1. An Introduction and Overview of the Parallel Curriculum Model: Promise and Process
In this module, you will find a series of slides that have been created to guide educators in an understanding of the ten components that provide the foundation for good curriculum design, the rationale behind the Parallel Model, and an overview of its components.
Included with the slides are notes that provide explanations and activities. The activities are used to promote, process, and offer assistance in thinking about the content on the slide.
The module is based on materials created by the authors of Parallel Curriculum Model: Carol Ann Tomlinson, Sandra Kaplan, Joseph Renzulli, Jeanne Purcell, Jann Lappien, Deborah Burns and is used with their permission.

2. What does qualitatively differentiated curriculum really look like?
Notes
Gifted education has used the term “qualitatively differentiated education for the gifted” since Virgil Ward, from the University of Virginia, was the first researcher to use this term. Many researchers and gifted education specialists have developed curriculum models that attempt to provide a “qualitatively differentiated curriculum.” Before investigating the rationale behind the Parallel Curriculum Model, let’s explore what we think qualitatively differentiated curriculum means.
Journal Entry #1
Compare and contrast the term “qualitatively differentiated” with the term “quantitatively differentiated.” Create a short definition for each term. Based on your definitions, what would it mean to write qualitatively differentiated curriculum vs. quantitatively differentiated curriculum?

3. Who has addressed this question in the past?
William James
Alfred North Whitehead
John Dewey
Hilda Taba
Ralph Tyler
Benjamin Bloom
Jerome Bruner
Leta Hollingsworth
Virgil Ward
Philip Phenix
LTI Curriculum Principles
Notes
Many educators who worked throughout the 20th century (James – Bruner) investigated strategies for creating high quality curriculum units. Their work has had a profound influence on gifted education and on the nature of curriculum development in gifted education. In the 1970s, the Leadership Training Institute developed a set of guiding principles that described “best practices” for developing qualitatively differentiated curriculum for the gifted. Their work serves as a “compass” that guides curriculum writers in the field of gifted education. Leta Hollingsworth, Virgil Ward, and Philip Phenix were three of the pioneers in curriculum development for the gifted. (Most of these names and contributions are identified and explained in the PCM book, particularly chapters 1-3.) The work of these individuals has contributed to the development of the Parallel Curriculum Model.
Journal Entry #2
Review the list of names on this slide. Identify any familiar names and jot down your understanding of their contribution to the field of curriculum development Choose one individual you are currently not familiar with and get information about that individual to share at our group session.

4. Which Statements Reflect Your Beliefs About Curriculum?
Curriculum should guide students in mastering key information, ideas, and the fundamental skills of the discipline.
Curriculum should help students grapple with complex and ambiguous issues and problems.
Curriculum should move students from a novice to an expert level of performance in the disciplines.
Curriculum should provide students opportunities for original work in the disciplines.
Curriculum should help students encounter, accept, and ultimately embrace challenge in learning.
Curriculum should prepare students for a world in which knowledge expands and changes at a dizzying pace.
Curriculum should help students determine constants in the past and in themselves while helping them prepare for a changing world.
Curriculum should help students develop a sense of themselves as well as their possibilities in the world in which they live.
Curriculum should be compelling and satisfying enough to encourage students to persist in developing their capacities.
Notes
Read pages 1 – 5 of the PCM book.
The Parallel Curriculum Model is designed to provide all of the opportunities listed on this slide. Different parallels within the model emphasize different kinds of learning opportunities. Used together, the four parallels of the PCM offer a comprehensive approach for designing qualitatively differentiated curriculum for all learners.
Journal Entry #3
Review the list of statements on this slide. In your journal, write down statements that reflect your beliefs about high quality curriculum for the gifted. Consider the conditions under which these opportunities should be provided to all students or to some students.

5. Theoretical Underpinnings
Respect for the unique characteristics
of each learner;
Be organized around the structure of
knowledge;
Reflect content selection and procedures that will help maximize the transfer of knowledge, understanding, and skill;
Select content (representative topics) that best represent the essential structure of the discipline; and
Place a premium on the development of process skills, the appropriate use of methodology within content fields, and consider goals or outcomes in terms of concrete and abstract products.
Notes
Read pages to develop an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of a theory of qualitatively differentiated curriculum.
Journal Entry #4
Reflect on the following questions. Choose one to respond to in your journal.
•How and why should curriculum respect the unique characteristics of the learner?
•How does knowing about the theories of knowledge and levels of knowledge assist us in writing effective curriculum that provides for ongoing levels of challenge?
•What are representative topics? In what ways can they illuminate a discipline?
•How can we help to ensure authenticity in curriculum?

