The Translanguaging Pedagogies Continuum

Translanguaging pedagogy is an approach to educational equity that harnesses multilingual learners’ communicative repertoires (e.g., home languages, non-standard varieties, and gestures) by strategically incorporating them in the classroom to ensure students’ active participation and meaningful learning. This paper proposes a research-informed continuum that captures a range of possibilities for integrating translanguaging in language and literacy instruction. This continuum provides insight into how educators may make socially just instructional and curricular decisions that are based on recognizing multilingual students' languages, cultures, and ways of knowing as valuable assets in the classroom.

Why and How

Administrators and faculty around the country are working together to examine teaching approaches that better meet the needs of the 21st-century music student. These conversations have led to many institutions redesigning their curriculum. However, before any specific curricular decisions are made, the question of “why” changes are needed should be addressed and discussed. Based on several research studies, there are new trends in topics that are taught in both music theory and aural skills, and the ordering of material and the pace vary between institutions. There is no one-size-fits-all curriculum, and it is up to administrators and faculty to better understand the curriculum design that best fits the needs of individual students in their program.

How the politicization of history education led to Michigan’s fall

The authors describe the politicization of the process to revise Michigan’s social studies standards from 2005 to the present. In 2005, critics objected to the omission of topics they considered important, even though the content expectations document was not intended to be an exhaustive list of material to be covered. The latest, more limited revision, is being criticized for its leftward political leanings. The authors suggest that critics lack the expertise in the subject matter and that it is dangerous to let politically motivated non-experts make curricular decisions.

Meaningful Curriculum

This chapter describes the many possible definitions of the term curriculum, including the series of courses needed to complete a program or the educational materials for a topic of study. From a wider perspective, curriculum encompasses all the decisions about the goals, content, and methods and materials of instruction that are directly related to the intentional outcomes of instruction. The decisions about what is included reflect the values and philosophy of education held by those who make curricular decisions. The programs and methods of the well-known childhood music educators Dalcroze, Kodály, Orff, Suzuki, and Gordon are discussed. The author also covers the Comprehensive Musicianship Through Performance (CMP) series for secondary students in depth and discusses various scholars’ visions for music curriculum. Effective music curriculum must prepare students for musical independence via authentic music-making: listening, performing, composing, and improvising.