1. Catholic Curriculum Design Religious Education A the Curriculum
2 min
How to Promote Your
Catholic Mission/Identity
In All Subjects

2. Assistant Principal of Curriculum at St. Charles Catholic High School

3. Contributing Writer and Consultant to Our Sunday Visitor Curriculum Division

4. Loyola University New Orleans Adjunct Faculty

5. Essential Question/Big Idea
How can math help you get to Heaven? / Your school’s Catholic identity can improve the rigor of each course in your school’s curriculum.

6. Presentation Objective
You will be able to apply Catholic Curriculum Design upon returning to your school in order to improve your school’s Catholic identity while improving your school’s curriculum rigor.

7. Part I: Introducing Catholic Curriculum Design

8. We are an evangelizing Church!
We are not defined by our culture, time, or councils. Christ is the defining event of all time.

9. Having a sense of the sacred would help my students because….

10. Why is Catholic Curriculum Design Important?

11. Six Secular Classes Vs. One Religion Class
Our Present Design?
Six Secular Classes Vs. One Religion Class

12. What if all courses embraced their sacred dimension?

14. Defining Characteristics of a Catholic School
Centered in the Person of Jesus Christ
Contributing to the Evangelizing Mission of the Church
Distinguished by Excellence
Committed to Educating the Whole Child
Steeped in the Catholic Worldview
Sustained by Gospel Witness
Shaped by Communion and Community
Accessible to All Students
Established by the Expressed Authority of the Bishop

15. Benchmark 2.5
Faculty use the lenses of scripture and the Catholic intellectual tradition in all subjects to help students think critically and ethically about the world around them.

16. Benchmark 7.2
Standards are adopted across the curriculum, and include integration of the religious, spiritual, moral, and ethical dimensions of learning in all subjects.

17. What do you see?
3 min /8.5 min

18. What does it mean to do Catholic Curriculum Design?
Understanding your role as a teacher in a Catholic school can be as subtle and at the same time be as significant as the difference that you see in the picture.
Doing Catholic Curriculum Design is an old way of thinking that has come back in a new way.
.5 min / 9 min

19. It’s important to see the “both/and” instead of the “either/or.”
3 min /8.5 min

20. Catholic Curriculum Design
… is designing a learning experience in light of the Gospel that invites discovery, challenges assumptions of learners, and motivates action as it applies to the revelation of God’s creation.

21. Catholic Curriculum Design
Catholicity of Essential Questions / Big Ideas
Academic Standards
Content (Nouns)
Skills (Verbs)
Catholicity of Assessment

22. Understanding the Curriculum as SACRED
Part II
Understanding the Curriculum as SACRED
(Sacred Secular)

23. The word that describes my mission as a teacher/administrator is….

24. The Story of Ego and Spirit
2.75 min / min (In this story, over Ego’s objections, Spirit states his beliefs that there is life after birth, they have a mother and father, and that one day soon they will see their mother’s and father’s face.)

25. Catholic Curriculum Design
Invites you to
approach education from
Spirit
not ego.

26. Does creation reveal God’s love to you? CCC 288

27. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. (John 1: 1 & 3)
1 min / 12 min
Helix nebula “Eye of God”

28. All of creation is the curriculum of human inquiry.
.5 min / 14 min

29. Did you know that the theory for the Big Bang was first proposed by a Fr. George Lemaitra, a Catholic priest and a professor of physics?

30. …the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever. Summa Theologica Question 47 Article 1
.5 min / 14 min

31. PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE creation comes into being through Christ.
.5 min / 14 min

32. Christ is the principle of creation and redemption. CCC 792
.5 min / 14 min

33. Catholic education understands that the mystery of God is being revealed in its curriculum.
.5 min / 14 min

34. We come to know the artist through the art.
.5 min / 14 min

35. As Catholic educators we are invited to help our students see…
their relationship with the world,
their relationship with others,
and their purpose in life as
sacred endeavors.
.5 min / 14.5 min

36. Part III Creating Catholic Curriculum Design:
Helping Students to See with Their Spirit

37. Does this mean I have to add teaching religion to my curriculum?
.5 min / 15.5 min
Property of Douglas Triche and Our Sunday Visitor

38. Goal: To use our Catholicity to teach your curriculum.

39. Step 1: Teachers and students are called to reflect on the sacred dimension of their curriculum.

40. Use reflections on exams, tests, or bell-ringers to start or end class.

41. Step 2: Go deeper. Develop essential questions and big ideas for lesson design and assessment.

42. Develop Essential Questions and Big Ideas That:
Are thought provoking
Focus instruction and organize student learning
Push students to higher levels of thinking.
Help students make connections beyond the content being studied.

