Multicultural Curriculum Design: Bridging Potential and Performance

1. Multicultural Curriculum Design:Bridging Potential and Performance Ebonia M. Williams Michigan State University

2. Bridging Potential and Performance:Teacher Expectations • If curriculum is a canvas, teacher expectations are the brush. • The assumptions teachers hold impact: • What teachers are willing to try • Relationships built with students • Extent of encouragement provided (Sleeter 127).

3. Bridging Potential and Performance: Teacher Behaviors • Research shows that students from historically underserved communities can achieve when their teachers: • Take responsibility • Focus on strengths • Build strong parent relationships • Seek additional forms of support • Aim higher than ‘The Gap’ (Sleeter, 128)

4. Bridging Potential and Performance:Aiming Above ‘The Gap’ • Teachers with high expectations craft curriculum which exceeds state standards. • Achievement can (and should be) re-framed to meet international standards of excellence. • International comparisons of average European American student performance tend to be mediocre (Perry, 2003).

5. The Disciplinary Perspective Bridging Potential and PerformancePerspectives of Knowledge • Emphasis on structure and hierarchy of knowledge • Mastery of ‘basics’ as a prerequisite for advancement • ‘Basic skills’ are drilled to mastery • Higher order concepts reserved for proficient students

6. Bridging Potential and PerformancePerspectives of Knowledge The Developmental Perspective • Student thinking is central to learning • Focuses on the processes of knowing • Instruction is individualized • Content connects with student’s lives

7. Bridging Potential and PerformanceCurriculum Planning Tools • Screen with Bloom’s • Classify the domains of thinking addressed in the unit • In its design • In state standards • Evaluate Materials • Classify the domains of thinking addressed in student materials

8. Bridging Potential and PerformanceCurriculum Planning Tools • Consult the College Level • Identify what enduring understandings translate to collegiate-level work(Sleeter, 135). • Resources such as Standards for Success (Center for Educational Policy Research, 2003) are useful. • Planning curriculum through this framework maximizes learning opportunities for students while also assisting teachers actually provide access to the most salient points within a unit.

9. Bridging Potential and PerformanceScaffolding • Apprenticeship approach • Modeling drives the learning process • Retains high expectations • Exemplars show students the end at the beginning • Breaks tasks into manageable parts • Teacher makes content comprehensible through adaptation

10. Bridging Potential and Performance:Teaching as Intellectual Apprenticeship • If classrooms were thought of as intellectual spaces the teacher would be the senior practicing intellectual who is apprenticing young people in a world of complex academic work (Sleeter, 145). • Apprenticeship prepares children for their futures by empowering them with knowledge of and facility with information. These new dimensions can shift the trajectory of a child’s future.

11. Resources Conley, David T. University of Oregon, Center for Educational Policy Research. (2003). Understanding university success. a report from standards for success (ISBN-0-9729538-0-9). Eugene, Oregon: Center for Educational Policy Research. Perry, T. Steele, C. Hilliard, A. III. (2003). Young, gifted and black. Boston: Beacon Press. Sleeter, Christine. (2005). Unstandarizing Curriculum: Multicultural Teaching in the Standards-Based Classroom. New York. Teachers College Press.