Teaching During a Pandemic, 2020
Summer Curriculum Development
Art by Anna Vergolini, Student at Manhattan International High School
The Center for Inquiry brought together scores of Consortium teachers over the Summer 2020 to plan as best we could for the opening of school in the fall, knowing that at any time we may go from “hybrid” to remote to, maybe some day, in-person full day teaching.
In other words, preparing for everything. . . . Uppermost in all of our minds was the desire to create a safe place for learning, a place that students could trust would be there for them and a place where their voice and their experiences mattered.
These materials represent the materials we designed and pulled together during these workshops. Materials are organized by discipline/topic.
While many of us already had some idea of topics we wanted to cover, we made every effort to share, support, question, discuss and then post some of the plans and designs we were developing. Below are the “artifacts” of those efforts.
We definitely consider this an on-going process and welcome your inquiries and comments—send to phyllis@performanceassessment.org and they will be forwarded to specific teachers or to whole groups, just let us know.
Mathematics
In these challenging times there was a great need to look at how we support our students as both learners and human beings. How do we honor what students are experiencing at this time while helping them to see that mathematics can be a means of making sense of the world and also a source of pleasure?
Nine math teachers from nine different Consortium schools, who have created classrooms in which students have developed deeper understandings of mathematics and the ability to think mathematically, led four workshops over the Summer of 2020 that were attended by 18 math teachers from across Consortium schools. The documents that we share with you represent both the activities and curricula participants engaged in and new products that arose from the groups’ discussions. If you have any questions you can contact Dr. Jonathan Katz at kcalatrava@gmail.com. (You can also click here to see all the resources and a list of contributors).
Geometry: Problems & Remote Teaching Resources
Problem Solving:
Workshop Website - Agendas, Problems & Remote Teaching Resources
Gerrymandering: Curriculum Materials & Workshop Resources
Literature Curriculum
We focused on thematic development of courses that would engage students, ask them to think deeply about ideas related to the themes, present interesting and accessible texts and writing assignments that would grow out of the students’ discussions and opportunities to make choices for further exploration. Thanks to Adam Kinory, Andrew Boorstyn, Darlene Murphy, David Fulco, Heather Lester, Kiran Chaudhuri, Lucas Johnson, Marie LeBlanc, Molly Sherman, Norma Gaytan, Tania Mohammed, Tanya Krohn.
Election 2020 and History Curriculum
Eight teachers from six different schools met almost weekly over the Summer of 2020 to discuss teaching about the election and activism in the Fall. Most teachers felt that they wanted to discuss the election in some way with their students in the Fall. Practically, we hoped that teachers could walk away with implementable sources and activities for the classroom. We also hoped to break down some of the isolation that teachers feel by sharing curriculum, discussing challenges and maybe, just maybe bringing students together to discuss the election. I also felt strongly that we needed to focus on the questions that we asked students. They needed to be as debatable as possible to engage students and give them the sense that they had a meaningful part to play in the November election and beyond… [Read more and access the whole set of resources and teachers’ reflections here.]
Anyone who is interested in using this stuff can reach out for discussion to Aaron Broudo (aaronb@flhfhs.org).
Click here to access the curriculum developed by this group to teach about the 2020 Election.
Genetics Curriculum
Welcome to the resource folder compiled by Consortium high school & middle school science teachers during the summer of 2020. We hope this collection might be of use to you. Special thanks to Barry Fox for starting off this initiative.
Please credit the teachers who originated the materials with anything you create or adapt from this folder.
The folder contains the following:
Scanned copies of Barry Fox’s genetics curriculum, including sample exams, homework, and pedigree tasks
Given that during the pandemic, the ability to do in-person labs has been altered, Barbara has compiled some useful simulations and virtual genetics labs here.
A sample of a way for students to collect and share data on human traits within a class was provided by Anna. The task/lesson outline is here and a sample data collection sheet is here. Student names have been removed for privacy.
Plant genetics is also a great topic of study and a fairly accessible one in terms of materials. The American Biology Teacher has a useful article here on allium genetics.
While genetics curriculum often discusses sex-linked traits, it is important to understand--and discuss with students--that human gender and sexuality are complex. This article from The American Biology Teacher provides some useful context and guidance, and some of the sources linked in the Recommended Resources file are good starting places for further reading.
Also included: some virtual labs, book recommendations, and other reading topics.
If you have any questions/concerns, want support via curriculum coaching, or want to contribute to this project, please reach out to Barry Fox and/or Laura Wang at the Performance Standards Consortium!