Tonight's 60 Minutes about coding reminded me about how important it is to continue to develop curriculum programs in ways that matter--deep, transformative, interdisciplinary ways that engage, empower, and educate students.
There's so much that we can do to grow our teaching/learning programs in ways that matter, ways that include the following categories.
Interdisciplinary Study
We have to synthesize many learning standards into rich, meaningful units of study that demonstrate to students how learning across disciplines leads to deep knowledge and positive effect with any big question, problem, or pursuit.
Deep, Engaging, Creative, and Versatile Tech
While I do believe there's a bit of room for workbook-on-a-page tech, I think we're remiss when we don't fully embed rich platforms like SCRATCH, iMovie, and other maker tech--tech that gives students the opportunity to synthesize, create, and manipulate data, objects, solutions, and inventions.
SEL Integrated Study
We have to look for ways to boost the whole child, and one way that we can do that is to integrate social emotional learning strategies, study, and actions into our learning communities.
Dynamic Learning Environments
Environments that match the latest cognitive research that points to what successful learning looks like and feels like.
Our programs at school need to continually evolve to better what we can do to teach students well. The categories above demonstrate some ways that we can do this.