In this semester long curriculum designing process, I was originally confused about what to look for, what to collect, and even how to arrange my thoughts and ideas into creating a whole new curriculum. The major reason was because to design a curriculum for Saint Ann’s School, we (me and Yejing) don’t have any references—no textbooks provided by the school, no previous curriculum to take a look at, no syllabus templates from the current teacher. Nonetheless, we later one realized that it is just because ‘there’s no limits at all,’ we could go for whatever topics we found interesting and engaging! Thus, we picked four different unit themes and designed our own lessons as freely and creatively as possible. This was a great chance for us to realize what and how we have been always wanting to teach. I really appreciate this Curriculum Design class, and also Saint Ann’s School, for together they offered us an awesome chance to bring some abstract pedagogical ‘idea seeds’ into reality. We watched these ideas grow in the curriculum, and they have gained us a huge sense of accomplishment in the end.
-Kim Liao
There is never a perfect answer to the issue of how much of a framework to provide for participants in a project-based experience. You will all find this with your students in the future and I trust that you will always consider carefully and give it your best shot. In this case, the lack of any existing curriculum in the client’s high level Chinese class would naturally lead to that original confusion; but I note that this vagueness, this curricular void, morphed into an “awesome chance” to be creative which in turn led to some exciting design work and thence into a “huge sense of accomplishment.” So let’s hear it for PBL and I hope you will feel encouraged to risk providing your students with projects that give them limitless possibilities for creativity and achievement.