The “What” of Teaching

This chapter describes the “what” of teaching as the curriculum teachers are either asked to teach or the curriculum they design on their own. It provides teachers with guidance on how to assess the curriculum they are given and a background in what the research tells us is best practice when and if they choose to develop their own curriculum for their students. The purpose of this chapter is to provide teachers with a list of questions to ask themselves when they are presented with a new curriculum and a process they can follow to design their own curriculum. This chapter reminds teachers that high-quality curriculum development and design should always start with the specific needs, interests, and identities of their specific students teachers serve in order to shape and mold the content around what students already know about the world around them.