Curriculum Scanning for Multi-Grade Teaching
This curriculum usually consists of a list of minimum learning competencies stated in terms of SLOs which the teacher is expected to achieve with each grade level within a particular time limit. Since the SLOs are normally specifically designed for regular school situations, the multi-grade teaching teacher finds it difficult to make the content of his or her teaching meaningful for the children.
Most often, the designed curriculum is dysfunctional when applied to the socio-economic needs and cultural lifestyles of multi-grade classroom students. For these reasons there is a need to re-organize and improve the curriculum for multi-grade teaching.
A curriculum scan is completed by looking through all the curriculum documents which are relevant to the multi-grade class you are teaching and selecting the relevant sections. After selecting all the relevant sections from the different curricula documents, you will be looking for common elements and themes from which to build your program. If you remember that learning is a continuum, or a process of building on, you will see that the themes in the subject areas cover a number of grades, with the learning objectives building on from what has been taught before.
The steps in completing a curriculum scan
Step 1:
Identify the grade levels you will be performing for and find the relevant scope and sequence pages in the curriculum documents.
Step 2:
Cut and paste or write just the parts of the scope and sequence that you will be teaching. Paste or write these on to a large sheet of paper.
Step 3:
Look for common topics or themes across the curriculum. Brainstorm some main themes and try to fit the topics under a heading.
Step 4:
Write your main themes on a large piece of paper and list topics.
Step 5:
Set your themes out on a grid.
Step 6:
Transfer your topics to a term program / academic calendar.
