This chapter has many great samples of webs, unit planners, and lesson planners. I think it is helpful, and I think this is something that we can work on during our “IB” time next year – writing and planning meaningful, concept-based lessons and units.
I loved the lesson example that she gives on pages 86 and 87 about the Revolutionary War. It is similar to an assignment that I used to do when I taught the novel My Brother Sam Is Dead. My lesson was not as well planned as this one, yet I still feel validated.
However, this led me to thinking about language b and PE specifically. In language b, I would think a concept might be the idea of masculine and feminine adjectives and nouns. How would you plan a unit around this?
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Chapter 3
I have to admit it; I rolled my eyes before I began reading this chapter. Standards have always been a part of my teaching vocabulary and I often feel that the idea of academic standards is misinterpreted. Imagine my glee as I read page 48 and realized that Erickson was saying the same thing. The problem with standards is the push for testing with them – it’s a shame that our politicians haven’t read this chapter as it addresses the flaws with our current push for state testing.
The flow charts of sample enduring understandings are quite helpful. When we return to school [or at out book study night] we’ll have to brainstorm ways to share these with our colleagues who are not reading the book. I particularly loved the one for visual arts and think that we could create a similar flow chart for technology/design program.
I think Sabrina does an amazing job teaching American History conceptually in eighth grade. A few years ago she decided to teach by theme rather than teach chronologically. The result is that she focuses on the concepts that surround a theme [ie. When studying the theme of “war” she focuses on the concept of change]. Because she organizes her class in this way, it is very easy for me, in language arts, to make curriculum connections with her class. This is what I meant in my last post when I said that it would be easier to make interdisciplinary connections by concept.
I think that we have spent some time with backwards design already and that as a staff we have at least an initial understanding of concept-based curriculum design. With that said, we can do more. I think it will be helpful to focus on the concepts we hope to teach during our professional days next year. Many groups wanted more vertical time with their subject areas, and a discussion about concepts and our subject AIMS and objectives would be a great place to start. What do you think?
The flow charts of sample enduring understandings are quite helpful. When we return to school [or at out book study night] we’ll have to brainstorm ways to share these with our colleagues who are not reading the book. I particularly loved the one for visual arts and think that we could create a similar flow chart for technology/design program.
I think Sabrina does an amazing job teaching American History conceptually in eighth grade. A few years ago she decided to teach by theme rather than teach chronologically. The result is that she focuses on the concepts that surround a theme [ie. When studying the theme of “war” she focuses on the concept of change]. Because she organizes her class in this way, it is very easy for me, in language arts, to make curriculum connections with her class. This is what I meant in my last post when I said that it would be easier to make interdisciplinary connections by concept.
I think that we have spent some time with backwards design already and that as a staff we have at least an initial understanding of concept-based curriculum design. With that said, we can do more. I think it will be helpful to focus on the concepts we hope to teach during our professional days next year. Many groups wanted more vertical time with their subject areas, and a discussion about concepts and our subject AIMS and objectives would be a great place to start. What do you think?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Chapter Two
The Structure of Knowledge
When reading this chapter, I remembered my second IB training for PYP in Atlanta. Mostly, it was not the best training, but what I got from it, what I still remember was the quiz that our trainer gave us. It had a few nit-picky questions [sorry for that lice reference] like “in what year did the revolution begin?” The answer to that question would vary depending upon which revolution one was addressing. The important thing, our instructor emphasized, was that we focus not on the details but on the concepts – what is a revolution? Why do revolutions happen? It is through these deeper questions that students gain understanding. This is a lot like the example that Erickson gives about the Civil War on page 34.
What we want for our students is for them to gain that deeper understanding – the question for us becomes how do we get them there? I had an interesting experience as a parent this evening. We were eating dinner and discussing Beowulf with the kids. No, we don’t always have intellectual conversations about classic literature around the dinner table, but the movie Grendel was on the Sci-fi channel so we were trying to explain it to the kids [incidentally, our explanation took so long that we missed much of the movie]. John explained to Will that Beowulf’s basic plot [hero faces bad guy and wins] has been used in many stories and Will said something to the effect of “so it sort of inspired modern literature.” Now, Will is a smart guy, but I give credit to our school for that level of conceptual thinking. I see how he thinks deeply and makes connections that frankly I know I did not make at his age. We should be proud of our program!
Interdisciplinary Connections
I felt like Erickson’s discussion on the transfer of knowledge gave me some insight on interdisciplinary teaching. Often we make the mistake of trying to link topics rather than concepts. If we look for the concepts that we teach and try to make connections there, I think it will be easier for us to plan genuine interdisciplinary units.
The Paradigm Shift and the Texas Model
This chapter offers great insight into the organization of the IB MYP curriculum framework. The call for teachers to “clearly articulate for themselves the focus concepts and ideas they are guiding students toward” [34] correlates with the AIMS listed for each subject area. Does this mean our guiding questions should in some way make a connection to the AIMS we have for each unit?
