STUDENTS LOVE TOPICS!!

TOPICS: A TOOL TO HELP TEACHERS

EFFECTIVELY DESIGN COURSES*Compatible with Understanding by Design; Project Based

Learning; Blended Learning; Inquiry Based Learning; Flipped Classrooms; and Individualized Learning

PLANNING USING TOPICS

• UbD: Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe– 7 tenets of UbD, 3 connected to TOPICS– 1. Learning is enhanced when teachers think

purposefully about curricular planning. – 2. Effective curriculum is planned backward fromlong-term, desired results through a three-stage design process (Desired Results, Evidence, and Learning Plan). This process helps avoid the common problems of treating the textbook as the curriculum rather than a resource, and activity-oriented teaching in which no clear priorities and purposes are apparent.

Click to add title

• 3. Teachers are coaches of understanding, not mere purveyors of content knowledge, skill, or activity.– http://

www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf

– Not that different from the Flipped Classroom idea or Projects or Inquiry Based Learning

Planning Using Topics

• Think about what can be done in a year, or in a grading period not about the textbook

• Curriculum driven by standards and objectives not by chapters in the textbook

• Can show meeting common core and beyond• The Private School Difference

• Think about what will be assessed, what are the units

• Each unit gets a Topic• Students (and Parents!) know where

assessments will fall, what is to be covered is transparent

• Within Topics can provide more challenges for more gifted kids

Planning

• If using UbD topics allows the backwards design planning and demands the purposeful thinking about curriculum

• (flip to AP Euro page as example)• Project Based Learning-topic for each project• Inquiry Based Learning-set up within topics for

webquests or other tools for inquiry

Within Topics

• UbD-teachers as coaches, essential questions, tools to learn the material

• Individualized learning-many options for all types of learning inside of topics

• Blended Learning—can be set up to be done at home

• Flipped Learning—videos within, work to be done in class also within

Setting up Individual Topics

• Text Boxes: essential questions, project or inquiry instructions, assessment information

• Downloads: essential files• Links: internet resources• Audio: podcasts, teachers must know how to

find and to upload• Video: same issue they must be taught how• Professional Development and Time!!!• Examples

INTERESTING THOUGHT?!

• Collaboration between schools possible?• If Topics are so developed that students can

follow through a curriculum with coaching only in discussion board, can assessments be given by ‘home’ school but students from different WhippleHill schools in a course?