Streamlining the Curriculum: Using the Storyboard Approach to Frame Compelling Learning Journeys

by Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Allison Zmuda

Overview

A game-changing resource for educators looking to elevate their unit and lesson plans, increase student engagement, and improve home-school communication.

With so many standards to address and templates to fill out, curriculum design and lesson planning can be cumbersome and overwhelming. And every teacher knows the struggle of trying to cover all the required content, which may or may not resonate with their students.

In Streamlining the Curriculum, experts Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Allison Zmuda take a hard look at our overburdened, dated curricular practices and offer a better way—one built on the power of narrative. Their storyboard approach casts students as the heroes of the learning journey. Instead of passive recipients, they become protagonists, activity engaged in exploring new ideas, solving problems, finding connections, enlisting allies, and acquiring new skills and understandings to apply to both present and future challenges.

This innovative book teaches you how to

* Decide what to cut out, cut back, consolidate, and create in your lessons and units.
* Find the throughlines in your required content and approach lesson design and teaching as storytelling, no matter what subject area or grade level you teach.
* Apply genre lenses to make courses, units, and lessons more compelling.
* Communicate clear learning targets to your students and their families.
* Create space for exploring essential questions, investigating intriguing ideas, and conducting projects that feel relevant and important.
* Determine purposeful and authentic evidence of learning.

Filled with examples and insights, this book shows educators how to break free from the tyranny of templates and start streamlining curriculum, assessment, and planning to make learning experiences more immersive, interesting, and emotionally resonant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416632207
Publisher:	ASCD
Publication date:	09/18/2023
Pages:	189
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Heidi Hayes Jacobs works with schools, organizations, and agencies to create responsive learning environments, upgrade curriculum, and support teaching strategies to meet the needs of contemporary learners. Her models of curriculum mapping and her design and approach to modernizing school ecosystems and learning spaces have been featured in numerous books, articles, podcasts, and software solutions throughout the world. Through her collaboration with the brilliant Allison Zmuda, Heidi has become fascinated by the possibilities storyboarding offers to streamline curriculum and increase student-facing engagement. She can be reached at heidi@curriculum21. com, @heidihayesjacob, or www.linkedin.com/in/heidihayesjacobs

Allison Zmuda is a longstanding education consultant focused on curriculum development with an emphasis on personalized learning. Just as she advocates for personalized learning to be used by her clients, she practices it when engaging with her clients. Allison is the coauthor of 12 books, curator of Learning Personalized, codirector of the Institute for Habits of Mind, and the co-creator of curriculum storyboards with the inspirational Heidi Hayes Jacobs. She can be reached at [e-mail], @allison_zmuda, or www.linkedin.com/in/allisonzmuda

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In Streamlining the Curriculum, Jacobs and Zmuda tackle a perennial challenge teachers face when trying to create student-centered, 21st century–focused learning: navigating curriculum templates with endless requirements. They propose a brilliant mindset shift that puts the learner at the center, using storyboarding to tell the story of a unit, with the learner as protagonist in the story. For anyone who believes in student agency, this book is for you!
—Diane Ullman, PhD, International Accreditation Leader, New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Curriculum, instruction, and assessment—three interrelated variables that influence learning—have been discussed for decades. Although educators have significant influence over decisions related to instruction and assessment, the curriculum has generally been seen as a given: dictated by others and inflexible. Until now. In this book, Jacobs and Zmuda light a path educators can take to streamline the curriculum while still ensuring that students have access to rigorous expectations for their learning. They challenge the rigidity of pacing guides and offer a powerful new way to align the "whats" of schooling.
—Doug Fisher, Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership, San Diego State University

For too long, curriculum has been dry, lifeless, and bloated. Heidi and Allison give us a fresh way to breathe new life into our curriculum, reframing it as a learning journey and giving educators the permission and process to do what we've been longing to do for so long: cut the dross, make students the center of the narrative, and craft compelling learning experiences that truly engage and inspire our learners and ourselves.
—Robyn R. Jackson, author Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching

Once upon a time, teachers were learning designers—creators. Then came canned curricula, and teachers had to follow someone else's plans. Without autonomy or emotional connection to teaching, we withered. Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Allison Zmuda have come to the rescue with a practical and inspiring approach to curriculum design focused on crafting curricula as compelling narratives. Now, teachers and students can enjoy exploring standards with vigor and depth.
—Mike Anderson, teacher, consultant, and author of Tackling the Motivation Crisis

Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Allison Zmuda have accomplished what so many educators seek to do: streamline the curriculum without losing key content in the process. I can't say enough about the practicality of the storyline in linking content with assessment. A must for the bookshelf of anyone who thinks closely about curriculum.
—Nancy Frey, Professor of Educational Leadership, San Diego State University