​​Curriculum Work

Curriculum Resources

Elementary Units

Middle School Units

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High School Units

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 Framework for Curriculum Design
Understanding by Design (UbD) is a rigorous model for thinking, organizing learning, and setting priorities for students and teachers.  It takes the backward design approach to developing a curriculum or unit that begins with the end in mind and moves toward that end (p. 338).  This framework has guided our work in curriculum and unit design.

This framework includes the following components: 
  •        Big Ideas:  Big ideas are the core concepts, principles, theories, and processes that serve as the focal point of curricula, instruction, and assessment.  They are the final destination of an inquiry (pp. 338-339, Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).
  •        Enduring Understandings:  In UbD, enduring understandings are written in full-sentence statements, describing what students should understand about the topic based on big ideas.  The stem “Students will understand that…” provides a practical tool for teachers to facilitate students to reach understandings that are enduring and transferable to new situations (p. 342, Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).
  •        Essential Questions:  Essential questions pose as guides that promote inquiry and the uncoverage of a subject.  They are the multiple paths that students and teachers can take in order to reach the destination.  Essential questions do not yield single straightforward answers but produce different plausible responses.  They can be either overarching or topical on the unit level in scope (p. 342, Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).
 
By using the principle of UbD and guided by big ideas, enduring understandings, and essential questions, this curriculum promotes discovery-based learning and teaching.  Together, learners and teachers assume the responsibility of uncovering and connecting pieces of information, knowledge, and skills central to the discipline. 

​While still a work in progress, and while there is still plenty of room for improvement, these are examples of theme based units created and used by art teachers that integrate the new national visual arts standards.  As a district, we are interested in the benefits of a 21st century art curriculum built on artistic literacy and the artistic process. We focus on building student understanding around meaning-making, exploring the choices artists make, and how art impacts our daily lives. Therefore, we have chosen to align our curriculum to the National Visual Art Standards that were adopted in 2014.  Choosing the standards, or what you want students to be able to do and know,  is an important first step in writing curriculum.