I also think it is important to note that she does not advocate abandoning factual knowledge all together. At our dinner table tonight, Will could not have made the conceptual link about the story of Beowulf if he did not have the factual knowledge that many stories have a hero that fights the bad guy and wins. Information and concepts go hand-in-hand. The system of education, especially in our public schools, puts heavy emphasis on facts, but our students need concepts too. As Erickson so eloquently put it, students “with strong conceptual structures in the brain are better able to process the massive amounts of incoming information, and better able to transfer knowledge” [39].
Conclusions
I found the samples to be helpful [especially the language arts dialogue] and overall I saw many connections to the IB curriculum guides for the various subject areas.
When reading this chapter, I remembered my second IB training for PYP in Atlanta. Mostly, it was not the best training, but what I got from it, what I still remember was the quiz that our trainer gave us. It had a few nit-picky questions [sorry for that lice reference] like “in what year did the revolution begin?” The answer to that question would vary depending upon which revolution one was addressing. The important thing, our instructor emphasized, was that we focus not on the details but on the concepts – what is a revolution? Why do revolutions happen? It is through these deeper questions that students gain understanding. This is a lot like the example that Erickson gives about the Civil War on page 34.
What we want for our students is for them to gain that deeper understanding – the question for us becomes how do we get them there? I had an interesting experience as a parent this evening. We were eating dinner and discussing Beowulf with the kids. No, we don’t always have intellectual conversations about classic literature around the dinner table, but the movie Grendel was on the Sci-fi channel so we were trying to explain it to the kids [incidentally, our explanation took so long that we missed much of the movie]. John explained to Will that Beowulf’s basic plot [hero faces bad guy and wins] has been used in many stories and Will said something to the effect of “so it sort of inspired modern literature.” Now, Will is a smart guy, but I give credit to our school for that level of conceptual thinking. I see how he thinks deeply and makes connections that frankly I know I did not make at his age. We should be proud of our program!
Interdisciplinary Connections
I felt like Erickson’s discussion on the transfer of knowledge gave me some insight on interdisciplinary teaching. Often we make the mistake of trying to link topics rather than concepts. If we look for the concepts that we teach and try to make connections there, I think it will be easier for us to plan genuine interdisciplinary units.
The Paradigm Shift and the Texas Model
This chapter offers great insight into the organization of the IB MYP curriculum framework. The call for teachers to “clearly articulate for themselves the focus concepts and ideas they are guiding students toward” [34] correlates with the AIMS listed for each subject area. Does this mean our guiding questions should in some way make a connection to the AIMS we have for each unit?
I also think it is important to note that she does not advocate abandoning factual knowledge all together. At our dinner table tonight, Will could not have made the conceptual link about the story of Beowulf if he did not have the factual knowledge that many stories have a hero that fights the bad guy and wins. Information and concepts go hand-in-hand. The system of education, especially in our public schools, puts heavy emphasis on facts, but our students need concepts too. As Erickson so eloquently put it, students “with strong conceptual structures in the brain are better able to process the massive amounts of incoming information, and better able to transfer knowledge” [39].
Conclusions
I found the samples to be helpful [especially the language arts dialogue] and overall I saw many connections to the IB curriculum guides for the various subject areas.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Jen connection
See? We have a great partnership on stage and off! I will condense and you can connect, and hopefully everyone will get all the info.
Chapter One - Part 2
Creative Thinking
I saw this section connect to the learner profile, specifically about being open-minded and an inquirer. I marveled the importance that she placed on creative thinking. I consider myself to be a creative thinker and found it exciting that “big picture thinkers will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
When we were in Mt. Vernon, John commented on how amazing George Washington was. He had so many roles including farmer, grist mill creator, architect, general, politician, etc. He had the freedom to pursue many areas – a true Renaissance man. In our society we are so streamlined and specialized – I wonder if that ever hinders our progress.
I think the key to teaching for the big picture comes from reflecting on our own education. What tools did we learn in school that we still use today? Those are big picture items.
Critical Thinking
Again, I see many MYP connections here:
• Offering the learner profile [thinkers, inquirers, communicators]
• Evaluating information [ie- is this a valid website?]
• Producing mulitiple solutions to a problem [ie-write two different ways to solve this problem, write two different thesis statements for your research paper and chose the best one, etc.]
Reflective Thinking
I think we are on the right track with this, but we need to keep guiding our students though purposeful reflection and giving them time to do it.
I loved the question chart on page 20 and could see us using it with writing assignments.
Conclusions
Overall, I consider my classroom to be concept based because I tend to focus on the big picture, but I do feel that I could do more to engage the students.
I saw this section connect to the learner profile, specifically about being open-minded and an inquirer. I marveled the importance that she placed on creative thinking. I consider myself to be a creative thinker and found it exciting that “big picture thinkers will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
When we were in Mt. Vernon, John commented on how amazing George Washington was. He had so many roles including farmer, grist mill creator, architect, general, politician, etc. He had the freedom to pursue many areas – a true Renaissance man. In our society we are so streamlined and specialized – I wonder if that ever hinders our progress.
I think the key to teaching for the big picture comes from reflecting on our own education. What tools did we learn in school that we still use today? Those are big picture items.
Critical Thinking
Again, I see many MYP connections here:
• Offering the learner profile [thinkers, inquirers, communicators]
• Evaluating information [ie- is this a valid website?]
