Integrated Curriculum Paper

Patricia Roberts (1996) describes integrated curriculum as “a way of teaching and a way of planning and organizing the instructional program so the discrete disciplines of subject matter are

The purpose of the Comprehensive Curriculum Project (CCP) is to analyze the myriad of issues that have arisen over the last few years revolving around curricula and its use in the classroom, school, and district. With the 2010 state adoption of the Common Core, educators experienced many different transitional issues and developmental issues revolving around the curricula. In order to develop a deeper understanding of these issues it is important to conduct interviews, look at the Teacher Working Conditions survey, and to analyze local organizational models that might affect the transition to the new standards.

Curriculum, as stated by Glickman (2014) “is the what of instruction”. Additionally, Ornstein and Hunkins, (as cited by Glickman, Gordon and Ross-Gordon, 2014) have listed the elements of the curriculum and they “are sequence and continuity, scope and balance”. The mastery with which a teacher can incorporate the elements of the curriculum in instruction is categorized by levels. The levels of teacher involvement in curriculum implementation are described and exemplfied

The process skills approach to teaching is defined as the educator helping children develop science skills and processes to confidently undertake their own investigations (Campbell, 2012). These skills are developed through: communicating, science language, asking questions, making sense of phenomena, predicting, modelling, conducting investigations, planning, testing, observing, reasoning, and drawing conclusions of science concepts (Campbell, 2012). When the educator assist children’s learning, it is important to put the emphasis on the nature of science and scientific concepts. Guided discovery approach to teaching requires the educator to ask effective questions that encourage children to explore and extend their investigations throughout science learning (Campbell, 2012). This can be developed through play experiences as children explore their world around them. An interactive approach to teaching children is based on questions that lead explorations and the educators to provide essential resources to guide these explorations (Campbell, 2012). It is the educators’ responsibility to support children’s development, ideas, questions, ways of thinking, and develop scientific thinking. Furthermore, an inquiry approach to teaching relates to children investigating the answers to their own

Research was completed on the four topics to help increase understanding and background knowledge of the areas. Further examination of these topics would allow me to think about the way in which I teach my students, be able to incorporate the ideas and illustrate the process of teaching and learning using these methods.

On Tuesday the 20th of September, a presentation was required of all students to show a video of individual experiments after a week was given on the day of the original assigning. Given the task of performing an experiment in order to become acquainted with the Scientific method, students of Biology 621A were required to record their experimentations in full - providing a question to be answered, constructing a hypothesis, designing an experiment that would aid in the proving (or disproving) of the hypothesis and collecting the data found from the experiment. These would go on to be graded based on their overall presentation quality, and content in regards to the mastery of the scientific method while proving its functionality and existence in scientific experiments no matter how small, while determining factors like independent or dependant variables.

Developing an innovative curriculum each school calendar year is very imperative when producing an effective learning environment for students and faculty members. The term “curriculum” is known as the academic content that is taught in schools. School leaders and teachers may define curriculum as courses offered by the school, but is rarely used in such a general sense in school. When developing the curriculum, one must attain to the organized preparation of the lesson that is going to be taught in that given school year. Being an Christian educator and leader, it is imperative to show the Christian philosophy and worldview on how the plan impacts the belief and opinions about curriculum development, express my personal belief about the truth of society,

and formulas, but conducting a scientific investigation gives a student the practice in time management and the use of variables, research, observation and analytical skills that a student needs if interested in a career in a demanding field.

Instruction for all courses was inquiry-based. Courses were designed to do: (a) increase teachers’ efficacy and ability

The LEA lesson plan created in Literacy 1, demonstrate my ability to effectively utilize of a variety of appropriate instructional methods. The LEA lesson encompasses teacher modeling, whole group writing, independent writing, and kinesthetic, verbal, and visual learning methods. Furthermore, this lesson plan addresses objectives, assessments, and the various rates of learning in the classroom.

Book Center: Books that show both the numbers written out and the number itself. Numbers by Mercer Mayer, Puppy’s Quest:

Hidden curriculum” refers to unwritten or unspoken rules, expectations, idioms, and metaphors that everyone knows, but are not directly taught. Often, students that lack understanding or knowledge of the unwritten social rules are prone to be bullied, ignored, or misunderstood. Students with learning disabilities struggle with observational skills necessary to understand and interpret these unwritten and unspoken rules. Some of these struggles can be seen in tardiness, use of the cafeteria, location of classes, use of lockers, and much more. Students with learning disabilities can be seen as unmotivated, uninterested, or lazy due to misunderstanding of the unspoken and unwritten rules. Often, students with learning disabilities may misinterpret

The term “integrated curriculum” has many different, and sometimes conflicting meanings to different educators. The meaning depends on who the educators are, how many years they have taught and the grade or grade levels they have taught. It is also used interchangeably with interdisciplinary learning. Malik & Malik (2011) defined integration as the organization of teaching matter to bring subjects together that are usually taught separately. Campbell and Henning (2010) believed that an integrated curriculum is learning organized around problems and issues of the students. Shriner, Schlee, and Libler (2010) believed that an integrated curriculum applies skills and vocabulary from more than one subject area to examine a central topic. A definition by Humphreys (Humphreys, Post, and Ellis 1981) is one in which children broadly explore knowledge in various subjects related to certain aspects of their environment (p. 11). Shoemaker defines integrated curriculum as an education that is organized

Curriculum is a term often highlighted during discourse about education and most commonly understood as a policy with overt leaning outcomes for teachers to apply and achieve. Ornstein and Hunkins (1998), as cited by Selvaraj (2010), defined curriculum based on two lenses; micro and macro, which identify the term as both policy towards certain goals and what students experience with consideration for relevant theories and principles central to its development and implementation. However, Wilson (n.d.) argued that curriculum is not restricted to certain individuals, subjects and environments, since teaching and learning can also occur beyond the scope of official curriculum (Ebert & Culyer, as cited in Marsh, Clarke & Pittaway, 2014). I believe this interpretation is the closest to the true nature of curriculum, or education, as there are more complex layers to curriculum than just a written guideline. For example, not one curriculum is similar to another because it is subjected to influences from continuum number of factors, such as politics and economy. Hence, it is wise to conclude that curriculum could not be defined based on a singular perspective due to its dependability on context.

According to Blaise and Nuttall (2011), to understand curriculum, we must first understand what is meant by the term curriculum. Within curriculum there are five key concepts, they are the intended curriculum The Intended curriculum is the curriculum that the teachers want the children to experience in order to develop particular knowledge, skills, and attitudes. (Blaise & Nuttall, 2011, p. 82). The enacted curriculum is what teachers want students to experience. important reason why the intended curriculum is enacted differently from teacher to teacher, from classroom to classroom, is that a key part of a teachers work is to interpret the official curriculum, taking into account a wide range of variables that are specific to their classroom and school setting.