Changing Curriculum within One Chicago Public School
NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) was written to produce nationwide, United
States, standards for all science education in K-12. Although an extensive document to provide
a national framework, it is being rolled out without recommending that education should reach
beyond the content. NGSS is not completely without merit because it is the first ambitious
attempt to create a structure that enables individual school districts to create the science
curriculum they believe prepares students for the future, however, the future is about social
engineering instead of producing a more intelligent and educated society.
I could look at curriculum nationally, however, I choose to look at what my school is
doing to educate students. I teach at a STEM (Science, Technology, education, and math) High
School in Chicago, Illinois. The school administration believes that as a STEM school our
students need disciplinary content along with critical thinking and problem-solving strategies to
be viably successful in the future. Are these the educational qualities that students need to be
educated? Should the question be based on where adults see future jobs or should the
students themselves make choices about interests in their future?
The children centered view is a very Dewesque thought process about how educational
choices are made. John Dewey recognized that "children development and learning is
never rational and orderly, he and his followers advocated for child-centered and
community-centered curriculum to give students experiences that make rigorous
intellectual demands in the contexts of democratic social living". Dewey identified that a
standard school was not effectively educating children because there exists a
fundamental divergence between the child and the curriculum. He defined child's
experiences as narrow and personal while the world is vast extending both in space and
time. He sees a curriculum that is specialized, and divided unreal to a child’s
understanding of how the world operates. Learning has to exist in this chaotic
complicated world or the information makes no sense and the child cannot make
connections or create internal knowledge of what they are being taught. Dewey agreed
that Americans were often uninformed and easily manipulated by the wealthy and
powerful. Thus, he forcefully pushed for curriculum that used real world problem solving,
thinking skills, and other knowledge necessary for democratic decision making. Dewey
in my opinion was a semi-pragmatic in his approach to life. He saw deep critical
thought as a way to produce solutions for the ills of society and the world.
Pinar and reconceptualization, was a restructuring of curriculum from its positivist
framework to post-modernist thought. Pinar saw curriculum theory in its past form of
pragmatics as social engineering. Education in the American K-12 school system has
always been an extension of capitalistic control. The mindset is, “If we focus on skills
instead of knowledge, on assessment instead of intellectual judgement and thought, we
can launch students’ future careers.” Even though curriculum theorists have a good
grasp of the situation as Pinar stated “standardization makes everyone stupid and if you
discount the past and force the future, we teach to the test instead of building
knowledge.
Pinar identifies that curriculum as the framework for education is emergent and it
occurs through the dialog of teacher and student. Pinar says this when he said the
single biggest failure to educate has been the consistent separation of curriculum from
student interest and teacher’s passion. Instruct without guidelines! Political heresy and
to most of Lake View High School’s teaching staff that seems above the state law. As a
teacher, I disagree, there must be humanness beyond social engineering of “No Child
Left Behind” and NGSS where we can show stakeholders that our children are being
educated. Schwab and Pinar support teachers and the practitioners being the
shepherds of our childrens’ wonderings by taking back their curriculum throught the
dialogue between teachers and students (Schwab and Pinar).
The NGSS framework states that curriculum should be written after the student
assessment is created. Writing the assessment before the lessons helps focus what
you are teaching for a unit and I am not against that idea, however, the assessment
should be a culmination of a unit’s concepts and ideals expressed through a project,
paper, or another way to communicate what they learned. Further, I want to bring in the
influence of technology. It is getting harder and harder to give tests as students are
becoming more collaborative in their work and less and less willing to study for tests
because computers provide such easy access to information. In science, students
benefit from inquiry and observed phenomena. Discovery is the best method of
connecting science phenomena to student life and their world. I believe students can
make those connections they need for mastering curriculum through experimentation
and Socratic discussions in spite of the ever looming answer found on computers and
cellphones.
At Lake View High School (LVHS), the administration follows an article by Phillip
Stabback written for the United Nations Education and Science Organization that states
that an effective curriculum for the 21st century must have instruction that promotes
Communication; Collaboration; Critical thinking; and Creativity. This has caused our
administrator to require all curriculum to include these skills (Appendix A). In addition,
the article discussed having management and appreciation of diversity; and learning to
learn. Our school appreciates these two additions but it is not mandatory for our
students when the research supports both as very important to student education. Our
administration believes social engineering, or skill building, as the best promise for
future success.
From my 603 courses at National Louis University, the readings of Pinar, Doll,
and Schwab and Wu have greatly influenced my ideas about how our school practices
curriculum construction. I want my instructional work incorporating the socially
consciousness of Dewey such as improving water drainage or slowing down the impact
of global warming. Pragmatically, I would base all my chemistry curricular units on
problem based learning such as global warming, weather patterns, and food chemistry.
In addition, quantum theory could even utilize the rotating cosmic star scenario that
collided recently for helping students to understand the Bohr model and explain
energy’s role in electron movement.
Next, I want to add that basing my curriculum on solving problems, I will
