Introduction

=Introductions=

Consider this day/lesson the calm before a compressed summer schedule storm. I have lots of introductory "stuff" to provide for you, but before I do that, I would like for each of you to introduce yourself and to write something about curriculum: how you define it, what questions you may have about it, what interest you have, etc. Below please start with your name and than a paragraph or two as an introduction. After everyone has had a chance to do that, I will provide my own assumptions, biases, etc. about curriculum by Wednesday on this same page.

I'm looking forward to working with you this summer.


 * After initial posting on this page - feel free to use the discussion tab above to discuss things before I upload the other "stuff." That is where the larger discussions will take place for each "class."**

Hello Class! My name is Rafael Simmons. I am a doctoral student in EPS concentrating in leadership. I am a mathematics educator and I spent seven years teaching secondary math before moving into administration. I live in Columbus, GA and I am an assistant principal at Harris County High School. In July, I am transferring to Columbus High School to continue as an assistant principal. I define curriculum as what is being taught and learned in an educational setting. By taking this course, I hope to enhance my skill in designing, implementing, and evaluating curriculum.

Hi - My name is Flynn Hoag, and I am currently in my second year in the school counseling Master's program within the CPS department. I hope to graduate next spring and find a job in an elementary school as a counselor, preferably somewhere in Gwinnett County. I'm from Atlanta and currently work on Georgia State's campus as a graduate assistant. In terms of curriculum, I have not had much experience with it or even working within a school system yet. However, I think that what I will learn through this course will help to inform my understanding of the administrative side of education and the formation of curriculum. I understand curriculum now as one of the foundational elements of education and learning in the classroom that extends even beyond formal lessons and subject matter. Again, I am interested in learning more as this course progresses and anticipate gaining a better understanding of curriculum on the whole.

Hey Ya’ll, My name is Monique Whorton and I am working towards my MS in Instructional Technology and Design. I teach English and Drama at Cross Keys High School, where I have worked for the last nineteen years. I will retire in five years and plan to supplement my retirement by teaching online courses. Curriculum is the core information to be taught in the classroom or workplace. Since I plan to teach online courses in the future, I hope this course will help me better understand how to apply traditional curriculum to an online setting.

My name is Jarod Scott and I am in my second semester at GSU in the EDS program in Social Studies Education. I am a former Social Studies teacher trained in History at Clark Atlanta University. Currently, I am an Assistant Principal at the New Schools at Carver with the Atlanta Public School District. Curriculum is that which is being taught, learned and assessed in every classroom. My interests lie with curriculum and instruction and I hope to learn the foundation, development and implementation of curriculm and find research based practices that improve instruction and student outcomes.

Hi, My name is Theresa Kotlar and I am not tech savy at all with a wiki - don't really even know what it is. My thanks to the person who told me how to do this. I hope this posts. I would also like to know how to get back to the home page from wherever I happen to be in the wiki. I would also like to know how to spell check. There do not seem to be any icons for either of these. Also, if anyone knows how to attach something, that would be great too as I imagine we will have to submit some things. Any help you can give would be much appreciated. Thank you. Now, a little about me. I am currently an Academic Coach in a metro area high school with 81% free and reduced lunch. I have been teaching for 18 years and this is my second year in the PhD program of Teaching and Learning. Before reading the Tyler text, I defined curriculum as the courses offered, but now I understand it to be much more about the collective experiences one participates in as part of the courses. This class interested me since I deal with curriculum issues at school.

Hi...it is I (Theresa) again. How do we thread discussions? Or are we just all writing one really long page? Also, how do we see our own posting history, grades, etc.? I apologize if this seems like too many questions but I really cannot find the answers. Maybe all of you have used wiki before?? I am used to WebCT and ULearn formats so this is something really new for me - which is fine but some basic instructions would be great. Thanks! In response to Monique above, as you set up your online courses, I would recommend making sure it is user-friendly (like ULearn) and something easy for non-tech people to navigate. I would love to know how to set one up as well.
 * See addition in bold above.**

Hello, my name is Chris King, and I in my third year as a doctoral student in the EPS program. I work at a Christian school in Atlanta. I have been in administration for three years. Prior to this position, I taught high school for six years. I am relatively new to education. My undergrad and grad experiences have been in religous studies. I understand curriculum to be the framework by which individuals engage learning. Depending on the learning context, curriculum may be constructed differently. Also, curriculum is not confined to academic settings.

