Make Your Class a Story Worth Telling: Curriculum Flow Graphics for Course Planning

1. Make Your Class a Story Worth Telling: Curriculum Flow Graphics for Course Planning Bethany Dixon, Tom Freeman, and Dana Grooms CSTA 2013: CFGs for Course Planning

2. Coherent Curriculum Planning with NGSS • Finding your course themes • Structuring a meaningful storyline • Scheduling activities for impact

3. How do we make sense of this? • Multiple objectives: (Science content, process, communication skills) • interconnected ideas that span the document • Few Ready-made references exist

4. NGSS

5. NGSS: New Standards for New Learning • Based on the K-12 Science Framework, these are the core concepts needed to be a scientifically literate individual in each of the major core disciplines • What you should be teaching and the depth to which it should be taught at each grade level • Includes assessment boundaries to clarify the depth of knowledge that is expected

6. Parts of the NGSS • Performance Expectations: What the students should know and be able to do after instruction; includes: • Clarification statements-gives examples • Assessment boundaries-limits to assessment questions • Disciplinary Core Ideas: Broken down into Life, Physical, Earth Science and Engineering/Technology Application; This is the content, in progression from K-12

7. NGSS • Science and Engineering Practices: The knowledge and skills the students should possess; the application of science • Crosscutting Concepts: Fundamental concepts that bridge all the Disciplinary Core Ideas

8. Structuring your Curriculum: More than Following a Book… • Curriculum planning carefully is good practice • It takes time • Structure and strategies to improve it will help • Overall course design (connections) are usually obvious to teachers but may not be to students • CFGs can be shared with students as a curriculum guide

9. CFG from A Human Approach

10. HHMI BioInteractive Resources

11. How did they DO that? • Includes all “NGSS” pieces • Well thought-out • Embedded • Formative assessment • Metacognition • Science and Engineering Practices • Review • Summative Assessments

12. Structuring a Meaningful Storyline • Curriculum Flow Graphics • Publically represent a coherent storyline as we sequence crosscutting concepts related to disciplinary core ideas (content goals) with the statements of performance expectations (themes). • What do you notice about the representation?

13. Why did they do that!? • Built with a connection to an overall Core Idea: • Theme will connect the course through different topics. • Each unit is sequenced around the 5E model • Each unit links together questions that tie in each lesson.

14. How to develop CFGs What NGSS has given us is what the students need to know: not how to help them know it: • Read the colored cards for your NGSS Standard with your table.

15. CFG Development • Arrange your disciplinary core idea cards in a logical storylinethat helps address the concepts in the NGSS.

16. CFG Development Record on sticky notes activities that you use that would support the core ideas. • How well will students be able to make sense of the storyline? • Are there missing concepts that students need to make sense of the content?

17. CFG Development • At this point we would use the storyline, add in crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices that are supported by your curriculum. • Do any of your activities already support one of these concepts or practices?

18. CFG Development • After the CFG is constructed, we need to incorporate both summative and formative assessment opportunities and add them into the plan. • Return to your stoplight sheet: • Do you feel a little more comfortable about some of the standards in your disciplinary area regarding the NGSS? • (skip the “mid” assessment and go to the “post” column)

19. Meta-moment: Thinking about student learning. • How do you determine students’ prior knowledge of a learning target? • How do you assess students before the summative assessment? • How do you determine that student thinking has advanced? • Elbow partner share

20. Formative Assessment • "It is not an instrument or an event, but a collection of practices with a common feature: they all lead to some action that improves learning.” • 7 Strategies for Formative Assessment (Chappuis, 2009).

21. What Gives Formative Assessment Its Power? The collection of hundreds of studies Black & Wiliam (1998a, 1998b) examined represent a diverse array of interventions, all which featured some form of formative use of assessment data or processes.

22. Practices yielding the largest achievementgains displayed the following characteristics: • Use of classroom discussions, classroom • tasks, and homework to determine the current state of student understanding, with action plans take to improve learning/correct • misunderstandings.

23. Formative Assessment Tools: • Good teaching includes teaching processes of thought as well as content. • Colored Craft Sticks • Traffic Light Assessment • Gots and Needs • Gallery Walk • Meta Moments

24. Gallery Walk CFG Share • Curated vs. Uncurated • Constructive Student Comments • “I wonder” “I notice” • Add questions

25. Thoughts on development and Implementation (2 min.) • What are the benefits of using a CFG to frame your curriculum? • What are the drawbacks? • How can using CFGs impact your curriculum?

26. Unpacking the Strategies • Online stopwatch • Traffic Light Formative Assessment • Meta Moments • HHMI Resources • BSCS Resources • Formative Assessment Sticks • Gots and Needs closure

27. Gots and Needs (2 minutes) • Obtain two sticky notes • Using the first sticky note, please write down one thing you “got” from today’s PD. • On the second sticky note, write down one thing that you “need” with regard to CFGs or any of the material presented here today. • When you have finished, please stick them to their posters.

28. Evaluation • Please fill out a PD form so that we can improve in our practice. • Thank you for your time and effort!

29. Special Thanks