incorporate individual thinking of multiple viewpoints and literacies that make each
individual unique (a Pinar ideal). Our curriculum would then assess student learning
and alter instruction to address the needs of our students. I think we could alter this in a
more Pinar fashion by asking our students what they know about electron movement
and the stars and what they want to learn. Students could pick topics they like about
the topic and they could research information while learning about energy and electron
movement. Students could pair up by what they think may be the answers. Even
asking why or why not this may occur gives one ideas about how students see this
particular phenomenon.
Finally, I think students should be the generators of objectives and goals for their
learning so that alternative and specific points of view are included as proposed by Wu
in his tenets of Standpoint theory. I see this as a critically important improvement
because curriculum at LVHS does not incorporate student ideas. The administration
would be supportive of student generated curricular ideas, however, they don’t believe it
is required. In my opinion, I believe it can no longer be excluded. Students at LVHS
are primarily second generation Mexican-Americans and they want to be heard.
In the appendix, I put a copy of one unit of our curriculum that we currently have.
Notice that curriculum is structured around the Big idea, (unit), the essential
knowledge(Concepts) and the Objectives students are expected to learn. The Unit
plans which is the application of the Unit plan explain the main idea, define the
objectives, the activities, and the 4C’s the administration believes need to be included in
instruction. Further, the units are planned around a common assessment for all the
classes. Missing is the dialogue of teacher and student who should be different for their
students and not the students in other classrooms. This is a ‘ghost” (so to speak) of the
No Child Left behind era and one that the Chicago Board of Education continues to
embrace. How can we possibly differentiate our students while at the same time create
common exams? Every classroom has different students and those students have
different needs and interests in learning about chemical phenomena how can the
assessment be common?
One positive support of our curriculum is the lack of directives around
technology. Our school does teach two years of coding for technology instruction
because we are designated as STEM, however, student differentiation is not expected
to be addressed by technology and we do not have to include how technology is being
used in the classroom. Pinar suggested the idiocy created around technology and how
many schools are replacing classroom instruction with technology programs.
Fortunately, at LVHS, technology is not seen as the answer to 21st century needs. We
do, however, have a cellphone issue that is still problematic. Our administration at the
school sees cellphones as hand held computers. It is just unfortunate that we cannot
block the blinking and vibrating of messaging and snapchat features, along with the
ease of using the camera to visually hack other peoples’ images, private information,
and/or classwork. These factors will remain a nationwide issue.
My major change to our curriculum will be inclusion of student preference and/or
ideas into curriculum concepts and objectives. I want to survey students at the
beginning of the year about what we will learn for the year and get their thoughts about
how they would like to learn about the different concepts and if there are any burning
topics or ideas they really want to understand deeper. Then I can add subjects that
students are interested in and have them research articles and experiments that explore
topics important to my students. Additionally, I would include daily discussion around
ideas or goals that my students want to investigate or individually address or tackle
today or over the next few days. Incorporating interesting current topics to discuss
regularly will help with revealing how students are connecting to the concepts.
Asking the students about what they are interested in would change the
commonality of curriculum in every class. I really want chemistry centered around
solving the problems my students care about. I think it is important that we educate our
future generation about curriculum that means something to our students and maybe
they would even consider our community or our world.
Finally, the assessment or the evaluation of what is learned can be expressed,
however, my students choose how they want to be evaluated. Here is a major sticking
point with my administration because they feel we need a common assessment.
However, if we create common choices or even the commonality of students choosing
how they will be address that different knowings, ideals, needs, and desires of our
students.
My miscellaneous notes about improving our current curriculum would be the
incorporation of the student and the practitioner into what they should teach and how it
should be evaluated. This idea continues into my wish that my students become
invested into what they learn. My hope is that it will motivate my students to become
excited about chemistry instead of just excited about getting a grade or passing a test. I
want them to find opportunities were education will push them to want to learn more just
for the reasons of curiosity and interest.
Overall, my school’s chemistry curriculum could be improved if we start first with
the student and then the subject. We would than create more than one way to learn the
material giving students individuality and interest, and the opportunities they could have
to look deeper.
Appendix
Unit Plan –Electrons
LAKE VIEW HIGH SCHOOL Unit 3 Plan
TEACHER NAMES
Pinson
Yonan
Choi
Masino
Thorson
COURSE NAME Chemistry
Change to
summary of unit
Survey students about what they know, what they want to know and
how they learned.
Quarter 2:
Nov 6-Dec 8
Prep/Honors/Instructional
Unit Title &
Summary*
Unit 3 - Electron Configurations and Periodic Table: Students will discover
from lab activities that the valence electrons influence the properties of the
element. In the periodic table, the regular elements will be organized in
columns based on their number of valence electrons and they will see similar
properties amongst the elements in that column. The protons plus electrons
affect the trends in the periodic table and the electrons will determine the
ionic properties. Finally, students will see how the quantum model address
the structure of the periodic table much closer than any of the previous
atomic models.
Skills (CCSS, NGSS,
SEL Learning
Standard)
Content
Standards Assessed
Objectives (“I Can” statements) + 4C’s
DCI


