Organizing Elements and Threads
Organizing Elements and Threads
The elements that organize a curriculum
- Concepts.
- Skills.
- Dispositions or values.
How a thread works
- An element runs through the curriculum like a thread, from early grades to later ones.
- It is introduced early, then broadened and deepened over the years.
- The same thread links learning across subjects, giving integration.
Continuity, sequence, and integration cannot apply to nothing. They apply to particular elements that run through a curriculum, carrying organization with them. These elements are sometimes called organizing threads, and choosing good ones is much of the work of organizing a curriculum.
The elements that serve as threads
The elements of a curriculum that serve as organizing threads are concepts, skills, and dispositions, also called values. A concept can be revisited (continuity), deepened (sequence), and linked across subjects (integration), and so can a skill or a value. They are the things the three criteria act on.
In mathematics, for example, the elements are concepts, skills, and dispositions. Major concepts are developed in the early years and then extended through the later years, which is how a thread is supposed to behave.
Elements that run through a curriculum carrying organization: concepts, skills, and values
A thread is introduced early and then broadened and deepened across the years, and linked across subjects. The three criteria of continuity, sequence, and integration act on these threads.
Place value: a thread in mathematics
Place value shows how a single concept can organize a curriculum. It is a basic idea behind understanding addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. As a thread it develops across many grades:
- Introduced at grade 3.
- Developed by grade 4.
- Extended into a much broader and deeper concept by grades 9 and 10.
Place value can therefore be one element for organizing the curriculum vertically, and it also supports integration, because it applies in social studies, science, and even everyday shopping. The same is true of a concept like common fractions, introduced in grade 7 and broadened in higher grades; it too can serve as an organizing thread for learning experiences across the curriculum.
Interdependence of people: a thread in social studies
A thread need not be mathematical. In social studies, the elements a developer might choose are concepts, skills, and values, and these can run from the nursery and primary years through middle and high school. Take the concept of the interdependence of people:
- In the nursery and primary years, children begin to recognise their dependence on other children, for instance to set the table for lunch, and on parents and siblings.
- By the middle years, they recognise interdependence more deeply and broadly, at the social and economic level, seeing their dependence on people like those who supply food.
The same concept is present at every stage, but it broadens and deepens as the learner grows. That is a thread doing its job: one element, carried through the grades, getting richer each time.
The same concept runs through the grades, deepening from concrete to social and economic
In early grades children see their dependence on classmates and family; by the middle years they grasp interdependence at the social and economic level. One thread, broadened and deepened over time.
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