Developing New Curriculum Documents

Yesterday I was feeling a little overwhelmed thinking about the new social studies standards and all the work that has to get done in order to create guides and assessments that will help support our teachers. Luckily, someone from my team came into my office and asked some really great questions that helped me start thinking about what my next steps should be. As I started brainstorming (complete with color-coded sticky notes), I kept coming back to three main thoughts. And, of course, these thoughts just brought up more questions to be answered...

If we create a curriculum guide that looks like most have looked, then teachers will teach like they have been teaching. Whatever we create needs to have a structure that reflects and supports the shift to inquiry-based learning.

How can we create guides that support both new teachers and veteran teachers?
How can we give examples while avoiding some teachers and admin using those as step-by-step plans that do not take into account the unique skills and needs of their students?

If we create typical multiple-choice assessments, then teachers will continue to teach to the test and focus on regurgitating information. Our “assessments” need to take into account the fact that that inquiry-based learning is messy, and they should, as Holly Clark states, “disrupt the culture of one right answer.”

How can we create assessments that reflect our understanding that all students do not learn or demonstrate their learning the same way?
How do we provide our teachers with the guidance, support, and time to help make this type of assessment a reality?

If we want teachers to understand the benefits of inquiry-based learning, then we need to create PD that allows them to experience inquiry-based learning. It makes no sense to preach about the advantages of inquiry learning in a PD session that has a typical one-size-fits-all, sit-and-get structure.

How can we create effective inquiry-based PD that honors the varying degrees of experience amongst our teachers?
How can we create learning experiences for teachers that model the type of experiences we want for our students?

Comments

Create an Instagram Story!

One day on Twitter, I came across a tweet from Ryan O'Donnell ( @creativeedtech ) in which he shared a Facebook template that could be used for students to demonstrate their learning. I clicked on the link to his website , and I was AMAZED at all the cool templates he had created for teachers to use for free! I decided to try using an Instagram template during a unit on the planets in our solar system. I wanted students to demonstrate what they learned about the different planets, but I wanted them to do it in a creative way. Here are the directions I gave to my students: Here are some student examples: Student Example #1 Student Example #2 Student Example #3 Student Example #4 I really enjoyed this activity, and I love how students familiar with hashtags were able to create and use them in clever ways! If I was to go back and do this again, I would spend some time working with students less familiar with social media and hashtags and give them some...

First Week of School

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like. I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it. ...

Don't Use Coaches as "Fixers"

"It is tempting to ask coaches to work only with teachers who seem to be having difficulties with instruction or classroom management. We discourage this "fixer" approach to coaching for several reasons. First, if coaches are perceived as working only with those who struggle, other teachers may not reach out to coaches for support. Second, the coaching relationship becomes less about providing support for all teachers and more about remediation, in which only "struggling" teachers are assigned to the coach." - Jacy Ippolito and Rita M. Bean Based on the conversations I've had with coaches, this seems to be a common challenge. Coaches often struggle to get teachers to volunteer for coaching cycles because teachers don't want to be viewed as someone who needs coaching - like it's a negative thing. However, the truth is that ALL educators can benefit from good coaching. I think this is why it is important to try to c reate a diverse coaching ros...

Roxi Thompson

Search This Blog