• Producing mulitiple solutions to a problem [ie-write two different ways to solve this problem, write two different thesis statements for your research paper and chose the best one, etc.]
Reflective Thinking
I think we are on the right track with this, but we need to keep guiding our students though purposeful reflection and giving them time to do it.
I loved the question chart on page 20 and could see us using it with writing assignments.
Conclusions
Overall, I consider my classroom to be concept based because I tend to focus on the big picture, but I do feel that I could do more to engage the students.
Thanks for the SUE NOTES
Wow! Sue I love your notes! They are so comprehensive. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Chapter 3
Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction
Chapter 3
“Academic standards are not a curriculum; they are a framework for designing curriculum. A curriculum is a coherent, teacher-friendly document that reflects the intent of the academic standards. When teachers mistakenly think that state academic standards are a curriculum, they may start checking off benchmarks one by one, which can lead to pellet-gun teaching.
If you examine the performance indicators across academic standards in science, social studies, and mathematics, you will find that science is generally concept based, social studies is fact based, and mathematics is skill based.”
There is a large section on math in this chapter. She begins with “the student uses place values to represent whole numbers and decimals”, and changes it to “the student understands that place value can be used to represent whole numbers and decimals.
She points out that the lead-in phrase “understands that”, gives us a generalization sentence - two or more concepts stated in a relationship”
If we expect to develop and shape conceptual minds, curriculums need to be revised from objective driven documents to idea centered. Even though Bloom designated specific verbs for different levels, such as the lower cognitive level of knowledge, and the higher cognitive level of synthesis, she feels we should strive for ideas and issues.
There is a large chart with samples of enduring understandings for certain specific grades and disciplines, as well as a visual arts framework. These are too big and too specific to add here, but worth looking at for your specific grade or subject.
She suggests that we provide teachers with three clear categories of information:
“What we want students to know (topical, factual knowledge)
What we want students to understand (the conceptual transferable understandings of the discipline)
What we want students to be able to do (the specific processes and skills of the discipline)”
She goes on to explain the difference between skills and activities.
“Skills transfer (analyze primary and secondary source documents to compare historical perspective)
When you attach a skill to a particular topic, you have created a content objective or an instructional activity.”
She has included a rubric: teaching to standards. It was similar to our end-of-year reflection, although shorter, and the categories included novice, practitioner and expert.
She discusses bringing district-level coherence to standards, but it could also be used as we develop our curriculum.
1. Unit development approach
“this method shows teachers how to address the standards using their content, and clarifies the link between what students must know, understand, and be able to do.
2. District framework in a “Landscape Design” Approach
She says one could create a landscape framework using just standards and textbook/curricular material, but feels designing the units first is much stronger.
Reflection (questions from the book):
1. Academic standards are improving academic achievement. In what ways?2. Academic standards still need revision. In what ways?
Chapter 3
“Academic standards are not a curriculum; they are a framework for designing curriculum. A curriculum is a coherent, teacher-friendly document that reflects the intent of the academic standards. When teachers mistakenly think that state academic standards are a curriculum, they may start checking off benchmarks one by one, which can lead to pellet-gun teaching.
If you examine the performance indicators across academic standards in science, social studies, and mathematics, you will find that science is generally concept based, social studies is fact based, and mathematics is skill based.”
There is a large section on math in this chapter. She begins with “the student uses place values to represent whole numbers and decimals”, and changes it to “the student understands that place value can be used to represent whole numbers and decimals.
She points out that the lead-in phrase “understands that”, gives us a generalization sentence - two or more concepts stated in a relationship”
If we expect to develop and shape conceptual minds, curriculums need to be revised from objective driven documents to idea centered. Even though Bloom designated specific verbs for different levels, such as the lower cognitive level of knowledge, and the higher cognitive level of synthesis, she feels we should strive for ideas and issues.
There is a large chart with samples of enduring understandings for certain specific grades and disciplines, as well as a visual arts framework. These are too big and too specific to add here, but worth looking at for your specific grade or subject.
She suggests that we provide teachers with three clear categories of information:
“What we want students to know (topical, factual knowledge)
What we want students to understand (the conceptual transferable understandings of the discipline)
What we want students to be able to do (the specific processes and skills of the discipline)”
She goes on to explain the difference between skills and activities.
“Skills transfer (analyze primary and secondary source documents to compare historical perspective)
When you attach a skill to a particular topic, you have created a content objective or an instructional activity.”
She has included a rubric: teaching to standards. It was similar to our end-of-year reflection, although shorter, and the categories included novice, practitioner and expert.
She discusses bringing district-level coherence to standards, but it could also be used as we develop our curriculum.
1. Unit development approach
“this method shows teachers how to address the standards using their content, and clarifies the link between what students must know, understand, and be able to do.
2. District framework in a “Landscape Design” Approach
She says one could create a landscape framework using just standards and textbook/curricular material, but feels designing the units first is much stronger.
Reflection (questions from the book):
1. Academic standards are improving academic achievement. In what ways?2. Academic standards still need revision. In what ways?
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