Getting Ready (25 minutes)

The following information will help you focus and organize your professional development session.

Learning Objectives

• Identify elements of curriculum design, including enduring ideas/understandings, essential questions, and unit objectives.
• Analyze curriculum for appropriate and significant enduring ideas/understandings, essential questions, and unit objectives.
• Collaboratively write the enduring ideas/understandings, essential questions, and unit objectives for an integrated unit of study.

Guiding Questions
These are questions for your group to consider as you work through the session:

• What is curriculum design?
• How can curriculum design inform your daily classroom activities?
• How can this curriculum design process be useful to you as you begin to integrate the arts into your curriculum?

Materials and Resources

• Videotape or broadcast of Program 5 — Designing a Multi-Arts Curriculum Unit
• Handout: Developing a Unit of Study (PDF)
• Handout: Indicators of Enduring Ideas/Understandings and Essential Questions (PDF)
• Handout: Enduring Ideas/Understandings Worksheet (PDF)

Opening Steps
If you have been able to have your own students analyze a work of literature looking for elements of the classic hero's journey structure, discuss your experiences.

Begin thinking about your own current curriculum design process by discussing these questions:

• What is the difference between lesson planning and curriculum design?
• With which curriculum design models are you familiar?

Facilitator: Distribute the Developing a Unit of Study handout.

To download PDF files, you will need a free copy of Acrobat Reader.