Moving ahead...

Amanda and I met this morning to keep moving ahead on her unit. She suggested adding standards related to time and formation of the earth, which was a great idea as it wil add continuity to the whole unit. She is going to investigate with her district's curriculum director whether it might be possible to do some curriculum scope adjustments so that she can spend more time on this unit in the coming school year. So we spent a good deal of time simply trying to uncover standards in the Maine Learning Results and the NSES that relate to Earth history and geological time...it was a force fit but we finally found something to call relevant.

We had an interesting conversation about some (albeit few) students' and parents' adverse reaction to the teaching of evolution. We considered having students prepare a constructed response about the distinction between science and religion, but we couldn't find an established content standard...hence we shied away from such a potentially controversial assignment.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the ease with which we've been uncovering accessible videos. Amanda was already using several NOVA videos, and upon a little investigating, we've learned that they are available in described video. I have a call into WGBH to find out whether we need to make a new purchase or if the videos she currently has (likely locked in the school library as it's the middle of summer vacation) are already described.

Amanda arrived today with an active account for StudyWiz, an online course management system maintained by the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. This was a wonderful surprise as I was just looking into StudyWiz the other day and feared we'd have to wait until the end of August to get her set up with an account. She'll be getting to know StudyWiz over the summer. We're excited about it because it will lend to a more digital curriculum, increasing the accessibility for all students.

After our meeting, I sent our individual to-do lists via e-mail and cc'ed the district curriculum director. We are certainly on our way to having a UD pilot ready to go! A lot of work between now and then, as well as during the implementation of the unit, but I think the planning is moving ahead swimmingly! (And so is my dedication to this blog...this is already twice as many posts as my previous attempts at blogging...)