6. The Characteristics of Effective Curriculum
Clear focus on essential, authentic, and profound facts, concepts, principles, and skills
Provides opportunities for in-depth understanding that stretches each student’s schema
Organized and coherent to ensure aligned tasks and components
Supports cognitive development (analytic, critical, creative, and metacognitive)
Supports schema development and sense-making with appropriate scaffolding and challenge
Allows for meaningful student collaboration
Connects with students’ lives and world
Meets students affective needs, is fresh and surprising, intriguing and interesting, engaging and joyful, useful and purposeful
Involves students in goal setting and self-directed learning
Helps learners transfer and generalize learned knowledge to authentic applications
Supports ascending levels of intellectual demand and expertise
Addresses the students’ differences
Provides opportunities for teachers to monitor growth and adjust goals and instruction accordingly
Notes
Read pages 43 – 66. High quality curriculum and instruction for all learners should include the elements that are bulleted on the slide. Coupled with the theoretical underpinnings, this list delineates the best of what we currently know about curriculum and instruction.
Journal Entry #5
Which of the bulleted points caused you to pause or rethink? What would you need to know or be able to do in order to use this element effectively when designing curriculum?

7. The ten components of a comprehensive curriculum unit, lesson, or task
Content
Assessment
Introduction
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Grouping Strategies
Products
Resources
Extension Activities
Modification
(Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand)
Notes
These elements represent our current professional understanding of what it means to plan well so that students can learn well. However, in some cases a teacher may have legitimate reasons not to attend to one or more of the elements we propose here. There may be instances in which teachers would add elements to the ones we’ve chosen to present. Further, the planning process may not always follow a linear process. Early planning may actually begin with an idea for a powerful student product or by examining available resources for the unit.
Journal Entry #6
Reflect on why careful consideration of these ten components would strengthen student learning. Comment on the role each of the components plays in both a teacher’s delivery and the students’ response to a lesson.This type of metacognitive thinking about the ten components is necessary as you design curriculum based on PCM.

8. Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand
Ascending levels of intellectual demand is the process that escalates one or more facets of the curriculum in order to match a learner’s profile and provide appropriate challenge and pacing. Prior knowledge and opportunities, existing scheme, and cognitive abilities are major attributes of a learner’s profile. Teachers reconfigure one or more curriculum components in order to ensure that students are working in their zone of optimal development.
Notes
Read Pages 12 – 14.
While a vast majority of learners benefit from curriculum and instruction characterized on the previous slide, it is also the case that learners vary in their cognitive development as well as in interests and preferred learning modes. Students learn best when curriculum and instruction are congruent with that learner’s particular needs. Thus, while most, if not all, learners share a common need for high-level, meaning-focused curriculum and instruction, there will be variance in how students should encounter and interact with the curriculum. As students become more advanced in their knowledge, understanding, and skill in a domain, the challenge level of materials and tasks will necessitate escalation. In the Parallel Curriculum Model, we call this match between the learner and curriculum “ascending intellectual demand.”
PCM suggests that most, if not all, learners should work consistently with concept-focused curriculum, tasks that call for high level thought, and products that ask students to extend and use what they have learned in meaningful ways. As a student becomes more advanced, task “demand” will need to escalate to ensure ongoing challenge for that learner and to ensure continual progress toward expertise.

9. Why Provide Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand?
To honor differences among students.
To address varying levels of prior knowledge, varying opportunities, and cognitive abilities
To ensure optimal levels of academic achievement
To support continuous learning
To ensure intrinsic motivation
To provide appropriate levels of challenge
Notes One premise of the Parallel Curriculum Model is that students of a given age will exhibit development along a continuum of knowledge and skill in a given area, with some students far advanced beyond grade level or age expectation, some moderately or slightly advanced, and some in the general range/age expectations, and some slightly, moderately, or acutely behind those expectations.
The second premise of the model is that by offering each learner the richest possible curriculum and instruction at a level of demand appropriate for the learner, we assist each learner in developing to his or her maximum capacity.

10. Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand (ALID)
Vary the depth
Adjust the abstraction
Change the complexity
Make contexts and examples more or less novel or familiar
Adjust the pace
Use more/less advanced materials and text
Provide more/less scaffolding
Provide frequent/intermittent feedback
Provide/let students infer related strategies
Infer concepts from applications and problem solving
Provide more/fewer examples
Be more/less explicit/inductive
Provide simpler/more complex problems and applications
Vary the sophistication level
Provide lengthier/briefer texts
Provide more/less text support
Require more/less independence or collaboration
Require more/less evidence
Ask for/provide analogies
Teach to concepts before/after examples
Teach principles before/after examples or concepts
Notes
This slide includes a list of possible ways to “ascend the level of intellectual demand” within a unit of study. When we consider that curriculum is designed around content, process, and product, it is easy to brainstorm ideas for escalating each of these features.
Journal Entry #7
What might be some criteria for selecting one ALID approach over another? Think about a unit or lesson you currently teach. Give a specific example of how you could apply ALID to escalate the content, process or product.

11. Guiding Questions that Support the Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand
What are the powerful differences among my students’ levels of prior knowledge, cognitive ability, and rates of learning?
Which students requires greater or lesser degrees of depth, abstraction, and sophistication with regard to this unit, lesson, or task?
How might I design lessons and activities that provide varied levels of scaffolding, support, and challenge?
Which content, teaching or learning activities, resources or products support varying levels of prior knowledge and cognitive ability within this unit, lesson, or task?
How might I assess students’ growth when many of them possess varying levels of abstraction and prior knowledge?
Notes
In designing curriculum that supports the ascending levels of intellectual demand, a teacher is required to carefully consider the questions posed on the slide. The answers to these questions help teachers plan the approaches they will use to construct learning experiences that attend to the various differences that exist among their students. These questions need to be addressed continuously throughout the instructional unit. Prior to developing a unit of instruction, teachers must consider how students varying in accordance with the curriculum that is taught in order to provide challenging learning experiences appropriately matched to student needs.

12. Student Affect and PCM The teacher: Reflects on the needs of each student, continually seeking a deeper understanding of both individuals and the group. Responds by using what is learned about students to craft curriculum and instruction that is better matched to learner needs. In turn students: Reflect about what they learn, how their learning affects who they are, what they believe, what they can do, and how their attitudes and behaviors affect their development and those of others
Notes
Read pages 14 – 15.
Research has shown a significant link between self-esteem and school achievement. When reflecting on that finding, the question that is often posed is: Which comes first? Does a strong self-image lead to a desire for academic achievement or does school success build a positive sense of self? The answer is most likely somewhere in between – and finding out the definitive balance is not what is important. It is the knowledge that a teacher who communicates the message that all students are capable will enhance the potential for student achievement.

13. Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand Take Into Consideration Students’ …….
Cognitive abilities
Prior knowledge
Schema
Opportunities to learn
Learning rate
Developmental differences
Levels of abstraction
Notes
Complex as it is to know, appreciate, and respond to all learners, doing so is an imperative in teaching. Teachers who continuously strive to be reflective, respectful, and responsive, who support their students in developing those same traits, and who constantly assess the impact of environment, curriculum and instruction are far more likely to make a major, positive impact on the learning and lives of their students than are teachers who undervalue any of these factors. The Parallel Curriculum Model recognizes the fact that students differ in many ways and offer plans for how to address differences within each of the parallels.
Journal Entry #8
Make a three-column chart with the slide bullets listed in the left-hand column. In the second column, generate how each of these behaviors and abilities might pose a challenge for teachers as they plan curriculum and instruction, and in the third column brainstorm strategies for attending to these differences.

