Jacobs Asks, Do You Laminate or Cut/Keep/Create Curriculum?
Laura Varlas
Saturday morning, author Heidi Hayes Jacobs spoke about upgrading curriculum for 21st century learners, or what she calls “Curriculum 21.” Her ASCD book of essays on the topic is due out in January 2010.
In her presentation, Jacobs questioned a lot of the stagnation and resistance to change in education. But don’t call her a reformer—"I don’t like being called a reformer; I’m into new forms," she told the crowd. Particularly, this involves new forms for school curriculum that are shaped by looking at what schools are doing and asking what we should we cut, keep, and create. "You can choose to 'laminate' or cover the curriculum, or you can look at what needs to be cut, kept, and created so that students are learning today for the future," Jacobs said.
"We don’t need any more 19th century approaches to 21st century learning," Jacobs proclaimed. "You are officially in a movement, and you are it."
Jacobs identified several outdated education scenarios, where a lockstep allegiance to old forms dictates function. For example, why graduate after year 12, and why stick with the academic calendar, standard school day, and year lengths? U.S. kids lag behind in math achievement because Japanese kids have had two extra years, she said. In another example, she asked, if we know boys and girls do better in math when they’re taught separately starting in 2nd grade, why don’t we do that?
Citing another myopia characteristic of education, Jacobs noted that we tend to think of alignment in one form—how we externally align curriculum to standards and benchmarks. There are actually five types of alignment:
- Internal, or whether the pieces within your curriculum units align with each other.
- Cumulative, or vertical continuity from year to year.
- External, or to the school mission statement and standards and benchmarks.
- Students, or based on students' needs.
- Global, or to be competitive in global economy and workforce.
Jacobs emphasized that Curriculum 21 work is not about adding to the curriculum, but transforming it according to a more complete picture of the world and the purpose of education. She cited Rhode Island for leading one component of change: it’s the first state to require students to create a digital portfolio to show that they're ready to graduate. "They have to say, in essence, I have evidence that I'm able to do this. There's no checklist that matches video of student performance," Jacobs added. Since students have to keep performing and demonstrating learning for video, they practice, and they do better. This sort of practice and performance happens regularly in the arts and athletics, said Jacobs, so why not in other disciplines? "The adverb is missing from standards. Students need to be able to demonstrate learning without you," Jacobs declared. Again, she said the arts and athletics know this acutely—students are the ones on the stage, playing the violin, shooting a goal.
Curriculum 21 is also not about tacking on technology tools. "It’s not just whether you use technology to support 21st century curriculum, it’s if you use it well," Jacobs said. She gave an example that involved using the Web 2.0 tool Wordle to show the big topics in FDR's speech to Congress after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a better use, she said, would be to use Wordle to improve student work. Take a student-written response to a reading and drop the text into Wordle. If there’s an overabundance of generic terms and phrases like "nice" and "I liked it," ask students to rewrite their response until they can come back with a more robust Wordle image.
Jacobs concluded, "21st century tools benefit the learner. It's not turning on an LCD projector or using a SMART Board; it's an integrative use of technology that enhances content."
Cut, keep, create—Make a basic commitment to change at least one piece of your curriculum using the tools on the Curriculum 21, and bring your teaching into the 21st century.
Continue the conversation on ASCD's blog, Inservice.