While I was teaching agriculture at Midway High School back in the mid 1990’s, I saw that a need existed for a special course in animal science. At the time, there was no state approved animal science curriculum and no plans to develop one in the immediate future. However, the community saw a need for the course, and students expressed a strong interest in it as well. So, I decided to apply for a special course modification from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for the purpose of creating an animal science course.

It seems that I was not alone in this idea. Agriculture teachers in Duplin, Sampson and Lenoir Counties also had the idea to develop this course. As we attended in-service meetings, we became aware of our concurrent work on an animal science curriculum. After some discussion, we decided to form a consortium for the purpose of creating the curriculum and developing test items for a specialized end of grade exam. One summer, we met and developed the curriculum, course blueprints, and test items. For a number of years, we taught that curriculum in our schools. Eventually, the state developed a standardized curriculum in animal science and the special course was discontinued.

There are several points about this story that you need to understand. The first one is that this new course curriculum was developed from the bottom up, not the other way around. True curriculum arises out of the work of teachers who are constantly shifting their instruction to match the pace of industrial innovation. The second point is that teachers have the responsibility of being leaders in curriculum development. Teachers are the first ones who recognize when the course of study is failing to meet student needs. It stands to reason that they should lead the charge in developing new curriculum.

The third point and final point is also the subject of this lesson. This last point is that in order for teachers to lead efforts to revise curriculum, they must first understand how curriculum is created. Every teacher in the consortium mentioned in the above story were experts in curriculum development. We had all developed curriculum for other courses before tackling the animal science course of study. We understood the barriers to course development, the essential ingredients to make the course effective, and we all knew the state mandated rules for curriculum development in agricultural education. Before we could attempt to build a new course, we had to understand the process. We had to understand it very well.

You are studying the curriculum in this lesson because the best teachers have a good understanding of how and why the curriculum is structured as it is.

What is curriculum?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines curriculum as a regular course of study or training (Oxford English Dictionary, 2007). In North Carolina, the agricultural education curriculum is part of a larger standard course of study developed by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and approved by the North Carolina State Board of Education. The standard course of study is the plan of action for every teacher in every public school in North Carolina. The main purpose behind a standard course of study is to provide all students with equal access to basic education studies.

In Agricultural education, the elements of the curriculum in a given agricultural course of study are:

• The curriculum guide
  • A series of documents designed to help you plan the delivery of content.
• An instructional outline
  • A brief outline for planning the course for a semester or year.
• Course blueprint
  • Includes the competencies (what is to be learned) and the objectives by which the competencies will be achieved. This document also has information about the time recommended to teach each competency and recommendations for the cognitive complexity at which each competency should be taught.
• Assessment
  
  • This includes VoCATS tests and practices items.
    

In this lesson your readings are located in the Vista readings folder for the week. You should also visit the following links to gain a better understanding of curriculum.

Visit these links for more information:

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has a web site on CTE curriculum.

Vocational Information Center: Resources on this page include links to general information about vocational education, career and technical education, and workforce preparation.  You will also find resources for history of vocational education, current legislation news, statistics, associations, organizations and vocational teacher preparation programs.

Here are some examples of curriculum frameworks from various Department of Education web sites. You can see that formats vary from state to state.

• Georgia
• Virginia
• California

Readings and Discussion

You have readings in your Vista readings folder for this week.

There are no additional items this week.