Philosophy of Curriculum
Every learner in Naugatuck is empowered through active, meaningful and personal educational experiences that nurture an excitement and capacity for learning. These experiences are developed through a responsive, collaborative, ongoing process that values student voice, high expectations, and innovation.
Principles of Curriculum Development
Curriculum encompasses the performance competencies that inform what we teach and how we teach it, including the learning experiences and instructional and assessment practices that ensure all of our students will be college and career ready.
Curriculum is comprised of questions that are posed to students as the foundation for their inquiry. Curriculum is also comprised of high quality learning experiences that engage students through an inquiry-based approach.
Model for Curriculum Development
learning is a process
Our curriculum development and Learning Cycle Model aligns to the Vision of the Graduate. To insure our students have opportunities to practice being that vision, we follow a Know-Do-Be philosophy in order to deeply understand.
We plan for and build understanding around what students need to know, need to do, and need to be in order to achieve success.
teaching for Understanding
Understanding is comprised of several stages.
First, students experience the knowledge - this is the facts, experiences, procedures, etc., that make up what we know about something. Next, students make meaning of that knowledge. They analyze it, question it, interpret it in order to form an evidence-based opinion or idea about that knowledge.
They transfer this meaning to other areas of knowledge to solve problems, apply proven solutions, be empathetic and find new ways of seeing the knowledge and information.
Finally, they create new ideas, develop new approaches, invent new ways of thinking about the knowledge or information.
