collaboration > curriculum (Ryan Boren boren.blog/2018/02/0… )
Many colleges and universities have attempted to use or have used active student participation in curriculum design. A 2016 article by Chris Havergal highlighted the benefits students reported based on organizational experiences associated with codesigning curriculum (1).
This article (http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/57709/1/57709.pdf) from Bovill and Buley presents evidence (or ideas) to support the concept that students develop a deeper understanding (and possibly connection) to the content when they are involved in their instruction.
This segment of a video of a conference speech (https://youtu.be/lelmXaSibrc?t=1132) highlights how dynamic user created videogame levels can be.
All of these ideas lead me to my opinion. Students should be able to guide their own learning.
I teach elementary school. Mostly science and social studies (for now). Students have a wealth of background knowledge they need to develop at this age. Teachers can still guide students to their goals and objectives while students get (at the very least choice or) individualized learning opportunities. I am not just talking about the legally required adjustments that IEPs or 504s bring.
I mean full on student-led learning.
This does not have to be all year. It does not have to be all class period. It does need to happen. Certainly students have information that they should learn before being “released into the wild.” They may need support for whatever they are studying.
The internet, as it stands now, is full of resources and opportunities for students in any subject area. There are programs that can help students learn to read or complete complex mathematical computations instantly. There are websites filled with resources and information via text, video, games, and more. There are simulations that can be used and manipulated to act out scientific principles in a way that reading on paper cannot do justice.
These are all options, but there are many sources for any topic, and that is just the internet. The physical world has as many opportunities (more even) that can be utilized based on the needs and wants of a student.
I am trying to keep this vague, blanketed idea as direct and simple as possible, but any educator knows that nothing is so easy. Certainly, a teacher is not going to just start the year off allowing a room of 25 eight year-olds to choose what they want to study and how they want to go about it (within the confines of the concepts and skills required), but that teacher could.
Taking a suggestion from the oft-cited Carol-Ann Tomlinson, teachers could implement one part of their curriculum at a time to allow for student-led (or designed) learning. Maybe it is one aspect of a unit or a whole unit of study out of several. Perhaps teachers could use a final unit as a “capstone” project to allow for more student-led opportunities.
I would suggest only starting there. Keep expanding as often as possible.
“What about the obstacles in doing this?” one might ask. Schools or districts can be difficult to circumvent. I mean, they just paid thousands/ millions of dollars for this new, award-winning curriculum (that will be discarded and replaced in 4 years), so why we would just not use it?
Use the curriculum. Curriculum is too often treated as an be all end all. It is a resource. Treat it as a resource. Use it like an encyclopedia (remember those?) or a text with information.
OR
Use the curriculum as intended but create opportunities for students to go outside of what every other 6th grader in Anytown, USA is doing. Build off the information. Push it to the side and try something else entirely.
Close your classroom door and allow for experiences that a textbook will not offer. Allow students to integrate technology, their own ideas, other’s ideas, your ideas, other ideas, and the curriculum into whatever works for their vision for what they need to learn what they have to. That’s a mouthful.
Allow students to reach their objectives by whatever means they see fit. Afterall, they know themselves better than anyone. Allow them to trust themselves and guide them when they need it.
