Group items tagged

Yet another list of free curricular resources, such as Khan Academy and Wikibooks.

"The Education and the Environment (EEI) Curriculum teaches to mastery select K-12 California academic content standards in Science and History-Social Science, using the environment as a context for learning. " Includes Common Core standards in general science as well.

"This is a virtual place for folks interested in learning to "operationalize TPACK" (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge) via curriculum-based learning activity types ('LATs') to get up-to-date information, and (more importantly) participate in the vetting and refining of the activity types in each of the curriculum areas in which activity type development is happening." College of William & Mary School of Ed has set up a community site where there is a collection of activities with accompanying technologies for a wide range of ages/grade levels. There is also a "teaching strategies" page and links to presentations, assessment tools, and other resources. Hopefully there will be frequent updates and the pages will be a useful resource.

"In 2007, my co-teacher and I noticed that students felt increasingly like the world was "happening to them," as if they had no ability to affect positive change. This, coupled with the question "When am I going to use this?" led to the inspiration which has become the Fifth-Grade Environmental Project. "Our goal was to create an educational model in which students' passions are the driving force, empowering them as global citizens. While we have limited time to cover required curriculum, we are committed to finding ways of embedding curriculum in "real-life" applications within the project. "While the project's topic changes each year, the roots (or required elements) are the same, and the work evolves based on student passions, allowing each individual to find and contribute his or her gift to the whole, and reaffirming our belief that together we are smarter." Explains how service learning can inspire student passion, critical thinking, and learning to affect change. Describes partnerships with community nonprofits, and products that students can create to inspire others.

"My favorite thing about PlanBoard is how easy it makes organizing resources. You can upload files, create links, connect to files in Google Drive, and more. All resources are not only saved by lesson, but they are added to resources for your instructional unit-making future planning much more efficient. You can even indicate curriculum standards with just a couple of quick clicks. PlanBoard has many state curriculum standards available, or you can upload your own."

Teacher laureate of the Teaching Channel explains how the Common Core emerged from the state governors' meeting to create common ideas about what should be taught and learned in schools. Explains the types of assessment that are encouraged, e.g., formative assessment, and how the Common Core is not completely the same as a uniform curriculum. A good introduction to the Core whether you are a U.S. teacher, or a teacher in another country interested in developing your own national standards.

A complete Standards-based curriculum of tests, quizzes, and drills, if you are into that sort of thing. This site is totally cringe-worthy, and makes big promises without much but anecdotal evidence. You might find some tools and lessons and quizzes useful, but use with care. K-8

"Why do many students have difficulty transitioning from ESL programs to the mainstream curriculum? One reason is that many of them don't understand what is expected in U.S. colleges and universities. To address this problem, I decided to create a video series that gives students the opportunity to practice with authentic examples of the courses they will soon enroll in. Also crucial would be devising accompanying materials that would help students learn from the examples provided. It's one thing to watch a YouTube lecture from Yale or MIT, but quite another to understand a class within the context of academic norms in the United States. " Excellent advice for getting EFL students ready to study online or in the U.S.

"The Let's Think project draws on over 25 years of research by academics and teacher practitioners. It offers a fresh approach to teaching English, Mathematics, Science (and other subjects) that has a proven impact on students' development as thinkers. Let's Think has several published resources from Foundation Stage to KS3 in a range of curriculum areas."

Teaching culture in the context of art. Middle school students integrate curriculum with other subjects.

"Tynker is a new computing platform designed specifically to teach children computational learning and programming skills in a fun and imaginative way. Tynker is inspired by Scratch from MIT. It is a completely browser-based implementation written using Open Web standards such as Javascript, HTML5, CSS3 and does not use Flash. "Tynker's language extensions, built-in physics engine, character editors and other tools make it fun and easy for kids to unleash their creativity. Schools love Tynker because it offers them an easy to use cloud-hosted system for delivering a customized Computer Science course across multiple grades with a ready to use curriculum, classroom management and more. Tynker is the platform of choice at many leading schools - see what educators are saying." This looks like an interesting, creative way to unleash students' curiosity. I'm assuming it's for younger kids, but older students may enjoy it too.

"Succeeding with Science is a website built around fun and interactive educational games, activities, and videos to help students learn and love science. The student activities are sorted by age range from 4-7 years up to 16+ and there is also a teachers section. Each activity come with PDF lesson plans and support materials as well. Science teachers at all levels should find this site to be useful way to support their curriculum."

"If you have performed a recent search you may have found there is a countless number of social studies resources on the internet. In this post the goal was to find ten sites that addressed the area of Social Studies across all the diversified areas found in the discipline. Below, you will find the results of some extensive searching! You will discover a wide variety of materials including readings, OER (Open Education Resources), primary documents, textbooks, lessons, activities, interactives, videos, audios, and some great blog readings. There is bound to be something for any teacher. Best of all many of these resources will help build a Social Study Classroom e-curriculum while facilitating those important 21st century skills and engaging students! "

Univ of South FL has an interesting matrix specifying various levels of technology intregration into the curriculum. Useful for teachers who are assisting in bringing lab/technology into their schools.

"Project learning, also known as project-based learning, is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups. Because project-based learning is filled with active and engaged learning, it inspires students to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying. Research also indicates that students are more likely to retain the knowledge gained through this approach far more readily than through traditional textbook-centered learning. In addition, students develop confidence and self-direction as they move through both team-based and independent work."

"Apple is upping its bid for its hot-selling iPad to be a teaching device, with an update today to its iTunes U app that allows any teacher to create a private course. "The new features, aimed at K-12 teachers who use iPads in the classroom, allow teachers to create up to 12 private courses. Within each course, teachers can point students to curriculum across lots of different (mostly Apple-powered) media such as iBooks, textbooks, apps, videos and Pages and Keynote documents." But there is no student information system or gradebook included, and you can't converse with students. Might be useful for mini-lectures.

This looks like a great project, with pages to help you design your own apps, step-by-step guides, a library for App Inventor (the tool), curriculum and resources for teachers, and a community forum to get answers. Now if only we had time . . .

This is a wiki to help educators become knowledgeable with curriculum issues, pedagogy, and technology. Ceck out the sidebar for such topics as "21st century skills," "assessment," and "activities, projects," "technology," etc. You can join the wiki and help contribute.

This blog contains a great deal of useful information about what the U.S. Common Core State Standards are and what students need to do to prepare for them. Very valuable to teachers, even in states and countries that have not adopted a common core-type of curriculum.

This blog describes a first experience with using a backchannel to help out students while they were watching a history film in class. Applicable across the curriculum and for ESOL.