A Colorado district's high school social studies teachers have collaborated to design curriculum guides that are useful to teachers, challenging for students, and aimed at integrating content outcomes with the district's five learner outcomes. The shift toward outcome-based education has produced guides emphasizing student performance, not content…

Teachers will be more willing to accept responsibility for results if they have a part in determining the environment in which they practice. (Author)

Discusses the content and problems of contemporary social studies curricula. Recommends five guidelines for future social education, including teaching democratic culture, developing students' sense of community, studying the sociology of knowledge, analyzing social problems, and emphasizing global and future orientations. Suggests 12 steps to…

To achieve fairness and excellence in education, an elementary school should teach a body of shared knowledge, grade by grade. The Core Knowledge Foundation offers some principles and guidelines for developing such programs. As one South Bronx inner-city school shows, core knowledge works because it acknowledges human learning limitations,…

The curriculum council provides a vehicle for wide constituent participation which taps all available resources. (Author/MB)

Through a new curriculum model called World Class Education, Virginia hopes to encourage its schools to transform themselves voluntarily. The program is guided by six principles: focus on outcomes, school accountability, the assumption that all students can learn, the importance of collaboration and teamwork, the connectivity of learning, and the…

Examines arguments for and against the use of outside curriculum resources by school districts, describes different types of collaborative arrangements that can be employed by schools, and offers guidelines for carrying out successful collaborative efforts utilizing outside resources. Available from Association for Supervision and Curriculum…

Future science curricula should recognize the interaction of science, technology, and society and should give students the skills for learning and applying scientific knowledge, an awareness of ethics and values in science, and a future perspective. The organization of science courses should vary with the type of learning desired. (Author/RW)

Learning relevance is the guiding principle behind the Real World Connections activities in the Texas Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's K-12 curriculum guides. The goal of the innovative Alternative Blueprint for Curriculum Development Project (Project ABCD) is to develop activity-based curricula that successfully blend…

With its focusing on high-stakes testing in reading and math, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum. This focus comes at the expense of instruction in social studies, the arts, science, and health and denies many students access to the quality curriculums that students in more affluent schools enjoy. NCLB is now the prescribed method of treatment for…

Author presents a number of operational programs with some of their respective characteristics which may be of value in planning programs in local school districts. (Author/CB)

Based upon personal experience as a curriculum director in a large suburban school district, the author offers seven general guidelines one can follow to produce the desired climate. (Author/CB)

At Southegan High School, in Amherst, New Hampshire, all students, including those with physical and emotional disabilities, are fully included in nontracked, heterogeneously grouped classes. Full inclusion is possible because of three program components: collaborative planning time; curriculum design characterized by planning backward from final…