Hi Everyone, My name is Dina Schwam and I am in the concurrent MS/PhD Ed Psych program. I have sporadic teaching experience with my experiences limited to corporate learning facilitator for 2 years and then 1 year instructional designer at Delta Airlines. Plus I recently designed and developed a research workshop for nurses. Other than that I currently work in a completely unrelated field (clinical research) however as an ed psych graduate student I have interest in doing research on motivation in children and adults with neurological disorders. Since ultiamtely I would like to test the effects of altering classroom delivery and expectations on motivation I felt that having an understanding of the principle of curriculum and its design would be beneficial. After all you can't alter what you don't understand nor can you identify flaws or assets if you do not have a good foundation in your understanding. I see curriculum as having to encompass more than just subject matter and provide an interdisciplinary approach in order to create meaning for the individual to increase motivation, the level of processing and deepen the learning experience.

Hi,

My name is Alison Happel and I am finishing my second year of doctoral work in Social Foundations within Educational Policy Studies. I am currently teaching an undergraduate summer class and co-teaching Anthro of Ed on the EPS floor. My interests include feminist theory, post-structural theory, and neoliberalism. I am currently nervous because I have yet to narrow down a disseration topic, and it is about that time....

I am taking this class because my initial interest in Education came when contemplating the political, social, and cultural implications of certain inclusions and omissions within elementary school curriculum. After graduating high school I was upset to learn the differing and oftentimes contradictory versions of history that exist about our country and the world. It seems like the country definitely has a very strong interest in promoting certain idea(l)s in school--nationalism, (Christian/Western based) morality, and heterosexuality all quickly come to mind. Why do so many students think that the United States is the best country in the world? Why isn't very much known about current living conditions of various Native American populations? Why isn't white privilege talked about consistently and critically? How are gender roles created, maintained, and/or challenged within schools? Obviously these questions involve MUCH more than just curriculum, but I do think that curriculum can give us some partial answers to broad social and cultural practices and beliefs.

In terms of what the curriculum actually is...I agree with Chris. Curriculum is not just what is explicitly taught--like we teach the undergrads, in addition to the formal curriculum there is the hidden curriculum, the null curriculum, the extra curriculum, the invisible curriculum. I look forward to thinking more about these different types of curricula and how they are constructed and how teachers/educators can work towards creating more equitable/representative classrooms and learning environments.

Hello everyone, My name is Todd Manaigo. I am in my first year (2nd semester) of the Instructional Technolgies program. My interests lie in the process by which individuals and groups learn. Specifically, I am interested in non-traditional forms of learning such as those offered by web2.0.

I am a professional Trainer and Instructional Designer, and have over 12 years experience working in the Training field. My experience in the field began as a facilitator (stand-up trainer) in the classroom. But I have worked as an Instructional Designer since 2001.

I look forward to the learning experience, however I must be honest and state that although I am excited about learning new theories and being exposed to new ideas I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this class. Hello, I am Melissa Speight Vaughn. I am a third year EPS doctoral student, Social Foundations major. I have completed coursework and scheduled to begin dissertation data collection in the fall. I am interested in researching how to integrate community inquiry, student led inquiry, and community history in the social studies curriculum. I am a special educator in Henry County. I teach at Union Grove High School and have sat through many faculty meetings focused on standards, curriculum, and testing. I believe curriculums give a blueprint for instruction, but I am more interested what informs written curriculums.

