determine how much of the content this represents. The part of content designated as critical may be relatively small (10 percent, for example) because a unit may be constructed around only one or two critical ideas. We could expect student work that demonstrates mastery of the critical ideas and content at this level to be evaluated as "C" work, the average or expected level of performance in a secondary school curriculum.
The middle area of the unit slice represents what most students should know and demonstrate about the critical idea represented by the star located at the top of the slice. The percentage of information at this level of the pie increases but is still limited because we want most students to acquire this information. We judge it to be important, but not critical. We could expect the work of students that meets the stated mastery criteria for the critical ideas and content at both the top part and the middle part of the curriculum pie to be evaluated as "B" work, above average or greater than expected level of performance in a high school curriculum.
The broadest, lowest area of the pie represents the content in a unit that some students should know and demonstrate. The quantity of information at this level is the most extensive and, to a large degree, is highly personalized. This area of the pie does not represent information that is unimportant or trivial; it may be interesting information, and it might ignite the imagination of some students. As such, the information here may be helpful to students doing research projects or reports or for students who want to extend their learning to a more detailed level. However, our expectations as teachers should be that, since this content is not essential to understanding the big ideas and supporting information of a unit, smaller amounts of instructional time should be devoted to it than to the critical ideas and information of the course. Similarly, it should not occupy a significant share of the assessment of student mastery of the unit content. We would expect the work of students meeting the stated mastery criteria for the critical ideas and content at all three levels of the pie to be evaluated as "A" work, well above average or the highest level of expected performance in a high school curriculum.
It is important to recognize that although we cannot expect all or even most students to become proficient at this level, all students should have access and opportunities to connect with information at this level. The information here may prompt some students to want to launch an investigation or explore a critical idea in the unit. An author may become known; a local issue may take on personal importance; a career or lifelong interest may take shape. In other words, the information in this area of the pie is worth knowing, and all students should have an opportunity to know it. However, in terms of planning for instruction and assessment in the real world of limited time and resources, information at this level of the curriculum slice is not critical for understanding the important ideas of a unit. All students should have the opportunity to learn it; not all students should be held accountable for it in terms of passing or failing.
However you choose to think about selecting critical content, it remains as an essential step in planning and an essential process for including all students in learning. If choices about critical content are not made at this early stage, you run the risk that instructional time, focus, and energy will evaporate as you try to cover everything. And in trying to cover everything, you run the risk that instruction and learning will be superficial for all students. This is not an effective way to include all students in learning.
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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