After a well needed summer respite another school year has started. One of the things I am most excited about is teaching our new 9th grade course. A major benefit of teaching at a private international school is curriculum flexibility. If our department sees a need to fill curriculum gaps or to make adjustments to … Continue reading The flexibility to design a new course is another reason I love international schools.
C3 Standards
Standards-Based Grading in History: Vertical and Horizontal Alignment
Curriculum is not an add-on task that occurs in meetings, over summers, or acts as a distraction from teaching and instruction. Curriculum is at the heart of teaching and teachers should own it and live it. Vertical and Horizontal alignment is an oft mentioned, but less fine-tuned component of curriculum.
Classroom Questioning Strategies
As students grow older they ask fewer questions. How can teachers fight back against this trend, integrating questioning strategies into their pedagogy in order to encourage inquiry and analytical depth?
Geography Proficiency Scales
This post contains my first draft and thoughts on the proficiency scales I've written on the C3 Geography standards. These will be used in a new interdisciplinary 9th grade course we are rolling out called Geographic Cultural Studies.
C3 Historical Thinking Skills Proficiency Scales
This post contains proficiency scales I have drafted for all C3 history standards for high school. Hopefully they offer a clear starting point for teaching and assessing historical thinking in addition to content.
National History Day & the C3 Framework
The alignment between NHD and C3 creates unique opportunities when a curriculum actively leverages both. Students need to see how skills are interconnected and rely on each other when applied to a "real world" task. Regardless of whether a school uses traditional or standards-based grading, NHD and C3 are powerful tools for doing inquiry based learning and teaching historical thinking skills.
C3 Proficiency Scales: Round 2
Not all standards are equal. Some standards are foundational, some are extensions, some are inextricably linked when they come to life beyond the curriculum documents. This is where teachers and content experts need to add their experience and expertise to the discussion. Engaging with curriculum makes teachers better at their craft and offers significant insight that curriculum experts alone may miss.
C3 Standards: Writing Proficiency Scales
Our department has adopted and prioritized the C3 standards. One of the things I like the most about the C3 standards is their foundation in Inquiry processes that support each of the four disciplines. One issue I still go back and forth on is to what extent a foundation 9/10 course needs to have standards … Continue reading C3 Standards: Writing Proficiency Scales