Making Integrated Curriculum Work: Teachers, Students, and the Quest for Coherent Curriculum

Containing real stories and practical suggestions, this work searches for a curriculum that is at once inclusive, democratic and empowering for teachers, students and parents. Based on their one-year curricular experiment called the "McHome Team", the authors use their experience guiding a middle-school class to co-create their own curriculum, to demonstrate for all what it takes to make integrating a curriculum work. They explore their successes and challenges and examine the implications their approach has for the study of integrated curricula and democratic schooling. Rather than relying on outside sources for curriculum decisions and justifications, the authors show teachers how they can turn to their students and to their own professional judgement to create possibilities for curriculum and teaching. Introductory chapters are followed by individual chapters on each of the eight essential components of coherent curriculum: goals; democratic classrooms; traditional and alternative assessments; content integration; pedagogy; communication; scheduling and organizational structures; and reflecting. A sample unit developed by the McHome Team and a helpful summary of the proposals for coherent curriculum conclude the volume.