There are so many ideas of what education should look like. From students in neat rows, with pencil and worksheet in hand, to students learning with their cellphones, or tablets, while sitting in a coffee shop at 2 am. Today's teachers are under enormous pressures from administrators, co-workers, and especially parents, to conform to others particular view of a classroom. This makes lesson development very difficult.
So what I hope to accomplish is to provide a series of lessons, that can be used in a traditional, hybrid, flipped, or virtual class. Each section is differentiated, (layered), so that students earn their grades, and have no doubt about what they are responsible for. This puts the teacher back in the role of content expert. I will be testing this out over the next few months, and adjusting as needed, and you are welcome to do the same. I am releasing my materials under a creative commons license- non commercial-share alike.
NOTE: This was developed using personal time, resources, and technology, without any form of compensation from any school, or any request to develop such material.
First thing to find was a textbook. Honestly, I believe that print died 10 years ago, along with VHS, but I won't argue with you about that. Kids with 8 classes a day, often leave school with 40lbs of books, or with none. An online resource for materials make sense for both cases. Little Sally won't damage her back, and little Johnny can't get out of doing work, simply by "forgetting" to bring his book home. And schools can reduce the expense of doubling up on books because little Jimmy requires a set of books at home. Overall, using an online textbook can save about $40,000 over the life of a standard text-7 years, (when Pluto is still a planet) or around $11 per student each year. You can extend that over all 8 classes * 4 years. You could give them all Nooks and you still won't have to raise taxes!
So I looked around and found http://www.ck12.org and the skies opened! I looked at what we currently teach, and eliminated what we don't (but is still in the standard text) and came up with this:
Over time I will tweek it, and update it, so it will never be out of date. You can do so too!
Weeks1-2 Mapping
Weeks 3-4 Earth's History
Weeks 5-7 Rocks and Minerals
Weeks 8 Resources
Week 13-14 Weathering, erosion, transportation, deposition, and lithification
Week 15 Earth's Water
Week 16 Earth's Atmosphere
Week 17-18 Weather and Climate
Next Update to the flexbook will include Google Earth files that show these concepts
Expect a few revisions during spring break!
ReplyDeleteReworking the sections now I am out for the summer
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