Based on extensive experience as a teacher/staff development consultant and earlier work in the field by foreword writer Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Wisconsin-based Udelhofen (PhD) explains how curriculum mapping can help educators better help students. She describes such mapping as a process in which teachers electronically document and share all curricul.

Teachers and administrators offer concrete advice on how to get the most out of curriculum mapping in districts and schools.

This book is designed to help schools deliver effective training in curriculum mapping. Creating and using curriculum maps is easy when this in-depth resource is used in workshops, curriculum means and professional learning communities.

Higher education professionals have moved from teaching- to learning-centered models for designing and assessing courses and curricula. Faculty work collaboratively to identify learning objectives and assessment strategies, set standards, design effective curricula and courses, assess the impact of their efforts on student learning, reflect on results, and implement appropriate changes to increase student learning. Assessment is an integral component of this learner-centered approach, and it involves the use of empirical data to refine programs and improve student learning. Based on the author's extensive experience conducting assessment training workshops, this book is an expansion of a workshop/consultation guide that has been used to provide assessment training to thousands of busy professionals. Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education provides a comprehensive introduction to planning and implementing the assessment of college and university academic programs. Written for college and university administrators, assessment officers, department chairs, and faculty who are involved in developing and implementing assessment programs, this book is a realistic, pragmatic guide for developing and implementing meaningful, manageable, and sustainable assessment programs that focus faculty attention on student learning. This book will: * Guide readers through all steps in the assessment process * Provide a balanced review of the full array of assessment strategies * Explain how assessment is a crucial component of the teaching and learning process * Provide examples of successful studies that can be easily adapted * Summarize key assessment terms in an end-of-book glossary

"What year are you preparing your students for? 1973? 1995? Can you honestly say that your school's curriculum and the program you use are preparing your students for 2015 or 2020? Are you even preparing them for today?" With those provocative questions, author and educator Heidi Hayes Jacobs launches a powerful case for overhauling, updating, and injecting life into the K-12 curriculum. Sharing her expertise as a world-renowned curriculum designer and calling upon the collective wisdom of 10 education thought leaders, Jacobs provides insight and inspiration in the following key areas: * Content and assessment: How to identify what to keep, what to cut, and what to create, and where portfolios and other new kinds of assessment fit into the picture. * Program structures: How to improve our use of time and space and groupings of students and staff. * Technology: How it's transforming teaching, and how to take advantage of students' natural facility with technology. * Media literacy: The essential issues to address, and the best resources for helping students become informed users of multiple forms of media. * Globalization: What steps to take to help students gain a global perspective. * Sustainability: How to instill enduring values and beliefs that will lead to healthier local, national, and global communities. * Habits of mind: The thinking habits that students, teachers, and administrators need to develop and practice to succeed in school, work, and life. The answers to these questions and many more make Curriculum 21 the ideal guide for transforming our schools into what they must become: learning organizations that match the times in which we live.

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.