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PRINCIPLES, PERSONAL QUAIiTEE2. AND PROCESS HE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL (New Jersey) recently completed an i8-month curriculum redesign. The redesign was intended first and foremost to ensure that Lawrenceville students are well prepared not only for college, but, more importantly, for responsible leadership in the 21st century. In addition, we aimed to build a curriculum in which key skills and dispositions, such as critical and creative thinking, could be reinforced within and across departments as students progressed through school. While the redesign ultimately included new graduation requirements and a new daily schedule, we began, not with those features, but with core philosophical issues. Indeed, the coherence, and we hope ultimate strength, of the redesign can be attributed to three P's - principles, personal qualities, and process.

By DOMINIC RANDOLPH, 86

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ELIZABETH

DUFFY, AND KEVIN MATTINGLY

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Building from Principles Philosophy is dear about defining the terms and principles of an argument. Athletic competition is governed and constrained by rules and regulations. There are principles of composition that one should follow when creating a work of art. In short, rules and principles shape most fields of endeavor. Education is no exception. Teachers' assumptions regarding why and how students learn and what makes effective instruction ultimately determine what

marily the result of students' attitude, effort, and practice, and requires ongoing feedback. These principles may seem self-evident, but they can be surprisingly absent in school life. There are many programs that aim for lifelong learning but do not use practices that would help support transfer beyond a particular class or school setting, such as beginningof-the-year assessments to determine what has endured over the summer break or assignments that require stu-

increasingly specialized, and general distribution requirements represent a small fraction of a college student's course load. As part of the curriculum redesign, each academic department at Lawrenceville is now identifying priority learning outcomes. Those outcomes will be introduced in the department's introductory classes and then reinforced throughout the subsequent departmental sequence of classes. The outcomes must be of lasting value beyond the classroom, and the departments must have been challenged not

70 be effective in today's pluralistic, global society - and in what Daniel Pink in his book A Whole M [lmd calls the "Conceptual Age" - requires not only

critical thinking and analysis skills, but also

creative and interpersonal skills.

takes place in classrooms. Therefore, it is critical for the faculty of a school to articulate together the educational principles that will guide their practice. Otherwise, the so-called "learned curriculum" may turn out to be very different from the "taught curriculum" and very different among teachers and across departments. Such lack of a common philosophy can make student learning less effective and teaching more difficult, particularly if teachers' divergent philosophies work at cross purposes or if-we rely solely on students to make connections and translate similar concepts across disciplines. We began our curriculum redesign by developing collaboratively a set of learning principles to guide both the process and teaching at Lawrencevilie. We agreed that three educational beliefs should undergird the redesign process and our daily practice: - Learning should endure beyond graduation and apply to real-world settings. - Learning builds upon itself, so basic principles must be solidified before more sophisticated understanding develops. 88

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dents to apply their learning in novel contexts. Although every participant in a curriculum design understands the phrase "scope and sequence," how often do academic programs have dead-ends or distracting detours, thus preventing the reinforcement of ideas necessary for transfer and mastery? We all know what good teaching and learning should look like, but common school practices, such as grading curves and one-shot, high-stakes tests, belie schools' commitments to sorting versus. standards. The three principles described below will be a rudder for us as we move forward. Learningshould endure beyond graduationand apply to real-world settings. Despite the anxiety and pressures associated with the college application process today, the purpose of a high school education is much broader than college admissions. Given the growth of knowledge and pace of change, to be an educated citizen in the 21st century requires a strong foundation in many disciplines. For many students, high school will be the last opportunity to develop such a broad foundation, because college curricula have become

only to identify likely contexts outside of school in which those skills will be used, but also to develop "a movie of the mind" describing what it would look like when a Lawrenceville graduate uses these priority departmental skills well and applies knowledge in the real world. Finally, the departments have begun to develop common assessments consistent with the outcomes and with our ultimate aim of enduring learning. As an example, the Lawrenceville science department has prioritized the following outcomes: a. Constructing and analyzing scientific arguments; b. Evaluating scientific evidence and appreciating the uncertainties of scientific knowledge; c. Understanding the limits and power of experimental methods. Thus, classes in all the science disciplines - biology, chemistry, physics, and environmental science - will focus on developing those skills and dispositions. In addition to establishing priority

ligence and inherited talents, we also admire hard work and believe that effort can compensate for lesser abilities. Resnick and Hall argue against such a compensatory interaction; rather, they suggest that ability and effort are complementary - that is, effort creates intelligence. Their view is perhaps best summarized by Jeff Howard,

learning outcomes, other strategies that we are exploring to ensure student learning endures include developing common, groupgraded, blind assessments and promoting proficiencybased promotion by offering alternate intermediate courses that address skills J gaps. We are also working . with experts like Grant Wiggins to create performance-based assessments to / get at the transfer challenge. Of course, the more teachers know what their colleagues are teaching and can rely on students entering their classrooms with common skills and understandings, the more sophisticated learning we can achieve together, which brings us to our second learning principle.

