I can't recover a meaningful subject from just "Questions." This is too vague.

Education

The Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction by H.Lyn Erickson

Identify and discuss the main point of the Erickson text (Why did she write the book? What points were made?)

Concept-based curriculum is a design model that emphasizes the development of conceptual understanding, critical content knowledge and performance abilities. Critical content serves as a tool for developing conceptual understanding that transfers through time. In short, concept-based curriculum is 'thinking beyond the facts'.

According to the author, designing quality curricula is a complex, intellectual task that takes time, conceptual thinking, design ability and a thorough knowledge of the discipline. State and national standards provide curriculum writers with a direction and focus from which to develop lessons.

Dating back to the publication of the national report entitled "A Nation at Risk" this country continues to actively improve all aspects of education. The trend to utilize performance-based standards and assessments with students reflects the express desire of educators everywhere to provide a quality educational program that challenges students to operate on the end of the higher order thinking skills scale -- in analysis, evaluation and synthesis of information. Too, the use of critical thinking and problem solving are incorporated into performance-based standards.

The final and ultimate goal is to guide students to internalize knowledge to the point of being able to use it in complex performance. However, Erickson believes our current system of education -- although improved -- still falls short of fulfilling this goal because students are asked to demonstrate shallow understanding. She goes on to say that it does little good to engage students with performance if our curriculum design aims the display of understanding no higher than the topic. Instead we need to use topics and facts as tools to develop deeper understanding on the part of our students.

2. Identify the main elements of Erickson's argument (Summarize the reason Erickson's cites to support the main argument).

Erickson makes the case for organizing teaching and learning in education around concepts and generalizations rather than inert facts. It is now widely accepted that facts alone are not enough to help children discern patterns and relationships, group things together, see big ideas and solve problems. Facts need to be placed in a conceptual framework to be understood and remembered. Teachers can facilitate concept development by putting concepts and generalizations (rather than facts) at the centre of activities, providing children with a wide variety of tangible experiences, helping them learn how to observe and represent what they see and hear and providing them with multiple examples of the concepts.

It is the job of the teacher to make learning so compelling that young people find it more satisfying to learn than to attend to any of a score of competing possibilities. The curriculum should be attached to the lives and culture of the learner, is supported by research on how children learn, it asks children to think about their own thought processes, calls on students to use what they learn in ways that demonstrate the efficacy of the ideas and skills, and supports transfer of learning. We must move from knowledge that lives in books to knowledge that lives in students.

3. Identify at least two areas of weakness in the Erickson text. Provide a rationale for selecting each area of weakness identified.

It is difficult for me to identify any weaknesses in the Erickson text. Her arguments and opinions are all supported by research. Neither her analysis nor presentation was lacking. Upon reflection - perhaps her greatest weakness is failing to truly recognize that an adaptation of curricular delivery of this magnitude requires a herculean commitment as well as an acceptance that an authentic shift to concept-based teaching is still decades away. To affect sustained change this viewpoint needs to be accepted by the general academic population and taught at the college level in education courses.

A second weakness of the text is there are not enough completed examples of units from which teachers could model their own writing. In fact, she would best be advised to develop at least one sample unit for each grade level. In this way, teachers would be able to grasp how to write concept-based curriculum. These sample units would also serve as a reference for teachers as they continue working with these progressive ideas. Learning is learning no matter what one's age -- and the more concrete examples provided -- the better chance that the learner will understand and remember.

4. Identify suggested methods for improving these two areas of weakness in the Erickson text.