Curriculum Pages and Expanding Possibilities in Teaching

Whether teaching a face-t-face (f2f), online, or mixed-mode—combined f2f and online formats—course, curriculum pages play an important role by providing access to “quality Web resources, link to additional information, and opportunities to learn more” (Shelly, Gunter, & Gunter, 2010, p. 418). In general, curriculum pages assist teachers in delivering course contents with the possible inclusion of variety of audio and visual resources which in turns provide more stimuli for learning and maximizing retention.

Shelly et al. (2010) define a curriculum page as a “Teacher-created document containing hyperlinks to teacher-selected Web sites that assist in teaching content-specific curriculum objectives” (p. 418). I believe that curriculum pages continually prove to be an important tool for any successful teacher in the 21^st century.

As an activity, I was asked to develop a curriculum page for one of the courses I currently teach. I selected Beginning Algebra (BA)—a f2f course with the least amount of technology integration among the courses I teach. In developing the corresponding curriculum page (CP), I encountered several challenges, such as determining contents, finalizing the format, selecting appropriate online math resources, and overcoming limitations related to my selected Web authoring resource.

The BA course includes six units, each containing five-eight sub-units. In this regard, selecting a unit with manageable contents for this project was challenging. I selected Unit 1.1, among Unit 1’s corresponding eight sub-units. The format was particularly challenging, given that BA is college course. I preferred designing a visually stimulus CP—not overly graphical yet appropriate for my college students’ average age. There are numerous online math resources; however, directly relevant information for my selected unit is not uniformly present in a single Website. Consequently, I had to explore numerous sites to identify desired online resources suitable for my selected unit. 

I had previously selected “Google Sites” (GS) as the Web authoring recourse to develop my teaching Website. My selected (option of the) GS is provided free of charge, and as a result, includes many limitations—many of which become apparent as one proceeds with a more sophisticated and/or comprehensive CP designs. As I continued with my CP development, I experienced several noticeable limitations, such as the lack of capability of creating hyperlinks to files, not allowing the creation of multiple sub-pages (including in the menu toolbar), and the lack of acceptance to include MS Word’s Clipart images.

Rather than limiting my design to fit GS limitations. I decided to complete the development of my CP as I desired, place it on my other Website as a Web file, and create hyperlinks on both the CP and my teaching Website.

To view my curriculum page, please click here.  (You may also access the curriculum page via my teaching Website by clicking here, and then click on “Unit 1”.)

Reference

Shelly, G. B., Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom. (6th ed.). Boston: Course Technology.