Spiraling or Scaffolding Curriculum

A spiraling curriculum is a curriculum where students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery of knowledge and skills. Good curriculum products are spiraled and scaffolded, both vertically (across grade levels) and within a single course. For example, in my school's social studies curriculum, students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery of map reading. "Map reading" looks different in sixth grade than it does in high school, so the curriculum needs to take that into account, even though the learning goal sounds very similar. Sixth graders are expected to read a map, find the compass rose, use a basic key and answer simple fact questions. My ninth graders use a similar skill set to look at much more complicated maps. Rather than just answering basic questions about maps (which is what our sixth graders do), 9th graders are expected to compare multiple maps of an area to draw conclusions about a place. Obviously, this skill is much more complicated and requires the skills that they learned in sixth grade.

The Technology TEKS are also scaffolded to show mastery of a set of skills over a long period of time. A great example of this is in the TEKS for keyboarding, which are in the Fundamentals strand of the Technology TEKS. The TEKS for kindergarten through fifth grade are the same. The standard explains that students should be using touch-typing and that they should be able to type numbers, letters, symbols and punctuation. The TEKS add a caveat--that the keys being used are "grade-level appropriate." Since most first graders aren't using percents in their math classes, it doesn't make sense that they'd use them in technology. However, they would probably learn how to use the dollar sign as money is common in word problems. This TEK changes a little when you look at the middle school standards (grades 6-8). The middle school students should be doing everything the elementary kids can do, but they should be starting to format their work correctly. The TEKS cite that there should be one space between punctuation and the beginning of the next sentence, they should know how to use smart quotes, and should use the correct dashes and slashes. Without the skills they had learned in elementary school, this simply doesn't make sense. However, in doing this secondary skill, they're continuing to practice the skill they learned in the younger grades.