14. What is the Parallel Curriculum Model?
The Parallel Curriculum Model is a set of four interrelated designs that can be used singly, or in combination, to create or revise existing curriculum units, lessons, or tasks. Each of the four parallels offers a unique approach for organizing content, teaching, and learning that is closely aligned to the special purpose of each parallel.
Notes
The Parallel Curriculum Model proposes the possibility of developing appropriately challenging curriculum using one, two, three, or four parallel ways of thinking about course content. The term “parallel” indicates several formats through which educators can approach curriculum design in the same subject or discipline. “Parallel” should not be taken to mean that the formats or approaches must remain separate and distinct in planning or in classroom use. The model does not purport to be a recipe, and it cannot be prescriptive. It is important to also note that the parallel curricula described in the Parallel Curriculum Model can be used in any order. In addition, it is important to recall that the parallels can be used singly or in combination.
Journal entry #9
Turn to Figure 2.1 on page 18 of the PCM book. Read the definitions for each parallel and note the differences between each parallel’s definition and purpose. Describe how a unit you teach might be approached using one or more of these parallel OR analyze curriculum that you have designed to determine how it achieved the purpose of one or more of these parallels. You will be asked to share your example.

15. Why Four Parallels?
Qualitatively differentiated curriculum isn’t achieved by doing only one thing or one kind of thing.
Students are different.
Students have different needs at different times in their lives.
Parallels can be used singly or in combination.
Notes
The four parallels help to organize our thoughts regarding content selection, developing expertise in a subject area or discipline, varying levels of cognitive readiness, and learning preferences (including style and interest). Collectively viewed, the four parallels provide educators with a framework for developing comprehensive curriculum while attending to all these issues.

16. So, how does PCM provide qualitatively differentiated curriculum?
Opportunities to learn the core knowledge (enduring facts, concepts, principles, and skills) within a discipline
Opportunities to learn about the numerous relationships and connections that exist across topics, disciplines, events, time, and cultures
Notes
The organization of the PCM addresses the importance of providing qualitatively differentiated curriculum and respects the curricular principles that have been discussed thus far in the previous slides.
Opportunities to transfer and apply knowledge using the tools and methods of the scholar, researcher, and practitioner
Opportunities for students to develop intrapersonal qualities and develop their affinities within and across disciplines

17. The Parallel Curriculum: Four Facets of Qualitatively Differentiated Curriculum
Core: The essential nature of a discipline
Connections: The relationships among knowledge
Practice: The applications of facts, concepts, principles, skills, and methods as scholars, researchers, developers, or practitioners
Identity: Developing students’ interests and expertise, strengths, values, and character
Notes
All curriculum takes its basic definition and purpose from what the Parallel Curriculum Models called the Core Curriculum because this parallel reflects the essential nature of a discipline as experts in that discipline conceive and practice the discipline. The second parallel, the Curriculum of Connections, expands on the Core Curriculum by guiding students to make connections within or across disciplines, times, cultures or places, people or some combination of these elements. A third parallel, the Curriculum of Practice, guides learners in understanding and applying the facts, concepts, and principles, and methodologies of the discipline in ways that encourage student growth toward expertise in the discipline. The fourth and final parallel, the Curriculum of Identify, guides students in coming to understand their own strengths, preferences, values, and commitment by reflecting on their own development through the lens of contributors and professionals in a field of study.

18. What are the purposes for the Parallel Curriculum Model?
Provides teachers with a comprehensive framework with which they can design, evaluate, and revise existing curriculum
Improves the quality of the curriculum units, lessons, and tasks
Enhances the alignment among the general, gifted, and special education curricula
Increases the authenticity and power of the knowledge students acquire and their related learning activities
Provides opportunities for continuous professional, intellectual, and personal growth
Offers teachers the flexibility to achieve multiple purposes
Reinforces the need to think deeply about learners and content knowledge
Uses high quality curriculum as a catalyst for observing and developing abilities in learners
Allows flexibility to address varying needs and interests of learners
Notes
The Parallel Curriculum Model assumes that teachers may create appropriately challenging curriculum by using any one parallel (at appropriate levels of intellectual demand) or a combination of the parallels (at appropriate levels of intellectual demand) as a framework for thinking about and planning curriculum.
Journal Entry #10
Read pages to acquire knowledge on the differences among the four parallels. Create a graphic organizer that would organize your understanding of the definitions and purposes of each parallel. Additionally, include an example of a curricular idea using each parallel on your graphic organizer.

19. -Robert Lewis Stevensen
A final thought:
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.
-Robert Lewis Stevensen