Curriculum Evaluation Resource

Kim Shimer from Judson Press sent me a copy of a book entitled "Christian Educator's Guide To Evaluating and Developing Curriculum" by Nancy Ferguson in hopes that I would post a review of the book here. I have read the book and have to say I wish it had been available for our team when we were looking at our curriculum and trying to develop goals and objectives for the spiritual transformation of our children.

Before we began that process at Richardson East the right hand had no clue what the left hand was doing. There was no coordination between Sunday morning and Wednesday night teachers, nor was there any coordination from grade to grade. Everyone just chose what curriculum worked for their particular class and we discovered our kids had major gaps in their Biblical knowledge. This book would have been very helpful when we began that process because we just walked through it on our own. If we had this resource on hand it would have helped us complete our evaluation in a more educated manner.

Ms Ferguson ascertains that there are Six Key Elements to a congregation's educational program. These elements transcend age groupings and can be used for children, youth and/or adult programming. She has designed worksheets that a designated team of people can spend time completing to help your congregation determine what the definition of these six elements would be for your educational program.

Once you have determined those six elements Ms. Ferguson has more worksheets to help you in using those elements to aid in the evaluating and choosing of curriculum resources. She also has informative chapters on how to write your own curriculum or how to adapt your current curriculum to meet the six elements.

The Christian Educator's Guide To Evaluating And Developing Curriculum is written in a way that is very easy to follow. It gives you practical advice on how to begin your curriculum review process and how to bring it to completion. When you have finished walking through the steps you will have identified, created or adapted a curriculum that fits the beliefs and goals of your congregation.

You can find this book for a very reasonable $13.60 on the Judson Press website http://www.judsonpress.com/. Nancy Ferguson welcomes your emails and discussions about curriculum at her website at http://www.bluetreeresources.org/

On a side note while on Judson Press website I saw a fun book entitled "The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss" (Relate the Horton Hears a Who movie to lessons on Christian living with the help of this book!...) Sounded fun to me!