Hi, I am Amanda Otto. I am in my second year EPS social foundations doctoral program. I teach high school English at Centennial High School in Fulton County and am in my 8th year of teaching; I taught my first seven years at Norcross High School. I am interested in programs for at-risk students as well as curriculum for technical programs (even though we don't have them anymore in Georgia). I have had a lot of experience in designing curriculums for 9th and 10th grade techincal English classes as most teachers who were teaching it just "dumbed down" the curriculum even though the standards for technical classes were completely different. I found that interesting and created the classes around what those specific students would need. I look forward to learning more about curriculum as I have been asked to help with a new curriculum at my current school.

Hi! My name is Sara C. Gregg and I am in my second year working on my doctorate in the EPS department at GSU. I taught middle school for nine years, four in GA and five in Fl, English and Reading. While in GA, I worked with Forsyth County in developing curriculum standards in Language Arts 6-8, helped to critique the QCCs (now known as GPS), and held workshops for my colleagues on teaching reading in the content areas. In FL, I developed curriculum maps in Reading for 7th and 8th grade at the school in which I taught. Therefore, curricular concepts--in particular in the field of literacy/language development--have always been a passion of mine.

Concerning my definition of curriculum, I find it difficult to narrow it to a simple idea/ideology. Understanding the formal, implied/implicit, null, hidden curriculums, etc., I am still left pondering the implications of curriculum K-12. I am very concerned with the over-crowding of curriculums in our nation's schools for I do not think that it is feesible for schools to fix all of society's ills. I therefore constantly return to the notion of the "way in which we do school", the logistics, NCLB, etc.

Good afternoon - I am signing in from beautiful West Point, NY where I am currently on a 10 day field experience with a group of teachers involved in a Teaching American History Grant program. It is currently about 65 degrees! My name is Becky Ryckeley and I am in my first year of the Ed Policy - Leadership program working on my doctorate. I have 18 years of experience in public education. I taught elementary school for 3 years, middle school for 3 years, high school for eight years in a south metro county in GA. I currently work as the K-12 Social Studies Coordinator in Henry County. In my position I am responsible for leading teams of teachers to develop curriculum maps, select instructional resources, and provide professional learning. I find the term "curriculum" to be one of the most misused terms in the education profession. Vendors often use it to "hawk their wares", textbooks try to disguise themselves as curriculum and have been mighty successful in accomplishing that goal! My working definition of curriculum is the knowledge, skills and enduring understandings that a community selects as important for students to learn. For public schools, that curriculum is currently based on the state curriculum - the Georgia Performance Standards (except for the last 3 years of high school math - those are still "rolling in".) If current national trends hold, the curriculum may become nationalized with little or no state and local control of what is important for students to know, do and understand.

Hi everyone. My name is Jeremy Cole and I am a doctoral student in Educational Policy Studies with a concentration in Social Foundations of Education. I currently also work full time as the Development Coordinator at a local charter school. I’ve worked in the non-profit world for the past 9 years. I am very interested in refugee educational issues, the history of education, comparative education, human rights and education, charter schools, and community schools. I am very excited to be taking this class, because I’ve found the term curriculum thrown around quite a lot in my work over the years, oftentimes with little connection to its meaning, and oftentimes conflated with very different concepts (like lesson plan, Power Point presentation, or training checklist). The reduction of our curriculum to a series of technical to do lists interests and troubles me. I am also interested in the author and audience of curriculum: Who designs curricula? Teachers? Principals? Researchers? Who should design it? Should those designing curricula take into account the audience? How individualized can/should any particular curriculum be? What interest groups compete for control of the curriculum? I am also interested in the historical development of various curricula in this country, and the outputs connected to these curricula. I would begin by defining curriculum as a set of educational, social, economic, and political values manifested in a theoretical and procedural guide, created to teach and measure learning.

