Curriculum Planning with Cognitive Strategies in Mind

This planning tool will help administrators and teachers identify which strategies should be taught in order to develop those cognitive processes associated with specific standards. State standards emphasize cognitive processes over information acquisition. The first planning tool is for teachers and curriculum developers to delve more deeply into a single standard. Although you would not engage in this exercise for every standard, the process will help focus educators on the importance of supporting the development of cognitive processes. For example, making associations will help students build their discrimination skills, memory aids will help build their memory, etc. For each cognitive process, check off the cognitive strategies that should be directly taught or reinforced related to the standard. Then design activities that focus on building those strategies. The second tool can be used as a facilitation grid to note which strategies students are utilizing effectively in their stu