Curriculum models
"A curriculum model is a format for curriculum design developed to meet unique needs, contexts, goals, and purposes."
The Parallel Curriculum Model
The Parallel Curriculum Model (PCM) uses a set of four interrelated designs for organizing curriculum: Core, Connections, Practice, and Identity. Working together these different components (or parallels) help students gain an understanding for the whole of a particular discipline or topic. (see graphic at right) All parallels include curriculum components: introduction, assessments, teaching methods, learning activities, products, resources, extension activities, etc. Parallels can be used singly or in combination. Each parallel has a distinct function: Core: The essential nature or content of the discipline. It addresses the concepts and principles of the subject. Should be aligned with state standards. Connections: Building on the core, this parallel uses the essential understandings and overarching concepts to bridge understanding to other times, events, cultures, and people. Practice: This parallel includes guidelines and procedures to help students transfer knowledge and skills of the core discipline into authentic use. It’s designed to help students become the researcher, creator, or practitioner in a field. Identity: This parallel includes a set of guidelines and procedures to assist students in reflecting upon the relationship between the skills and ideas in a discipline and their own lives, personal growth, and development. The Parallel Curriculum Model addresses the needs of the 2e student:
|
(Parallel Curriculum Units for Mathematics: Grades 6-12. p. 8. Figure I.2.)
|
The Integrated Curriculum Model
Joyce VanTassel-Baska developed the Integrated Curriculum Model (ICM) specifically for high-ability learners. This model's aim is to put emphasis on advanced content knowledge within an area of study while providing for higher order thinking and processing and focusing learning experiences around major issues and themes that define both real-world application and theoretical modelling. Many units have been designed using the ICM and are available through The Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary. They have been extensively researched and proven to be quite effective. The model's Concept, Issues, Themes Dimension centers students’ learning experiences on major issues, themes, and ideas with theoretical and real-world applications. For example, a language arts or social studies unit could revolve around the concept of change. A science unit could be centered on systems. The science curriculum would include a problem-based learning approach that examines how science systems relate to real-world systems in social, political, and economic realms. The model’s Process-Product Dimension encourages in-depth, independent learning by incorporating higher order thinking and processing. A science unit could incorporate this dimension through the scientific research process and student-designed experiments. A curriculum for the gifted needs to be designed with an advanced content focus that incorporates subject matter which is 2-3 grade levels above what is typically expected of a grade level learner. Students learn how the advanced content is used to develop expertise within a given domain. The Integrated Curriculum Model addresses the needs of the 2e student:
|
The Multiple Menu Curriculum Model
The Multiple Menu Curriculum Model (MMM) was designed by Joseph Renzulli to give strategies teachers can use to improve the curriculum writing process. MMM provides six practical planning guides for menus that all teachers can use to design in-depth curriculum units for classroom use. It places a greater emphasis on balancing authentic content and process, involving students as firsthand inquirers, and exploring the structure and interconnectedness of knowledge. The concept of a "menu" was created because it provides a range of options within each of the components of the model. "The menus encourage teachers to design in-depth curriculum units that bring together an understanding of the structure of a discipline, its content and methodologies, and the wide range of instructional techniques teachers use to create teaching and learning experiences." (Renzulli, et. al, 2000) The six components include: the Knowledge Menu, the Instructional Objectives and Student Activities Menu, the Instructional Strategies Menu, the Instructional Sequences Menu, the Artistic Modification Menu, and the Instructional Products Menu, which is composed of two interrelated menus, Concrete Products and Abstract Products Menu. (see figure at right) The first menu, the Knowledge Menu, is the most elaborate and concerns the field of selected study. The rest of the menus (except the last) deal with instructional techniques. The most unique to this model is the Artistic Modification in which teachers are encouraged to add their own creative contribution by sharing personal experiences that are directly or indirectly related to the content. By personalizing the curricular material, it will come to life and have more meaning. The last menu, Instructional Products, is related to the types of projects or tasks that may result from student interactions with knowledge about a domain and how that knowledge is authentically as if the student were a professional within the field. The several menus directs teachers to consider a broad range of options and to interrelate many factors when attempting to achieve balance to a curriculum. MMM "takes the teacher and student to the very heart of a discipline to examine its location in the domain of information and to understand the methodology employed by those who produce knowledge in the field. Accordingly, this model enables learners to become firsthand inquirers and creators of information, a far more intensive, productive engagement in the school setting than what students experience as consumers of information." (Renzulli, et.al, 2000) The Multiple Menus Curriculum Model addresses the needs of the 2e student:
|
Click on figure to pull up a PDF version.
|
Leppien, J.H., Percell, J.H. (2011). Parallel Curriculum Units for Mathematics: Grades 6-12. Thousands Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Van Tassel-Baska, J. (July 18, 2008). What works in Curriculum for the Gifted? Keynote address, Asia Pacific Conference on the Gifted.
Renzulli, J. (1988). The Multiple Menu Model for Developing Differentiated Curriculum for the Gifted and Talented. Gifted Child Quarterly, 32 (3), 298-309.
Renzulli, Joseph S., Leppien, Jann H., and Hays, Thomas S. (2000). The Multiple Menu Model: A Practical Guide for Developing Differentiated Curriculum (a summary) In University of Connecticut: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Retrieved August 6, 2014 from http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/mmm/mmmart01.html
Van Tassel-Baska, J. (July 18, 2008). What works in Curriculum for the Gifted? Keynote address, Asia Pacific Conference on the Gifted.
Renzulli, J. (1988). The Multiple Menu Model for Developing Differentiated Curriculum for the Gifted and Talented. Gifted Child Quarterly, 32 (3), 298-309.
Renzulli, Joseph S., Leppien, Jann H., and Hays, Thomas S. (2000). The Multiple Menu Model: A Practical Guide for Developing Differentiated Curriculum (a summary) In University of Connecticut: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Retrieved August 6, 2014 from http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/mmm/mmmart01.html