At the Heart of Education
At the heart of education are two fundamental questions: What should we teach? and How should we teach it? Educators striving to design and deliver the best-possible learning experiences can feel overwhelmed by the possibilities. To help them make these critical decisions, Angela Di Michele Lalor identifies five key priorities of a curriculum that matters—practices, deep thinking, social and emotional learning, civic engagement and discourse, and equity.
Emphasizing the importance of schools’ determining their own path forward, Lalor provides a framework for action by
* Describing how each element contributes to a rigorous, meaningful curriculum,
* Providing strategies for incorporating each element into daily instruction and assessment, and
* Offering reflection activities to identify strengths, needs, and possible next steps.
With insightful observations, research-based background information, and real-world examples from a variety of schools and districts, Making Curriculum Matter presents teachers and administrators with a path for reaching their most important overall goal: to provide comprehensive, meaningful learning to all students.
About Angela
Angela Di Michele Lalor is an educational consultant who has facilitated school-wide professional development initiatives for 25 years.
A nationally recognized expert in curriculum design, Angela believes that curriculum is an underused tool that can greatly improve student experiences in the classroom. When teachers work collaboratively to create or revise their curriculum to ensure it is strongly aligned to valued outcomes, they look at teaching and learning in new and different ways.
Students benefit when they are invited into the curricular process, making decisions about what they will learn, how, and how they will share their learning with others.
Angela is the author of Making Curriculum Matter: How to Build SEL, Equity and Other Valued Priorities into Daily Instruction and Ensuring High Quality Curriculum: How to Design, Revise or Adopt Curriculum Aligned to Student Success. You can learn more about Angela on her website.