Learningbuilds upon itself,so basic principles must be solidified before more sophisticatedunderstanding develops. In his recent book, Our Underachieving Colleges, Derek Bok takes college professors to task for their "ignorance of research on teaching and learning," powerful knowledge that Bok believes could substantially improve teaching and learning. Bok also argues that faculty at colleges and universities need to work in a more coordinated way to build sophisticated learning outcomes by the senior year. The same holds true at the high school level. Developing a coordinated curriculum requires a thoughtful balance between prescription and choice. At Lawrenceville, we believe that a prescribed curriculum is appropriate in high school, particularly in the early grades, but that as students progress through the curriculum they should take increasing responsibility for their own learning and, thus, have greater choice in the selection of courses and more opportunity to pursue their academic passions at deep levels. Our new graduation requirements are consistent with that principle. At both the foundational and advanced levels, developing a recursive curriculum also requires coordination

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across departments. From our ninth grade multi-disciplinary humanities program to our advanced physics-calculus program and other upper-level interdisciplinary electives, we are increasingly fostering departmental collaboration. Such collaboration provokes important discussions about school-wide outcomes and promotes the type of coordination and sophisticated learning that Bok envisions. Improved school performance is primarily the result ofstudents' attitude, effort, and practice, and requires ongoingfeedbackfromfaculty. As Bok suggests, also essential to the development of a coherent curriculum with sophisticated learning outcomes is a shared understanding of how students learn and what makes effective teaching. Fortunately, over the last decade, there has been considerable research in this area, particularly about how effort and aptitude interact to influence learning. In their article, "Principles of Learning for Effort-Based Education," Lauren Resnick and Megan Hall describe the traditional tension between aptitude and effort. While many Americans believe in native intel-

president of the Efficacy Institute:

"Smart isn't something you are, it's something you get." Lawrenceville mathematics master John Schiel makes a similar pointto our entering students each year. After describing his own anxi•eties about not being "smart enough" (he considered, for example, "dropping out" before third grade because he couldn't write cursive.), Schiel advises students: "Don't try to be smarter than the other students in your classes; try to be smarter than you were the day before." Schiel's thinking was changed by exposure during graduate school to various educational theorists, particularly Carol Dweck, whose work has begun to play an important role at Lawrenceville. According to Dweck, people's views of intelligence fall into two categories - "entity thinkers" believe that intelligence is a fixed capacity, whereas "incremental thinkers" see learning as a flexible process of constructing new ways of understanding and seeing the world. Students with fixed views of intelligence believe that assessments are a measure of how smart they are; students with incremental views believe that assessments measure what they've learned and provide essential information for "getting smarter." Thus, incremental thinkers actively seek constructive feedback, while entity thinkers limit their growth, by avoiding mistakes and situations that might provide negative feedback. All three principles described above have considerable implications for classroom practice, for the ways we assess student performance, for teacherstudent interactions, and for faculty professional development. They have also provided important parameters for our curriculum redesign process, SPRINc

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helping to shape our graduation requirements and daily schedule features.

Fostering Personal Qualities

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Another key step in our curriculum redesign process was to articulate educational outcomes. After surveying board members, parents, and students; reading literature on societal trends and educational theories; and reviewing other curriculum redesigns at the secondary and university levels, we identified five learning priorities for a Lawrenceville education:

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understanding. The faculty felt passionately that the first outcome was both the ultimate aim of a Lawrenceville education and the foundation on which all subsequent outcomes should be built. In this secular age, it's possible to separate academic skills from personal qualities. However, as great thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to Einstein have argued, the development of the intellect and of character goes handin-hand. That connection remains essential today. Indeed, many of the skills required to be leaders in the 2ist century - such as empathy, reflective judgment, and wisdom-- have strong intellectual and moral components. To be effective in today's pluralistic, global society - and in what Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind calls the "Conceptual Age" - requires not only critical thinking and analysis skills, but also creative and interpersonal skills. Our conversations about the importance and centrality of character development also helped us to understand that the curriculum, as Ted and Nancy Sizer point out so well in

