This coming Friday, we are having our first quasi-official curriculum summit. We’re bringing ten people together to talk about what we want to do with our science curriculum at SLA. The people range from old Beacon colleagues to Franklin Institute science educators to someone from the Philadelphia Writing Project to a district person or two to our consultant on the project and, well, me. With the possible exception of yours truly, it’s a powerhouse group of people, and for many of the people at the table, this is a continuation of a running ten-year conversation about education that I’ve been having with them.

I’m finding it frustrating to figure out what I want all these really brilliant people to do when they are all in the same room. I’ve got some general ground-rules. One, I want us to more completely define our science capstone idea, and two, I want to have the debate over scope and sequence of our course offerings. Lofty goals, indeed. I’m just not exactly sure a) how to best structure the afternoon to really get to those ideas, and b) what should our work product look like. To the second point, I know what I would like to walk out with… a more firmly concrete document detailing the science capstone course, including skills needed by the kids, structure of the final product and structure of the course process… and a scope and sequence to our science curriculum where we can map both content and skills onto those classes. Now, how to best use the brainpower of these ten people to get there… there’s the rub.

The attendees will be getting a document via email tomorrow (today) that includes a short write up about Understanding By Design, a PDF of the National Science Education Standards, and a link to Reid Schwebach’s Science Seminar Pages as background documents. With that as a shared base for comparison, I think we’ll be able to do good work, if I can come up with the structure that makes sense.

What follows are the brainstorming questions/goals that I want to weave into the day. As always, I welcome any thoughts people might have:

What do I want to come of Friday’s summit?

  1. I want to look at the science capstone project.
    1. What are the major skills that all projects should demonstrate?
    2. What are the secondary skills that a project might satisfy?
    3. At what point along the way are the students learning these skills and what are the ramp-up assessments / projects before senior year?
    4. How do we, both in assessment and instruction, scaffold to those skills? What courses do we need to offer and when to best set the kids up to succeed at the capstone?
    5. How broadly or narrowly are we willing to define the content of the actual project?
    6. Is this a science / math interdisciplinary project? Does it have to be?
    7. What is the role of the outside mentor at SLA?
    8. What do we see as the assessment goals of this course? How much is process, how much is outcome?
    9. How can we use Wiggins and McTighe to help us plan this?

  2. I want to define our scope and sequence.

    1. What should kids know about science when they graduate? That feels like too broad a question, and every time I try to grapple with it, I find myself back into the Bio-Chem-Physics structure, if only because it feels comfortable.
    2. Can we teach an explicit science methodology course where we really teach the kids what it means to think like scientists. Interestingly, if you look at both the city and state standards, there’s really language like that in both. (and in the national science education standards too: http://stills.nap.edu/html/nses/)
    3. What do we do with the standards for physical science if we don’t offer it in the 9th grade? Can we get to them in other places? Should we offer a one-semester physical science class next year in addition to biology? Could we use that course to give us the content for our methods course?
    4. Could we really think out of the box and offer MORE science? Could we follow one suggestion we’ve received and jam the basics of Bio / Chem / Physics into two years and then allow the kids two full years of elective science offerings – including the AP courses in Bio / Chem / Physics?
    5. Should we define tangible benchmark projects in each of these classes for kids to get practice for their eventual capstone course? Again, how can we define these so that the classroom teacher has some autonomy in curriculum design while still building toward the ultimate goals.
    6. What are some of the other courses we should consider offering besides the traditional science curriculum?
    7. What is the balance we want to strike between AP offerings and more eclectic science electives in the upper grades?

Hey, no one will ever accuse us of not being ambitious.