Teaching approaches: Curriculum planning

From OER in Education

Curriculum development is the overarching development of a series of lessons, sometimes within a single subject (or unit) and other times across the school, perhaps to develop a STEM curriculum. Most teachers will experience some level of curriculum development in their career, if only in the development of Schemes of Work. Teachers should explore the resources here, and in planning, learning objectives, curriculum development and planning for interactive pedagogy to explore this area in more depth.

Relevant resources


Blogs Creating and Using OER to Promote Best Practice
 
One school's approach to sharing and promoting best practice using a blog
This lesson idea encourages collaboration(ta) between teachers in order to develop and share practice(i) across a school. Blogs provide excellent opportunities for children and adults to share ideas and work together. They encourage and enable dialogue(ta) between a writer - or group of writers - and an audience, allowing for quick and easy feedback. They enable questions(ta) to be asked and answered quickly. This example shows a blog being used to encourage discussion(ta) to enable curriculum planning(topic) and curriculum development(topic).
Differentiation Differentiation
 
Developing effective techniques for differentiation by task and outcome
The small group work(ta) nature of this task allows teachers to share ideas, and attempt to conceptualise two different types of differentiation(ta), together. It also encourages teachers to share practice(i)s in differentiation. Teachers are first asked to consider differentiation ‘by task’ by thinking about self-sustaining activities which pupils could manage with little support. They are also asked to consider differentiation by outcome, and ‘hierarchies of achievement’ for particular topics. The practical nature of the task offers a concrete outcome for teachers to take away and use in their practice both day to day, and in curriculum planning(topic). The resource could be used as a prompt to start teachers off, a comparator for teachers working on similar topics, or just as an additional set of possibilities.
Progression Progression and questioning techniques in primary science projects
 
Measuring force and measuring progress.
This resource provides an overview of the Year 6 scheme of work - 6E Forces in action and includes some experiment examples. The experiments could be run in class, with increasingly advanced objectives(i) including students' use of language(ta), the factors they discuss, the way they use equipment, assessment(i), etc. This resource can work as standalone lesson ideas / science projects /inquiry(i), or to illustrate progression of concepts through a scheme of work or curriculum planning(i) document.
Progression Developing Progression in Primary Science
 
Progression and the wonders of 'one-ness' and 'two-ness'
A first part on ‘developing progression in science investigations’ could be used to prompt discussion on how far we expect pupils to develop, and the sorts of inquiry(ta) which encourage this.

The second part, 'indicators of Level 1 and 2ness', provides a useful set of criteria for assessing national curriculum levels. These criteria prompt thinking about assessment(ta) levels in curriculum development(topic). A concrete outcome of the activity may be to keep such criteria in a mark book for day-to-day use.

Science Education Changes in Science education
 
Get down to the core of why we teach science
Providing an overview of current issues in UK science education, this unit examines what type of science the curriculum should cover and for what purpose. It introduces students to practical problems in the delivery of an effective science curriculum(topic), and particular questions at all three educational tiers - primary, secondary and tertiary - are touched on. The unit can be used to assist curriculum planning(topic)