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Rationale:
Integrating content across the curriculum is extremely important because it allows the student to learn about specific content from a multitude of perspectives. We believe that when students are learning about different continents or countries that they should be able to make connections with and comparisons to the continent, which they live on and experiences they have had. Our learning environment is more student-centered than teacher directed in order to incorporate the students different values, beliefs, and experiences that are important to them.
The role of the teacher is to be a facilitator for the students. The teacher will create an atmosphere that promotes critical thinking and opportunities to compare and contrast different perspectives based on a variety of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence elements. The teacher will also provide instruction that ensures active student responding and involvement.
The role of the student is to be actively be engaged in all classroom activities through involvement in cooperate learning groups, general group discussions, individual activities, and group activities. We hope to create an environment that provides a comfort level for the students to express their own ideas, opinions, cultures, values, and beliefs. Student will also be able to generalize concepts, content, and skills across subjects and settings.
The content will be addressed using a multiple intelligence and multidisciplinary approach. The students will travel to each discipline throughout the day to understand the content being studied more comprehensively.
Through a unique line of thinking based on collaborate effort we are providing an excellent approach to teaching, learning, and curriculum design. The most important reason why our approach is unique is because it entails teacher collaboration. We also developed guidelines that incorporate flexibility, which allows us to easily modify instruction throughout the year and for future students. We as teachers also assume that our students will come to school with a wealth of knowledge and misconceptions. Because of this we feel it is important to activate prior student knowledge when teaching. Our approach is also socially significant because we incorporate ways to relate the content to real world experiences and individual experiences. Our approach also takes advantage of the use of technology. Lastly, our approach provides a host of experiences "inside and outside" of school that will help expand our students current repertoires.
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Organization:
To ensure conceptual and structural coherence, we organized our curriculum in the form of a website. The website was designed to function as a resource for all educators and users in general. Continuity across lessons and topics were easily achieved through a multidisciplinary approach and through the creation of the website containing our curriculum. The use of the website format breaks down our curriculum design into simplistic form so that it is user friendly and easily navigable for all.
The website consists of four main webpages of science, physical education, literature, and general studies. These four webpages include sample objectives, learning experiences, forms of assessment, and references related to animals and their habitats on two different continents: Africa and Antarctica. Another option offered on our website is the "animal gallery" webpage. This page provides the user with pictures and sounds related to animals and their habitats from either Africa or Antarctica. Educators also have available to them information regarding our rationale, organization, and goals of the curriculum we designed.
Our curriculum design provides a variety of resources that offer educators the opportunity to choose which ones they believe to be the most appropriate for their particular classroom. Since our effort is to facilitate effective learning for all students, teachers could consider modifying the suggested learning experiences to meet the diverse learning needs and styles of students in the classroom. In accordance with the description above, the length of time it takes to implement the majority of the learning experiences will vary from class to class (and from year to year).
Our curriculum suggests that an environment that facilitates the learning experiences should be flexible, creative, and motivating. We provide a list of resources, brief descriptions of sample learning experiences, and names of supplementary texts to use. We do not however, offer educators the actual text or materials, so it is their responsibility to locate these items independently.
This organizational structure of our curriculum supports our ideas about teaching and learning because it is flexible and open for suggestions. Our website invites educators to give us feedback and send it to us via the website (email). We welcome any opinions, suggestions, questions, and concerns regarding our design. We also suggest that educators share their experiences of implementing our curriculum. Our hopes is that through this communication our curriculum will continue to develop and evolve.
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Goals:
Main Goals:
The students will explore animals of Africa and Antarctica through science, general studies, literature, and physical education (movement) learning experiences.
The students will examine African and Antarctic animal habitats and environments through simple scientific explortations, movement explorations, literature discussions, projects and writings.
Sub-goals:
The students will learn basic words and phrases of the African language and how they are used in the classroom.
The students will construct poems and stories based on information acquired through learning experiences.
The learner will participate in literature readings and discussions on African and Antarctic fiction and non-fiction stories.
The students will understand the climate and temperature of African and Antarctic animal's habitats through scientific explorations.
The students will perform African and Antarctic animals movements, eating habits and sleeping patterns though movement experiences in physical education.
The students will demonstrate African dances through movement experiences in physical education.
The students will discover ways to make connections of knowledge acquired though the disciplines using the guided discovery method of learning.
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Credits: |
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