their book, The Students Are Watching, is much more than a sequence of classes. The definition of "curriculum" entails the broad educational program of a school, including the academic program of a school, co-curricular experiences such as arts, athletics, and community service, and, for those at a boarding school, residential life. Thus, our housemasters and the faculty leaders of our co-curricular programs have begun to discuss how their efforts contribute to our student outcomes. Perhaps the biggest challenge of expanding the definition of curriculum and incorporating the development of personal traits in all we do in the classroom and beyond is the difficulty of enunciating such traits, understanding how to teach to them, and then effectively assessing them. Fortunately, recent work in psychology on "non-cognitive" variables provides useful frameworks and metrics to consider. For example, Bill Sedlacek from the University of Maryland has developed assessments for eight noncognitive factors essential for success in an academic environment: positive self-concept, realistic self-appraisal, successfully handling the system, preference for long-term goals, availability of a strong support person, leadership experience, community involvement, and knowledge acquired in a field. Those factors are now part of various college admissions processes, including the Gates Millennium Scholars program, and there is good research on their predictive validity. Similarly, University of Pennsylvania Professor Martin Seligman, inhis book Authentic Happiness, proposes six virtues essential for happiness and success in life: wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Seligman has further subdivided those virtues into 24 character strengths and, most importantly for schools, has developed assessments of those strengths and strategies for learning them. As we develop in an intentional way both the intellectual and personal capacities of our students, we've begun to incorporate the work of Sedlacek, Seligman, and others into Lawrenceville's educational program.

A Representative Process A final feature of Lawrenceville's recent curriculum redesign that has distinguished it from past redesigns is the process. The 18-month process was designed to be inclusive, iterative, and representative. As the instructional leaders of the school, as faculty with both significant experience and institutional perspectives, and as the people with the ultimate responsibility for implementing the plan, the department chairs both led the process and had the ultimate decision-making authority. Significantly, they met every week together for two hours and held a few half-day retreats as well. Good planning takes time, as does effective implementation, so the chairs continue to meet on that schedule. To ensure that the plan reflected everyone's best thinking, the department chairs consulted the trustees early and then provided periodic updates throughout the process. The chairs also surveyed parents and students and, most importantly, shared AD

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ideas and multiple drafts of the various features of the plan with faculty through department meetings, during faculty in-service days, and in smaller, less formal settings. They also invited individual faculty input by e-mail and in person. While not all ideas could be incorporated, the final version of the plan is much stronger because of the broad input and thoughtful suggestions made by interested stakeholders. One of the most striking features of the process was the focus on student learning. Seldom did departmental, faculty, or other political concerns enter the conversation. The department chairs stayed focused on student outcomes and student learning and what we could all do collectively to provide a world-class education for our students. In the spirit of Derek Bok, the chairs' guiding questions became: "How can we add more value for all our students by working together? How can we not just fill the existing glass higher, but expand the glass?" As anyone who works in a school

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PART II References

knows, periodic curriculum redesigns are essential but often difficult. While there were moments of heated disagreement during the curriculum redesign process, we found that by focusing on the three P's - principles, personal qualities, and process - we were able to relatively quickly develop a coherent plan that has broad support and that will significantly enhance the intellectual and character development of students. We recognize that much hard work is still ahead as we implement and further refine the plan, but we're confident that, if we stay focused on the three P's, our graduates will be better prepared to be responsible leaders - and that, after all, is the ultimate aim of our collective endeavor and our noble profession. Dominic Randolph is The Lawrenceville School's assistant headmaster,Elizabeth Duffy is The Lawrenceville School's headmaster, and Kevin Mattingly is The Lawrenceville School's dean offaculty.

Bok, D. C. (2oo6). Our underachimingcolleges: a candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learningmore. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Collins, J. C. (2ooi). Good to great:why some companiesmake the leap - and others don't. New York, NY, HarperBusiness. Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-theories: theirrole in motivation, personality,and development. Philadelphia, PA, Psychology Press. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: the newpsychology ofsuccess. New York, Random House. Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press. Fullan, M. (2oo0). Leadingin a culture ofcchange. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Fullan, M. (2005). LeadershipiXsustainability. system thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks, Calif., Corwin Press. King, P. M. and K. S. Kitchener (1994). Developingreflectivejudgment: understanding and promotingintellectualgrowth and critical thinking in adolescentsand adults. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Pink, D. H. (2005). A whole new mind: moving from the information age to the conceptual age. New York, Riverhead Books. Resnick, L and M. Hall. (2oo0). "Principles of learning for effort-based education." Institute for Learning, University of Pittsburgh. Sedlacek, W. E. (2004). Beyond the big test: noncognitiveassessment in higher education. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness: using the new positive psychology to realize your potentialforlastingfldlflllment.New York, Free Press. Senge, P. M. (i99o). Thefifth discipline:the art and practiceof the learningorganization.New York, Doubleday/Currency. Senge, P. M. (2o00). Schools that learn:afifth disciplinefieldbookfor educators,_parents,and everyone who cares about education.New York, Doubleday. Sizer, T. R. and N. F. Sizer (i999). The students are watching:schools and the moral contract. Boston, Beacon Press. Steinberg, R. J. and J.Jordan (2005). A handbook ofwisdom: psychologicalperspectives. Cambridge, UK; New York, Cambridge University.

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TITLE: The 3 P’s of Curriculum Redesign SOURCE: Independent School 66 no3 Spr 2007 PAGE(S): 86-92 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.nais.org/