Purpose and Strategy for Evaluating Curriculum for Higher Order Thinking Skills Explain in great detail what it means to evaluate curriculum for higher-order thinking and give at least two detailed examples of tasks that require higher-order thinking skills (not specific to your unit). Describe the steps in detail with examples that a teacher can take to evaluate curriculum for higher-order thinking skills. Tasks Requiring Higher Order Thinking Skills Identify student tasks within your unit lessons that require higher-order thinking and any adjustments you will make to ensure at least one task in the set of lessons requires students to engage in higher-order thinking skills. (Must give examples) Reference includes a minimum of 5 scholarly resources Note: Next week (Week 7) you will be expected to interview someone who is using a Learning Management System. Be sure to arrange an appointment as soon as possible.
During the first week of this course, you reviewed different aspects of curriculum including the null, hidden, and societal curriculum that were mentioned in Week 1.
These concepts are important to consider when evaluating the content of the written curriculum and when developing a new curriculum. Intentionally selecting instructional materials that bring attention to diverse perspectives and designing lessons that place teachers in the role of facilitator can aid in counteracting bias and supporting the development of higher-order thinking skills.
Evaluating for Bias in the Curriculum
Instruction is the most relevant area for the purpose of developing and evaluating the written curriculum. This area overlaps with knowledge you have gained about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). For example, collaborative learning and differentiation are woven into the guidelines of UDL. The standards and practices can be used to evaluate and design curriculum that intentionally and actively counteracts bias.
Evaluating the Curriculum for Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Problem Solving
In the unit design template used earlier in this course, the section titled Learning Plan functions as a map for educators during implementation of the curriculum. It is here where lessons should demonstrate scaffolding toward critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving. The design of each lesson should assist educators in moving students deeper into the content, examining diverse perspectives, and assessing their own understanding. In this digital age where exorbitant amounts of information are readily available, critical thinking rises to the surface as an essential skill. The willingness to engage in critical thought is a disposition and exercising this kind of thinking takes practice (Lyn, 2021).
Blooms Taxonomy and Depths of Knowledge are two structures that can support exemplary curriculum development. Developed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues, and revised in 2001, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a structure for categorizing learning objectives based on levels of complexity (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Depths of Knowledge, developed by Norman Webb in 1997, is a framework for analyzing standards and assessments to determine the complexity of thinking required of students to complete certain tasks. When designing and evaluating curriculum, units should demonstrate a progression toward higher-order thinking skills. Effective units end with summative assessment opportunities that engage students in strategic thinking and extensions of learning.
A Cognitive Rigor Matrix is another framework that can be used to support curriculum development and evaluation (Hess et al., 2009). Matrixes developed for different academic domains can be located on educational researcher, Karen Hess’s website (Hess, 2014). According to Simpson et al. (2014), these tools can be used to assess the kinds of questioning being developed in curriculum and posed to students by teachers to ensure higher-order thinking skills are prompted.
Understanding social justice and counteracting bias relies on higher-order thinking skills. Recalling the events leading to the Civil Rights Movement, or identifying Stonewall is valuable knowledge, but alone it does little to empower students with the critical processes necessary for evaluating information in productive ways. The 2016 mass shooting targeting the LGBTQ+ community, the murder of George Floyd, which propelled the Black Lives Matter movement forward in 2020, and the Capital Riot in January 2021 are examples reminding people that discussing issues of social justice and presenting multiple perspectives for analysis is not for the purpose of demanding students believe in a particular ideology, but for the purpose of deconstructing social issues at the micro and macro levels. When events like these examples are omitted from the curriculum or presented with only one point of view what is absent becomes part of the null curriculum. At the same time, caution should be used to avoid flooding young students with constant discussions of violence and conflict. Ultimately, curriculum content and instructional practices should be based on students’ developmental readiness rather than educator comfort and outdated resources (Lyn, 2021). Educator discomfort with curriculum matters deserves attention during professional development.
High-quality curriculum prepares students to grapple with difficult questions and conversations because it aims to develop students’ higher-order thinking skills and dispositions (Lyn, 2021). Curriculum that builds on learning from recall to creativity teaches students to analyze and interpret real-world problems and to develop new solutions to these problems. In addition to these design features, it is important for educators to evaluate instructional materials for bias so they can ensure every student is learning in an environment that feels safe and represents a range of stories outside the dominant culture. This week, you will work with your identified curriculum framework to evaluate the content and materials for bias and higher-order thinking skills.
References
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Longman.
Boland, M., Simmons, M., & Soots, B. (n.d.). Washington models for the evaluation of bias and content and instructional materials. Open Educational Resources.
Dunn, J. L. (2021, February 3). Our new name: Learning for Justice. Learning for Justice.
Hess, K. K., Jones, B. S., Carlock, D, & Walkup, J. R. (2009). Cognitive rigor: Blending the strengths of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to enhance classroom-level processes [online submission].
Lyn, A. (2021). Curriculum design and evaluation for K-12 educators. [Unpublished manuscript].
National Center for Education Statistics (2020, May). The condition of education.
Simpson, A., Mokalled, S., Ellenburg, L.A., & Che, S. M. (2014). A tool for rethinking questioning: The Cognitive Rigor Matrix is a tool that teachers can use to analyze and reflect on questions and tasks and, in the process, increase the level of rigor. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School 20(5), 294-302.
Instruction is the most relevant area for the purpose of developing and evaluating the written curriculum. This area overlaps with knowledge you have gained about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). For example, collaborative learning and differentiation are woven into the guidelines of UDL. The standards and practices can be used to evaluate and design curriculum that intentionally and actively counteracts bias.
Evaluating the Curriculum for Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Problem Solving
In the unit design template used earlier in this course, the section titled Learning Plan functions as a map for educators during implementation of the curriculum. It is here where lessons should demonstrate scaffolding toward critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving. The design of each lesson should assist educators in moving students deeper into the content, examining diverse perspectives, and assessing their own understanding. In this digital age where exorbitant amounts of information are readily available, critical thinking rises to the surface as an essential skill. The willingness to engage in critical thought is a disposition and exercising this kind of thinking takes practice (Lyn, 2021).
Blooms Taxonomy and Depths of Knowledge are two structures that can support exemplary curriculum development. Developed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues, and revised in 2001, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a structure for categorizing learning objectives based on levels of complexity (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Depths of Knowledge, developed by Norman Webb in 1997, is a framework for analyzing standards and assessments to determine the complexity of thinking required of students to complete certain tasks. When designing and evaluating curriculum, units should demonstrate a progression toward higher-order thinking skills. Effective units end with summative assessment opportunities that engage students in strategic thinking and extensions of learning.
Bias is everywhere. Therefore, it can be helpful to normalize the need to counteract bias intentionally and actively. Evaluating curriculum and instructional materials to determine whose perspective is being told, and whose story is being excluded is an important step toward creating classroom environments that support students’ identity development and sense of belonging. One tool for evaluation is the Washington Model, developed in 2009 and revised in 2020. This tool can be used to assess 15 elements of curriculum and instruction.