Implementation+Suggestions



In order to ensure a smooth implementation, substantial professional development needs to be provided to everyone involved. Tomlinson said that "it will be necessary to provide high quality, sustained staff development to help teachers develop competence and confidence in using PCM curriculum" (p. 594). She also stated that this professional development would "include ensuring that teachers understand how to teach necessary information without losing sight of essential concepts and principles - and how to teach essential concepts and principles without losing sight of necessary information" (p. 595). It would also "scaffold teacher growth in developing flexible and student-centered classrooms" (p. 595). Implementation will also require a lot of patience as teachers and students begin to feel comfortable with the new curriculum. Once teachers are exposed to professional development, they will understand that the parallels "can be used to revise or design tasks, lessons, or units" (Imbeau p. 8). They will also begin to see that "decisions stem from teacher expertise, the learning goals, and most important, the students themselves...we draw upon the parallels to make curriculum more meaningful, emotive, powerful, engaging, and more likely to energetically advance the abilities and talents of students" (Imbeau p. 9).  Another implementation suggestion would be to provide training on how to develop concept-based, principle-driven curriculum. Tomlinson suggests that "it my be expeditious to involve teams of teachers, including content experts, in developing PCM curriculum for a grade-level, department, school, or district - at least in the early stages of the process" (p. 594). Finally, it will be important for everyone involved to understand the following provided by Tomlinson:  1. PCM curriculum is concept-based and principle driven. That is, concepts and principles must be evident to and central in the work of students consistently and persistently. 2. PCM curriculum consistently reflects the "deep intent" of one or more parallels in the foreground of the unit. That is, it ensures students work to be able to answer the parallel's key questions or other questions of equivalent importance and complexity. 3. PCM curriculum uses key curriculum components in a way that gives the unit coherence and brings the "deep intent" of the parallel to the foreground of teaching thought, student work and thought, and class discussion. 4. PCM curriculum applies Ascending Intellectual Demand to extend student capacity by intensifying the "deep intent" of the parallels and moving students progressively toward more expert-like ways of knowing, thinking, and working.  Tomlinson, C.A., Kaplan, S.N., Renzulli, J.S., Purcell, J.H., Leppien, J., and Burns, D.E. (2002). //The Parallel Curriculum Model: A design to develop potential and challenge high-ability learners.// Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Imbeau, M. B. (2011). A brief history of the parallel curriculum model. In Parallel curriculum units for grades K-5 (pp. 1-11) [Introduction]. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.