Rethinking Middle Level Curriculum

Authentic assessment refers to having students complete tasks that simulate or replicate "real world tasks." This type of assessment occurs when students are measured on performances that teachers value. Often, these types of assessment require students to apply knowledge to a unique problem. Can also be called performance assessment, but Wiggins & McTighe (1999) caution that tasks like performance-based testing are not necessarily authentic.

In this type of planning, one begins with the end (the desired results) in mind, then identifies assessments that allow students to show they have accomplished the desired results. Finally, the teacher can determine the resources and activities that will help students achieve the desired results. Backward design is the fundamental principle that underlies Wiggins & McTighe's (1998) Understanding by Design.

"Breadth implies the extensions, variety and connections needed to relate disparate facts and ideas" (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998, p. 101). A broad array of experience is a crucial aspect of uncoverage, for students need to make connections, represent ideas in different ways and extend their knowledge if they seek true understanding of a concept.

In essence, coverage refers to the notion that teachers must get through the curriculum within a specified time frame. How many times have you wondered how you could possibly get through everything you are expected to teach? However, covering the curriculum does not mean that students are gaining any insight from the work they have done. Wiggins & McTighe (1998) lend a negative connotation to the term and suggest coverage is an approach that superficially teaches and tests content knowledge.

Derived from the Latin term currere, meaning to run a course. However, the term curriculum means much more than just a course of studies. A curriculum is an explicit and comprehensive set of standards, goals and objectives. In Alberta, the K to 12 curriculum is developed by Alberta Education, the ministry responsible for determining what students in Alberta schools are expected to learn.

Depth refers to examining a topic in a thoughtful manner that is not easy or simple. Depth means getting below the surface. We may know how to drive a car, but we don't really understand how it works. A mechanic, however, knows how to drive, but also understands how the care works, why it works and can diagnose what is wrong with the care when it does not work (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). Students who think deeply about problem often find that they need to revise their thinking about the problem. A correct blend of depth and breadth are the key to uncoverage.

This term is used frequently in discussions about middle school to refer to programs and practices that match the developmental needs of students. These needs include physical, cognitive, social and emotional needs.

Curriculum is delivered in separate subjects. Knowledge is organized by disciplines or more scholarly fields of inquiry. Can also be referred to as the "traditional" or "departmentalized" curriculum (Beane, 2005).

There is some controversy over when adolescence begins, an depending on the writer, early adolescents can be anywhere from nine to fifteen years old. Scales (1996) "uses ages ten to fifteen because those ages roughly mark the beginning and end of a set of physical, socioemotional, and cognitive changes" (p. 7).

A provocative question designed to engage student interest and guide inquiry. These questions do not yield simple answers - they require uncoverage and rethinking. Wiggins & McTighe (1999) further break these questions down to two types: overarching and topical questions.

An integrated approach to curriculum requires the dissolving of subject area boundaries. Often, it necessitates using a block of time to ensure that prolonged and meaningful thought can be given to a topic. The emphasis is on solving a problem or addressing an essential question. This type of approach requires a fundamental shift in thinking about curriculum. Students are asked to pose their own questions.

In this approach to curriculum, subject areas are completely dissolved. Students are the prime developers of curriculum because they answer questions about what is most important to THEM. As such, integration is not an "add-on" to the regular curriculum. The teacher's role is that of facilitator rather than instructor. Essentially, an integrative approach is truly democratic and egalitarian, for it places students and teachers on equal footing as partners in learning.

In an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum, teams of teachers simultaneously focus on a central theme or topic. Students continue to attend separate classes, but each class focuses on an aspect of the theme or problem. For example, students studying the Brazilian Carnival might focus on different aspects of the topic in each subject.

Middle school philosophy originated in the United States in the early 1970s. The National Middle School Association (NMSA) was founded in 1973 and its core beliefs are contained in the monograph This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adults (2003). The cornerstone of middle school philosophy is "...no other age level has so clear and legitimate a claim to the designation of unique as does this period of transition between childhood and full-blown adolescence, roughly ages ten to fourteen" (NMSA, 2003, p. 4).

In a multidisciplinary approach to curriculum, each subject area or discipline contributes to a unit developed around a central theme. Concepts taught in one subject are designed to complement the concepts taught in other subjects. Teams of teachers collaborate and encourage students to see connections.

"To uncover a subject is to do the opposite of covering it, namely, to go into depth" (Wiggins & McTighe, 1999, p. 283). Uncoverage is a teaching approach designed to assist students truly understand content. Students are forced to uncover understanding when the instructional design makes them want to dig deeper and reexamine questions that initially seemed straightforward. Wiggins & McTighe (1998) suggest that great teachers know what their students will misunderstand, therefore they are equipped to force students to reconsider and uncover the hidden meaning.