HS PS1-1: Use the periodic
table as a model to predict
the relative properties of
elements based on the
patterns of electrons in the
outermost energy level of
atoms.

PS1.A: -Each atom has a charged

substructure consisting of a nucleus,
which is made of protons and
neutrons, surrounded by electrons.
-The periodic table orders
elements horizontally by the number
of protons in the atom’s nucleus and
places those with similar chemical
properties in columns. The repeating
patterns of this table reflect patterns
of outer electron states.
I can use the periodic table as a model
to predict the properties of elements.
(Com/Col/critical thinking)
I can apply the quantum mechanical
model of the atom in order to explain
the arrangement of the periodic table
based upon the electronic structure of
atoms. (Crit /col/Communication)
I can identify trends in reactivity,
ionization energy, electronegativity,
and atomic radius and explain these
patterns in terms of coulombic
attraction and/or effective nuclear
charge (Crit/Com/Col/Creative

Relevant
Prerequisite
Learning
Students need to remember
that atoms are composed of
two regions, a nucleus and
an electron cloud. Protons
and neutrons are found in
the nucleus while electrons
are found in the electron
cloud.
Students research the topic from Khan
academy to Youtube videos and then we
discuss their knowings and wonderings.
Change I Can statements on the board to
a series of statements about what they are
learning and what they want to learn
I believe that this naturally happens
without having to include the box below.
Interdisciplinary
Connections +
Transfer
(How will students
use these skills
outside of your
course? Outside of
school?)

Summative
Assessment Task
Description & Link
-Combination of Extended and short response addressing the focus question:
“Why does Sodium react violently with water?
Chpt. 3 Summative
Connections to other
units




Pattern recognition: students will learn how to identify patterns in data
through exploration and discovery
Graphing and applying mathematical models is an important skill for
mathematics and social studies
Understanding the nature of science and how scientists often rely on
indirect evidence for many things
Understanding how the unique properties of elements are used for many
different things that are important to students in their daily lives (e.g.:
silicon for CPUs, rare earth metals in cell phones, salts for fireworks)
In Unit 1, students learned about properties of matter. In the second unit,
they learned about the structure of atoms and how the atomic model was
developed in response to indirect evidence. For this unit, students will
learn how the structure of atomic electrons relate to their properties and
location on the periodic table so that they can make predictions about how
elements will bond and react with one another. We can include this box
but it should include the different things each class built on.
Scope and Sequence- Example of Chemistry Curriculum
This section can be
changed based on what
students decide because
they will include these just
by researching their topic
Unit 1 - Performance
Periodic Expectation Table HS1PS1
4
Week 2
The skills are
changing as well
based on what
are students
uncover.
Unit: Chemistry holds
answers for the mysteries
of the Universe
1)I can use physical
properties to identify
Is it really Gold? Going
elements. 2)I can describe
from properties to atomic the qualities of objects
5 structure
defined as elements,
Skill 1 - I can
support a
claim with
evidence from
an experiment
matter, and particles. 3)I
can use symbols, words,
and numbers to read and
understand the elements.
4)I can define the atomic
structure.
Week 3
using inquiry to build an
organizational model for
5 elements.
Week 4
1) I can use the bohr
model to determine
valance electrons in the
main group atoms. 2) I
can create a method to
Valence electrons and
show that elements line up
the current atomic model vertically by valence
determine properties of
electrons for the main
5 the periodic table.
group atoms.
Valence electrons
Week 5
Summative
assessment:
October 8,
2017
Unit 2 Valence
electrons
and
bonding Week 6
Total 3
weeks
1) I can use chemical and
physical properties to
\build an organizational
model for elements. 2)
Research experiments to
determine the Bohr model
of atomic structure.
Week 7
4 determine reactivity
1) I can explain why
atomic size changes
across and down the
periodic table. 2) I can
explain why groups of
atoms can form different
types of ions.
Prep: using atomic
structure to determine
location on periodic
table. Honors: Why
does sodium explode in
water?
1) I can determine
properties based on the
number of valence
electrons. 2) I can explain
why elements typically
form ionic, covalent, or
metallic bonds based on
Experiment with metals their location on the
5 vs. non-metals
periodic table.
1) I can recognize that
electrons behave as
waves and particles. 2)I
can identify and draw the
shape of orbital s and p. 3)
I can use the three
principles of quantum
theory to write out the
5 Quantum atomic model electron configuration. 4) I
Skill 2 - I can
create models
of matter &
Skill 3 - I can
plan and carry
out a simple
experiment
Skill 2 - I can
create models
of matter &
Skill 3 - I can
plan and carry
out a simple
experiment
can use the electron
configuration to determine
the valence electrons for
the main group elements.
Week 8
Summative
assessment:
November 2,
2017
5 Bohr vs Quantum model
Prep: Pick a metal vs. a
non-metal and explain
how their valence
electron properties
influence their bonding
capability using the
patterns on the periodic
table as evidence.
Honors: Using the
properties of electrons,
create a firework show on
ilovefireworksapp. Then
using the color wheel
identify what chemicals
you would have to
combine to get the colors
found in your show.
1) I can compare and
contrast the bohr model vs
the quantum model. 2) I
can explain using the
electron configuration
model why the quantum
model supports the
organization of the
periodic table. 3) I can use
the electron configuration
to find the D and F orbital
on the periodic table.