Curriculum Development

Secondary Science Teacher Leader

I am currently working with the Director of Science Curriculum, Sam Messier, to begin the implementation process of new Curriculum Essential Documents that align with the newly adopted Colorado state standards. This process includes facilitating district-wide professional development workshops, planning Curriculum Council meetings to utilize district science teachers in the implementation process, and working to make the new Curriculum Essentials Documents accessible and understandable by all BVSD science teachers.

This stipended position also includes work to coordinate the Cordon Pharma Regional Science Fair. This part of the position entails organizing the district-wide Scientific Review Committee and tracking all Regional Science Fair paperwork for all participating schools.

Science-based Inquiry Curriculum

The curriculum for BVSD summer school programs was designed using the FOSS Kits. However, because the program included two middle schools, a curriculum needed to be designed that met the needs of our middle level students. Taking the typical middle school program structure into account, I worked with another Site Coordinator to create an engaging curriculum that was developmentally appropriate for our adolescent students.

We split the middle school day into to parts and I worked to take the Science-based curriculum for fifth grade and adjust it to work for our middle school students. This meant differentiating the day-to-day lessons, adding supplemental non-fiction and fiction readings, creating higher-level academic vocabulary, and updating the pacing guides.

This differentiation combined three different skills: a knowledge of middle level science curriculum, and understanding of the level that is developmentally appropriate (and engaging!) for adolescent students, and a working knowledge of how to support our English Language Learners.

Understanding By Design: Integrating a New Curriculum Approach

As part of my Master of Arts program in Education Administration, I had the opportunity to take a full class on Understanding By Design, an approach to curriculum planning and instructional decision-making. At Hsinchu International School, I have been working with my colleagues to develop a standardized template for approaching our curriculum from the UbD approach. I have presented at staff meetings, held professional development workshops, and worked with the administrative team to develop this systematic approach.

To successfully work with staff, we had to make sure that the template we were developing "worked" with the model of the school. This meant that we had to develop a customized template that was aligned with the progressive curriculum ideas that we were adopting. This meant that we integrated parts of our program into the template to make it more applicable to our teaching and to better uphold the ideals of the school. One way we did this was to sort the student skills by the 5 "student outcomes" that our school had adopted. By sorting classroom skills based on these outcomes, we were able to ensure a purposeful and smooth transition to using this new template.