I'll try this again. What I wrote initially--seems to have disappeared....My name is Keisha Kidan. I am currently a student in my 2nd semester of the M.S. Instructional Design & Technology program. I am an online instructor, and have been teaching online for three years. I am a self professed online learner, and this will actually be my 2nd Master's degree. I hope to use what I am learning to develop online materials and curricula to be licensed or further developed. I believe curriculum is defined as the content of a course that is designed to meet a certain objective. So, for me I want to take a subject, and create interactive and thoughtful lessons that can be completed on the internet. I have elected to take this course in hopes of learning some things I can use in my future academic/career pursuit.

Hi everyone. My name is Linda Wood. I am a doctoral student in Instructional Technology, with only five classes left (including this one) before I begin my dissertation courses. I take my comps this fall. I am the Department Chair of Graphic Design and Photographic Imaging at The Art Institute of Atlanta. I teach classes as well as manage the two departments. Between the two departments, I have over 700 students and 45 faculty members. I have been with The Art Institute since 2000 and began teaching there as an adjunct faculty member. I have been a graphic designer for many, many years and teach graphic design courses as well as digital photographic illustration courses. I would describe curriculum as a set of defined courses that detail a field of study. In addition, I see curriculum is a plan of action for students to receive a comprehensive education in a certain field of study. At my college, the faculty drive the curriculum. We have a departmental curriculum task force and a college-wide curriculum committee. We also receive input for our curriculum from our Program Advisory Committee (who are professionals in the field) to ensure that our curriculum is relevant to the respective industries. I strive to improve my knowledge and skills and am interested in improving my knowledge about curriculum and what it encompasses.

Hello all - This will be short - sorry I am typing on a Spanish keyboard and it is VERY weird! I am in the Teaching & Learning Ed.S in Science Education. I am out of the country at the moment, so access has been very sketchy. Returning today and will be catching up all day Friday! I am a science teacher (biology) at Woodstock HS in Woodstock (northwest Atlanta). I am one semester away from finishing my program! Jennifer Forsyth

Hello, My name is Laurie Van Patten and I am also doctoral candidate in Ed. Policy at GSU. I plan to defend my prospectus in the Fall and graduate next year. I work in Clayton County as a Teacher Development Specialist. I supervise our TAPP teachers and also teach professional learning courses. Since 2000 I have held a leadership position specifically working with teachers and helping them develop their skills to become effective teachers. I am very aware of how many of them feel about not having time or knowledge on how to implement their required curriculum as well as teach a very diverse population of students. I have assisted in choosing new curriculum as well as adopting our "pacing guide" to help teachers successfully teach. I think one thing that I am most concerned about is whether or not the curriculum is really being taught in the way it was intended. I am also concerned with how we are or are not supporting our teachers, many that do not have an educational background, in modeling and observing their understanding and use of the curriculum. As an educational leader I want to make sure that I have a solid understanding of curriculum and its importance in teaching our students. My experience has all been at the elementary level and I am looking forward to hearing from all of you as to how or if our curriculum is designed to build from one level to the next or if you see that we have 3 distinct levels of curriculum with little connection between grade levels. Looking forward to questions and comments during the course of this semester... Laurie Van Patten

Hola, My name is Sandra Sosa and I joined this class a week later, so I'm quickly trying to catch up! I am currently in the EdS program in School Counseling, and work as an Elementary School Counselor in Henry County Schools. I graduated from the University of Georgia with a BS in Child & Family Development (2005) and MEd in School Counseling (2008). So, this year concluded my first year as a certified educator :) As a mental health professional in the school system, there isn't a "set" curriculum for us to follow. When I hear the word curriculum, certain words pop in my head - standards-based curriculum, lesson plans, NCLB, etc. I wish Georgia would have a set curriculum for the classroom guidance piece School Counselors are expected to do, aligned with our standards so that we may collaborate with teachers and their lessons. This would be a tremendous help for the beginning school counselor, especially if you are the only counselor! This is something I hope to learn and possibly hope to develop a curriculum for my school counseling program at my school; hopefully, this may be something the county may use for school counselors to come.