TED 356
Curriculum in Sec. Ed.

Relate the demands of content area curriculum to the characteristics of secondary students, including students with disabilities included in regular education classrooms.
• Middle School vs. Jr. High School
• Characteristics of Middle School and High
School Students
• Common Approaches in Secondary Education.
• Introduction to the Diverse Classroom.

• Read the following in the Duplass textbook:
– Topic 4: “The Middle School Environment”
– Topic 5: “The High School Environment”
– Topic 8: “Teaching in a Diverse Classroom”

• Early 1900’s:
– 6-6 (elementary vs. high school) systems or
8-4 systems (grammar school vs. high school)
– Growing concern about developmental differences between 7 th & 8 th grade vs. elementary and high school.
• 1910: 1 st junior high schools
– Jr. High: grades 7-9
– Sr. High: grades 10-12

• 1960’s: Start of middle school movement.
• Why did interest in middle school start?
– Attentive to nature of young adolescents.
– Provide for individual differences.
– Increase retention.
– Help children transition from elementary to high school.
– Start vocational training and guidance.
– Expose children to departmentalized subject matter
(as in HS and college).

• Middle School:
– Typically:
• Grades 6-8 or 5-8.
– In Pennsylvania currently:
• Grades 7-9.
• In Pennsylvania under new regulations:
– Early Childhood:
Grades PreK-4
– Elementary/Middle:
Grades 4-8
– Secondary:
Grades 7-12
Affects new instructional certificates issued after 1/1/2013.

National Middle School Association
Welcome to seventh grade —middle school —that shaky, hellish bridge that all of you must cross before you become members of the undying, enviable high school elite.
MR. SIMANETTI, IN THE
FILM PAY IT FORWARD www.nmsa.org/

1. A curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory.
2. Multiple learning and teaching approaches that respond to students’ diversity.
3. Assessment and evaluation programs that promote quality learning.
4. Organizational structures that support meaningful relationships and learning.
5. School-wide efforts and policies that foster health, wellness, and safety.
6. Multifaceted guidance and support services.

• Focus: exploration in the disciplines and domains.
• Homeroom: Typically serves as an advising period with a set curriculum.
• Flexible scheduling is used to support teams and thematic teaching .
• Focus: Mastery of concepts and skills in disciplines and domains.
• Homeroom: Used for a range of school management issues : announcements, study hall, etc.
• Flexible scheduling, if used, is focused on greater mastery of content .

• Teachers organized:
Interdisciplinary teams with a common planning period.
• Workspaces: Teamed teachers are adjacent to one another .
• Instruction: Thematic units, discovery techniques,
“learning how to learn” study skills.
• Teachers organized:
Departments . No common planning period.
• Workspaces: Teachers arranged according to disciplines taught.
• Instruction: Lecture, skills, repetition.

• Did you experience middle school?
• What elements did you experience?
– Focus on exploration.
– Homeroom as advising period.
– Flexible scheduling to support teams.
– Interdisciplinary teams.
– Teamed teachers located adjacent to one another.
– Instruction as thematic units, discovery techniques,
“learning how to learn” study skills.

1. Teaching teams.
2. Scheduling.
3. Tracking.

• (Collaborative) teaching teams : Several teachers from different subject areas work together to plan the curriculum for a group of students.
– Don’t confuse with “team teaching.”
• Two or more teachers teaching the same group simultaneously.
• Example:
– History and English teachers plan a curriculum and learning activities around Elizabethan era.

• Middle school teaching teams:
– Often comprised of one teacher from
English/language arts, math, science, history/social studies: core curriculum.
– Interdisciplinary teams : Core-subject teachers + specialty-area teachers (phys. ed., arts, spec. ed., counselors).
• School-within-a-school : Interdisciplinary team and students. Also known as village , pod , learning family , academy , house .
• Looping : Same teachers and students grouped together for multiple grades.

• Advantages:
– Developmentally responsive: team builds curriculum around student interests, perspectives, and perceptions.
– Make learning exciting and meaningful.
– Help students make connections among disciplines.
– Synergy of teacher talents.
– If one teacher is absent, others fill in: loss of instructional time.

• 7 or 8 periods (40-50 minutes).
• 3 or 4 classes before and after lunch.
• Preparation/planning period.
• Interdisciplinary teams:
– Common planning period (about 4 hours per week).

• Block scheduling: Blocks of time replace the traditional periods.
5x7 block plan:
Five 70-minute class periods. Three 12week trimesters.
4x4 block plan:
Four 85-90 minute class macroperiods.
Modified
Block
Schedule
A-B/Alternating
Day block plan:
90-minute blocks every other day.
Flexible
Block
Schedule

• What are the advantages of block scheduling? The disadvantages?

