The thread about what we are teaching next year got me thinking. How many of you plan your own courses or is the curriculum written by your school or your state? At my school, we do curriculum maps of each course. We have 3 main science teachers--one for physics (me), one for chemistry, and one for biology. We each write all the curriculum--honors and regular for our course and if another teacher is needed to teach then they follow the curriculum that we wrote. I am in the process right now of re-writing our physical science course to update it.
We have a set curriculum, but we are encouraged to use supplimental resources. So, while we do have a set curriculum, we are free to use other things, which is nice. At the beginning of the year, we map out the curriculum for the entire year with our other grade-level teacher.
Our district provides curriculum maps but since I teach multi age special needs I pretty much write my own curriculum using the state standards.
Our district provides curriculum maps, too, but they are totally useless. We each end up doing our own thing for the most part.
We have guides for each class and we are in the process of rewriting them. Next year we will have pretty detailed ones with suggested activities, themes, terms, people, time frame, etc. We will also have standardized study guides.
Each year we re-evaluate the syllabus for each class we teach. Any proposed changes are submitted to the department chair for review.
For my HS classes, I have state standards and regents expectations, but I can do what I want to make sure those are met. For my concurrent credit classes, I'm given a textbook and told to go (like a college teaching environment). In both situations, I have a LOT of freedom.
This is true for us too. I'm sorry, but we planned our curriculum map based on last year. I was not here last year, but as I started teaching and realizing that some things we were going through way too fast (like math and science), I slowed some things down. And, it turned out that in the past math and science were both finished early (like May or something). So, why rush through some of it just to follow the CM if there is more time we could dedicate to it, and make it more beneficial for the kids (because they would not be rushing through it)??
My district has curric. maps. They are very general and I end up writing a lot of my own curriculum based on state standards and students' IEP goals.
Same here - but we're getting a new map this summer and I'm really hoping it makes a little more sense than the current one. Current one has me teaching expository/persuasive essays BEFORE I teach 5 paragraph essays
We develop our own curriculum maps using the state-mandated core content. The curriculum map lists concepts, not lessons, so we are free to use any resources we wish to teach them.
We wrote our own maps. We decided to make them generic so that another teacher can still use favorite activities and enhace the curriculum as long as they met the standards and goals set.
