Joint Curriculum Design : Facilitating Learner Ownership and Active Participation in Secondary Classrooms

This volume offers a progressive approach to secondary teaching and teacher training, with particular emphasis upon students and teachers collaborating to negotiate curriculum design--goals, content, methods, and assessment. Based upon mutual trust and partnership, openness and flexibility, Joint Curriculum Design engages secondary students and teachers in an ongoing dialogue regarding teaching and learning. Through critical literacy, action research, and critical pedagogy, students and teachers form a community of learners who interrogate issues, problem-solve, and assess individual and group learning. The author offers a comprehensive understanding of curriculum components and their impact. As a result, her book challenges students and teachers to create environments of learning that embrace all learners, to redefine resources, and to empower learners to develop voice and social agency. In an inductive approach, the book invites active construction of knowledge, innovation, joint debriefing, and reflectivity for more effective teaching and learning.