Secondary School Science Teaching Methods
Adam Johnston & Sharon Ohlhorst
DUE: Thursday, December 9th (the last day of class)
For this final activity, you can take some artistic license and run with it. All that you need to do is map a year’s worth of curriculum for your anticipated course. The rest is up to you, fitting in the major objectives into your curriculum map. This kind of planning is crucial, since before you can do anything else with your curriculum, you need to identify these goals.
Your map could take a variety of forms, such as:
| A linear outline of objectives in which you give a top-down timeline of objectives, listed in order. |
| A spiraling outline of objectives for which goals are continually readdressed and reassessed, but at ever increasing levels of complexity, synthesis, and/or application. |
| A concept map of objectives for which a sequence of goals is still apparent, yet links between objectives is made explicit. |
| A blueprint of curricular blocks/pieces, so that you could outline big themes, as well as the more pinpointed objectives. |
| Any other artistic form, so long as sequence and timing are made clear. |
The details? What are we going to be looking for?
| We (i.e., the entire class) need to see all of your learning objectives for a given year, how they are sequenced, and how much time you imagine devoting to each objective. Be realistic. |
| Give everyone a sense for how this is all going to fit together into your year. What pieces could be removed if necessary? What pieces are crucial and non-negotiable? What themes unite different objectives? What objectives outside of your core are necessary to you? |
| We are not expecting to see lesson plans, or any level of detail beyond a broad map of your curriculum. |
In a discussion on the day that you turn these in, we will be addressing the following:
| Why are you organizing your curriculum in this way? |
| Are your goals assessable? |
| What assessments will be most useful to you? |
| Is your goal congruent with your teaching philosophy? |
| Is this the most sensible timeline/organization, given what you want your students to take away from your class? |
What are our goals for this task?
| To give you something to work from as you continue to design curricula, and to receive valuable feedback from your peers in this process. |
| To force you to take this as a first step in designing a curriculum; the second step will be to consider assessments, and the third will be to actually develop individual lessons. |