Finding Curriculum Guides, Standards and Frameworks

If you are looking for curriculum guides in selected subject areas, you have a number of options.  

For in-print curriculum guides in this library, use the library catalog.

Set limits to IMC. In your search, combine the subject area (mathematics, reading, etc.) with terms such as “curricula”, “curriculum guide”, “curriculum guides”, standards etc. Truncation (curricul?) works fine, but tends to bring up too many items which, while related to curricular activities, are not curriculum guides proper. Limiting the search for one or both terms to “title” sometimes helps to get fewer but more relevant search results. If the IMC's copy happens to be checked out, a second copy may be available in Government Documents (6th floor, Library).

For Wisconsin's academic standards, do a title search using the following term: Wisconsin's model academic standards.

The ED-type documents within ERIC also include some curriculum guides. When in ERIC (Ebscohost), use the same search strategies as suggested for the catalog search. (Just remember: The truncation symbol is the *).

Quite a few curriculum guides live a happy life on the web. Finding them with a general search engine is not necessarily easy, but there are some educational gateway sites that are quite helpful. Of the gateway sites that are listed on our virtual reference desk (education section), the Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM: http://thegateway.org/) may be of help. For example, a title search in the GEM catalog using the words “mathematics” and “curriculum” leads to examples of a multicultural math curriculum by the Bureau of Mathematics of the Chicago Board of Education Curriculum Department and to the full-text versions of the Michigan Curriculum Standards.

An excellent gateway to academic standards, by state or by subject, is the "Developing Educational Standards" site at http://edstandards.org/Standards.html. For national standards pertaining to various subjects areas, see the links found on the Infinity webpage at http://www.marcopolo-education.org/teacher/standards.aspx.

If you know the exact title of the standards, use that title in a Google search. Make sure to place quotation marks around the title.

A search in the UW-Madison catalog (see below) will also point to many curriculum guides that are freely available on the web.

Finally, the "Where can we find classroom resources aligned with state standards?" site maintained by the Wisconsin DPI's Curriculum Resource Center may be of interest. Supported by the MarcoPolo Education Foundation and the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, it provides "thousands of high-quality lesson plans, classroom activities, instructional television programs, and more, all provided by leading professional education organizations, and aligned to Wisconsin's model academic standards." <http://www2.dpi.state.wi.us/sig/practices/high_2.asp>.