A new curriculum initiative to try!

I’m always in the market for reading material that invigorates my pedagogy, so when The Chancellor sent me a recommendation for Making Curriculum Pop on Goodreads, I was intrigued. This is a K-12 educational book, but I often find that I can adapt to the college level, particularly in my Composition courses.

Pam Goble and Ryan Goble (brother and sister, not husband and wife) are both educators, and they want to incorporate many kinds of written, verbal, visual, and cultural texts in their learning instruction and curriculum. How to do so is more complicated than simply saying, “I will do this!” Therefore, they provide an organizational system to help educators provide new modes of learning and hands-on experience for their students. They use a Learning Experience Organizer (or LEO) that involves different kinds of interactive modes for engaging in texts and cultural documents. For example, the Architect constructs an understanding of the text by “building” main ideas. I’ve oversimplified it somewhat, but that’s the essence of their pedagogy using MC Pop. They also helpfully include over 50 LEOs to provide different instructional modes for aspiring teachers. I explain more in my full review.