43. Teaching the Essential Question and Big Ideas
Teach students the essential questions and big idea before you begin the unit.
“Mental Velcro”

44. Why Essential Questions?
Multiplication
Essential:
How is multiplication used
in our daily life?
Catholicity:
What would happen if God
did not create multiplication?
FACT
FACT
FACT
FACT
FACT
FACT

45. Without Essential Questions…
Multiplication
FACT
FACT
FACT
FACT
FACT
FACT

46. Step 3: Use your curriculum to develop service learning projects.

47. Help students see that they are not the passengers of life but its crew.

48. Three Categories of Catholic Curriculum
Word
Works
Worship
1 min / 39 min

49. Word – beliefs

50. Sacred Word Questions Word type questions have to do with beliefs.
Who is God?
What is creation?
Why did God create us?
What is the meaning and purpose of life?
1 min / 40 min

51. Works – Moral teachings

52. Sacred Works Questions
Works type questions have to do with how someone or societies act or live.
Is an action right or wrong?
What value does this action hold?
How will an action benefit or hurt others or other parts of God’s creation?
How does the curriculum lend itself to the Gospel’s call to justice?
1 min / 41 min

53. Worship - prayers, rituals, or liturgical celebrations

54. Sacred Worship Questions
Worship type questions have to do with prayers, rituals, and liturgical celebrations.
What are we asking of God?
How do we show gratitude to God and for all creation?
How do we remember and celebrate those experiences that shape our world?
How do we signify our passages into a new life and into a new world?
2 min / 43 min

55. Questions to Encourage
Do ask questions that encourage students to go deeper into the content of their curriculum.
Do ask…
How is learning math like learning to pray?
How is a character of a story supporting or breaking God’s commandments?
What affect does science have on your relationship with God?

56. Questions to Avoid
Do not ask questions that are meant specifically for religion/theology class.
Don’t ask…
Can you recite a prayer?
Can you list the 10 commandments?
What is your relationship with God?
1 min / 44 min

57. The “Spirit” of Language Arts
Created "in the image of God," man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. CCC 2501

58. The “Spirit” of Math
“…there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. CCC 159
Math is one expression of our human gift in the art of reasoning.
Math holds one of the primary keys to understanding the order of God’s universe.

59. Math It’s the one class that we can’t fall back on memorization.
It calls us to think and problem solve.

60. The “Spirit” of Science
“The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.” CCC 159
“God did not throw the dice to create the universe.” Einstein

61. The “Spirit” of Science
Post-modern science rejects the modernist notion of “survival of the fittest.”
Instead, it embraces the Gospel concept of “survival of the most loving.”

62. The “Spirit” of Social Studies
"The Church. . . believes that the key, the center and the purpose of the whole of man's history is to be found in its Lord and Master.“ CCC 450

63. The “Spirit” of Social Studies
If God is master of history, there is always a sacred lesson in the story of the world. We should no more neglect the stories of our planet any more than we should neglect our stories of faith.
Characteristic of free societies is to take the study of history and social systems very seriously.

64. Sample Questions Sample questions are meant to prime the pump.
Use your expertise in your curriculum to create good questions for discussion.

65. Language Arts “Word” Questions
(Grammar) Why are the rules of grammar an important part of God’s creation?
(Literature) How is this novel describing the human condition? What are we as Christians called to do about it?

66. Language Arts “Works” Questions
(Grammar) How would you relate the rules for grammar to the 10 commandments?
(Literature) Compare and contrast a character in literature to the ideal Christian life.

67. Language Arts “Worship” Questions
How can the self-expression of journalism be important to spiritual development?
Where can you find the paschal mystery, life-death-resurrection, expressed in literature?

68. Math “Word” Questions
What concept in math describes how or why God created the world?
What concept or principle in math helps describe who God is to you?

69. Math “Works” Questions
Think of a math equation that has rules, procedures, or concepts that can be applied to living our life?
Where would survival on the planet be today without our human ability to do math?

70. Math “Worship” Questions
How can doing math be considered a form of prayer?
What is a key formula or principle of math that should be celebrated because of the creative opportunities that it has provided?

71. Science Word Question
How has science contributed to your understanding of what place humans hold in the universe?
How do you see God working through science?

72. Science Works Questions
Describe something you have learned from science that if more people knew or understood would help to make a better world.
What would be some moral and immoral uses of science?

73. Science Worship Question
There have been significant discoveries made in science. Which one do you think has made the greatest impact on our lives in a positive way? Write a prayer that celebrates that discovery.
We use basic elements to create and signify important moments in our faith, such as, water, oil, bread, wine, etc. What are some of the basic elements God used to create our world and what significant part do they play in making new life?

74. Social Studies Word Questions
Do you believe God acts in history in some way? Why or why not?
What do specific events tell us about our human condition?

75. Social Studies Works Questions
Why is the knowledge and understanding of social studies important to the Christian mission?
Take a significant event in history and relate it to the Gospel message.

76. Social Studies Worship Questions
What event in history, outside of Church and Scripture, should we be most thankful?
What current event do you think most deserves our prayers?

77. Check out a school system that has a well-developed Catholic curriculum - Saskatchewan Catholic Curriculum Online.

78. Contact Information
ex 120
Blog: religiousedacrosscurriculum.wordpress.com

79. The End