• Advantages:
– Greater satisfaction among teachers.
– Improvement in student behavior, learning, and attitude toward school.
– Students do more writing.
– Students pursue issues in greater depth.
– Students know students better and can better respond to their needs.

• Disadvantages:
– Content coverage may be less than in traditional format.
– When absent, a student misses a lot of material.

• Tracking (ability grouping): Assignment of students to curriculum and class groups based on evidence of academic ability.
• Attempt to address individual interests or differences.
• Example:
– Honors track, college prep, general, 4 th group.
– College prep, non-college prep.

• Advantages:
– Teaching is easier with homogeneous grouping (similar learning capacities, styles of learning, and motivation).
• Disadvantages:
– Inequity : tracks may differ in difficulty and complexity of subject matter, methods of instruction, and rate of student progress.
• One group takes AP calculus, while another learns basic computational skills.

• 7-hour days for students.
• 7 or 8 periods a day with periods lasting
40 to 50 minutes. Some schools use block scheduling.
• Use of Teams, especially interdisciplinary teams. A member of the team may serve as a student’s advisor.
• Some use of tracking, especially in mathematics and language arts.

• Teams
• Thematic Teaching
• Exploratory Courses
• Instructional Approaches
• Tracking and Ability Grouping
In classes limited to high-ability students: Teachers spend less time on classroom management, more on content, cover the material at a faster pace, and have higher expectations. Students spend more time on homework, have higher self-confidence, and are more respected by teachers.

• Egocentric: Egocentric and thus think their problems, experiences, feelings, and thoughts are unique to them.
• Seeks acceptance: Focused on acceptance by peers.
• Curious and naïve: Intensely curious and vulnerable to naïve and often one-sided opinions.
• Physically awkward: Physically awkward and excessively concerned with physical appearance.

• Moody: Easily offended, sensitive to criticism, moody, and restless.
• Test behavior limits: Inclined to act out, overdramatize, rebel against parents, and test the limits of acceptable behavior.
• Idealistic: Idealistic, prone to ask broad questions about ethical issues.
• Social: Focused on social interaction.
• Explore and learn: Interested in exploring values, making decisions, and learning concepts after exposure to concrete experiences.

Question % of Students
Responding
Affirmatively
Found their courses interesting 18 %
Feel homework is worthwhile
Generally liked their teachers as opposed to neutral or disliked their teachers
Spend less than 45 minutes nightly on homework
86.5
%
48 %
82 %
Sources: Copeland, et al, 2001; Dekeyrel, 2000

• Less egocentric than middle school students.
• More independent than middle school students.
• More confident than middle school students.
• Still idealistic like middle school students.
• Anxious to reach a more stable physical appearance .
• Less easily discouraged .
• Less indifferent to adults.
• Apprehensive about their future after high school.

• What students desired from their high school teachers were:
– Order.
Teachers were often cited for lax instruction and un-enforced rules.
– Higher expectations. Teachers expected too little; the students said they would work harder if more were required of them.
– Moral inspiration.
Teachers needed to promote virtues like hard work and honesty.

Based on Student Characteristics
• Middle and high school teachers face challenges when communicating ideas:
1. Help students develop an ego that allows them to be open to new or more precise ideas.
2. Maintain empathy for a student who resists new ideas or is slow to understand them.

Based on Student Characteristics
3. Due to limited amounts of time for instruction, strive for efficiency to overcome students’ attention spans.
4. In social studies and most literature:
Promote a virtuous and democratic ideology while also permitting undemocratic and unpopular ideas to be voiced and examined.
5. In science and math: Help students who are anxious about their ability to develop a command of mathematical concepts.

• What percentage of US households are traditional 2-parent, 2-child families?
– 6%.
• What percentage of US children will spend some years raised by a single parent?
– Approximately 50%.

• US population is expected to reach 383 million by 2050:
– Population boom led by Hispanics and Asian
Americans.
– School-aged minority youths will be 40%.
– Steady increase in interracial marriages and babies.

• Of students aged 5-7, how many speak a language other than English?
– 1 out of 6.
• In a large school district:
– As many as 100 different languages could be represented.
– As many as 20 different languages could exist in one classroom.

• Students with special needs:
– Learning disability.
– Behavior disorder.
• At-risk students.
• Gifted (exceptional, talented) students.

As a classroom teacher of today, you must be knowledgeable and skilled in using teaching strategies that recognize, celebrate, and build upon diversity.

• Development of Jr. High (1910) and middle schools (1960’s) due to concerns about student differences.
• Contrasted middle school vs. Jr. high.
• Contrasted middle school vs. high school student.
• Common practices: teaching teams, scheduling options, tracking.
• Challenges in teaching based on student characteristics.
• Introduction to diverse classroom.