Candidates are proficient in curriculum development and implementation; knowledge of curriculum and subject matter is used to create positive change in classrooms, schools, and districts.

Domain One

Curriculum must keep pace with modernity or risk irrelevance. At the classroom level, teacher proficiency in curriculum development and implementation is critical in order to ensure students are educated in a meaningful way. Not only are there external challenges to the relevancy of curriculum, but internal challenges too in the form of increasingly varied student populations that all need to be reached effectively by the classroom teacher. Teachers who are unschooled in curricular development that is based on response to an accurate assessment of external and internal circumstances put their students futures at risk. Technology, global socioeconomic shifts, and cultural diversity play enormous roles in todays educational environment. The teacher that wants to prepare students for these issues in the real world must have the training to plan and implement curriculum that is responsive to those realities.

A teachers knowledge base in his or her respective content area can be a boon to the classroom and beyond, mostly if that knowledge is effectively contextualized for students, other teachers, and the community beyond the classroom to include administrators, parents, and the community. Cross-curricular integration is a popular element of teaching and learning, essentially because this approach helps students see the usefulness of previously isolated content knowledge. An English teacher who helps a science teacher incorporate writing skills into a science project starts a relationship that can help students who go on to a science-based profession be more effective in their field than someone who does not have the same skill set. If many teachers from disparate content areas work together similarly, incorporating people from the community at large, then the potential for wide impact is immeasurably increased. This impact can come from increased teacher collaboration, teacher-led seminars across the district, or activities that involve the public.