Curriculum Design & Development

Creating Enduring Understandings & Essential Questions

I have included a diagram that is included in the book, Understanding by Design

(Wiggins & McTighe) below, because this diagram has provided a foundation for the way that I

approached the curriculum design process in this class. This image has helped me focus my

planning process by reminding me to prioritize and categorize information and skills that are

needed in my curriculum into various levels of importance. Doing this, has helped me to

determine which concepts should provide the framework for my design process (of learning

activities and assessments). While it is important to introduce students to many ideas and

concepts, each part of the curriculum should be based on one or two main ideas. This can make

it possible to continue using these ideas as central themes for the entire curriculum, and can

help students learn in a spiral curriculum method (Bruner) and develop deeper and more

meaningful understandings of the main ideas.

Before this class had started, I had heard of essential questions, and had tried to create

some essential questions, but I did not fully understand what they are. I struggled with designing

an essential question to provide the foundation for my curriculum because I did not have a clear

vision for the main concepts that I wanted my students to gain and understand from this

curriculum. Once I established a clear enduring understanding, it was much easier to create an

essential question to provide the foundation of my curriculum, and to organize project ideas and

learning activities in ways that would best help students developing an understanding of this

main concept. Having one main concept will allow students to better connect ideas/schema

(Piaget). Additionally, having an overarching organization and plan, and communicating this to

my students, will help students synthesize the information (Ausubel).

Another thing that helped me create my enduring understanding and essential question

for this project, was switching from trying to design a curriculum for a 3rd grade general music
class to a beginning band curriculum. This helped me because I have taught beginning band

students before, so I could envision my teaching situation much more clearly. I have not taught

3rd grade general music, so it was much harder for me to try to plan an entire curriculum using

an unfamiliar process- I did not have enough information about my students and/or the teaching

situation to make informed decisions. Switching my focus supports the importance of keeping

the context of the teaching situation in mind when planning, and considering the needs of the

students before teaching them (Da Feltre). I am looking forward to implementing this process of

designing a curriculum based on enduring understandings and essential questions for my 3rd

grade general music class in the future, once I have a better understanding of their needs and

context.