Curriculum and Instruction: Home

Education of America's school children always has been and always will be a hot-button issue. From what should be taught to how to pay for education to how to keep kids safe in schools, impassioned debates emerge and mushroom, both within the scholarly community and among the general public. This volume in the point/counterpoint Debating Issues in American Education reference series tackles the topic of curriculum and instruction. Fifteen to twenty chapters explore such varied issues as alternative curriculum, curriculum control, standardized curricula, subject- versus student-centered curricula, textbooks, and more. Each chapter opens with an introductory essay by the volume editor, followed by point/counterpoint articles written and signed by invited experts, and concludes with Further Readings and Resources, thus providing readers with views on multiple sides of curriculum and instruction issues and pointing them toward more in-depth resources for further exploration.

Accessibly written and featuring illustrative case examples, this book provides a complete guide to curriculum-based assessment for instructional design (CBA-ID). CBA-ID comprises easy-to-implement, reliable, and valid procedures for determining a student's instructional level and individualizing instruction by developing tasks that are neither too hard nor too easy. It is a key tool for supporting K-8 students who are struggling in reading, math, or writing, and is ideally suited for intervention planning within multi-tiered systems of support. Including reproducible forms, the print book has a large-size format and lay-flat binding to facilitate photocopying. Purchasers also get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. This book is in The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series.

Quest to Learn, an innovative school for grades 6 to 12 in New York City, grew out of the idea that gaming and game design offer a promising new paradigm for curriculum and learning. The designers of Quest to Learn developed an approach to learning that draws from what games do best: drop kids into inquiry-based, complex problem spaces that are built to help players understand how they are doing, what they need to work on, and where to go next. Content is not treated as dry information but as a living resource; students are encouraged to interact with the larger world in ways that feel relevant, exciting, and empowering. Quest to Learn opened in the fall of 2009 with 76 sixth graders. In their first semester, these students learned -- among other things -- to convert fractions into decimals in order to break a piece of code found in a library book; to use atlases and read maps to create a location guide for a reality television series; and to create video tutorials for a hapless group of fictional inventors. This research and development document outlines the learning framework for the school, making the original design available to others in the field. Elements in development include a detailed curriculum map, a budget, and samples of student and teacher handbooks.

This book examines the implications of computer-generated learning for curriculum design, epistemology, and pedagogy, exploring the ways these technologies transform the relationship between knowledge and learning, and between teachers and students. It argues that these technologies and practices have the potential to refocus on the human factors that are at the center of the learning process.