{"id":5524,"date":"2017-06-27T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2017-06-26T23:12:32","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T06:12:32","slug":"adopting-a-new-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/2017\/06\/27\/adopting-a-new-curriculum\/","title":{"rendered":"Adopting a New Curriculum"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>This post was originally published at the <a href=\"http:\/\/corelaboratewa.org\/adopting-a-new-curriculum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WA CORELaborate website<\/a>.<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/EV3Robot.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5526 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/EV3Robot.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"330\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/EV3Robot.png 330w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/EV3Robot-150x96.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px\" \/><\/a>May 24 our Science Subject Area Committee (SAC) presented our plans for a new Science Curriculum Adoption. This is the third adoption in which I\u2019ve played a role in the 20 years I\u2019ve worked at Chimacum Middle School. I played a much bigger role in this one as I was THE middle school rep and I did all the research for the middle school, put together the middle school presentation, and presented that part of the overall proposal. It was an awesome process and I\u2019m glad I volunteered!<\/p>\n<p>In my last post, <a href=\"http:\/\/corelaboratewa.org\/how-about-robotics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How About Robotics<\/a>, I shared the research I did as I looked for kit-based, NGSS Science curriculum. I was very happy and excited with<a href=\"http:\/\/www.activatelearning.com\/iqwst\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Activate Learning\u2019s IQWST<\/a> curriculum and the other middle school Science teacher (there are only two of us) loved it too. The lessons start with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ngssphenomena.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">phenoma<\/a>, go into a lab, then end with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/02\/10\/claim-evidence-reasoning-cer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CER conclusion<\/a>. Just what we were looking for. I also explain in my last post how I made a complete change to the 6th grade curriculum after attending a tech conference and seeing the wonders of Robotics. I was impressed by the <a href=\"http:\/\/stemrobotics.cs.pdx.edu\/node\/2643\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">STEM Robotics 101<\/a> curriculum so I thought, what the heck, I\u2019m going to see if the school board will approve a <a href=\"http:\/\/stemrobotics.cs.pdx.edu\/node\/2643\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">STEM Robotics<\/a> curriculum for the 6th grade using the <a href=\"https:\/\/education.lego.com\/en-us\/products\/lego-mindstorms-education-ev3-core-set-\/5003400\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lego Mindstorms EV3 robotics kits for education<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the presentation we put together for the school board (<a href=\"http:\/\/goo.gl\/p491oF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here<\/a> if you don&#8217;t see a Google Slides presentation below &#8211; the speaker notes provide more details):<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/presentation\/d\/1y7Wk0bnhMQHUAw4W178Mh1lCAvD0TkStUdbE_ljQwpE\/embed?start=false&amp;loop=false&amp;delayms=3000\" width=\"640\" height=\"379\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I was really the one that was on because the high school\u2019s plan is to wait until the 2017-18 school year starts in the fall expecting more NGSS native, as opposed to NGSS-Aligned, curriculum so they were just sharing their plan and not proposing to adopt any curriculum. It also made no sense to adopt a new biology curriculum because the sophomores of 2017-18 will need to pass the Biology EOC (End of Course) exam to graduate. The high school&#8217;s current curriculum has been doing a great job of helping kids pass the Biology EOC so it would be risky to switch with one year of EOC to go. The sophomores of 2017-18 will also take the NGSA (Next Generation Science Assessment) in their Junior year but not as a graduation requirement. It is the 2017-18 freshman who will need to pass the 11th grade NGSA to graduate so it makes sense to wait and see what is available starting in the fall and wait until 2018 to look for biology curriculum to adopt for the 2018-19 school year. If high quality, NGSS native curriculum becomes available by fall the high school will present to the school again for their adoption.<\/p>\n<p>The school board presentation went by very quickly. First off, the projector connection went down so we couldn\u2019t project our Google Slides. The school board members didn\u2019t have laptops so they couldn\u2019t access the slides either. Luckily, one of our SAC members had the foresight to print the slides on paper so at least the school board had something to look at!<\/p>\n<p>When it was my turn, I told my story. In hindsight, I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t have the slides. Looking down at the paper, I got lost and ended up taking much less time than I would have had I gone through every single slide I prepared. Once I was done, they asked a few questions, I honestly can\u2019t remember what. They discussed for what seemed only a few seconds then approved our proposal and were happy to do it. I looked around astounded. Was that it? Were we at the middle school getting all our new curricula? The next day I was asked to submit the requisitions by the following Tuesday! That\u2019s when it hit me, WE GOT IT! As of today most of the 6th grade curriculum has already been delivered! Yeah, and the IQWST order has been placed and is being filled. Wow, that was cool.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5527\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5527\" class=\"wp-image-5527 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-144x144.jpg 144w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0204-120x120.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5527\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Building a robot that can do something.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>So 6th graders will be designing and programming EV3 robots to solve cool and fun challenges. We end the year by having the fifth grade students visit the 6th grade teacher\u2019s classes and I let them in on the plan for next year and they were excited! I can\u2019t wait! Here it is summer, the beginning of summer, and I\u2019m excited for September! LoL<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5532\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0250.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5532\" class=\"wp-image-5532 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0250-400x268.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0250-400x268.jpg 400w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0250-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0250-768x514.jpg 768w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0250-1024x685.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5532\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An EV3 Robot Design<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The best part is that I had also volunteered to lead a <a href=\"http:\/\/nwessp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northwest Earth and Space Sciences (NESSP)<\/a> summer camp and I chose to have it be a robotics summer camp using the EV3! That\u2019s where all the images on this blog post came from. This camp just ended (went from June 20 to June 23) and it was amazing! The kids were great and they had incredible stamina. The camp ran for six hours a day and the kids worked through lunch all the way until it was time to leave! Seeing how involved, challenging, exciting, and engaging building and programming an EV3 robot is for kids confirms my excitement at all the great things my 6th graders are going to be doing this coming school year.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5528\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0209.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5528\" class=\"wp-image-5528 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0209-400x351.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0209-400x351.jpg 400w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0209-150x132.jpg 150w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0209-768x675.jpg 768w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0209-1024x900.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5528\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figuring out how to connect the sensors.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For the summer camp I adapted a Mars Mission that I attended and had a great time participating in with our very own WA CORELaborate blogger, <a href=\"http:\/\/corelaboratewa.org\/author\/cstillman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carina<\/a>, at this<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncce.org\/attend2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> year&#8217;s NCCE Conference<\/a> and made that the focus for the week. Here&#8217;s the presentation I prepared for the summer camp, I plan on doing this with my 6th graders next year too! \ud83d\ude42 <a href=\"http:\/\/goo.gl\/I8rAfi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a> if there is no Google Slide deck below.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/presentation\/d\/1kT-9p_RUOmsf3AvcotQK69zMXnITrMJ6IK4lPZPDa0E\/embed?start=false&amp;loop=false&amp;delayms=3000\" width=\"640\" height=\"379\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5534\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5534\" class=\"wp-image-5534 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-144x144.jpg 144w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0282-120x120.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5534\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Our first challenge was to rescue Mark Watney. Along the way, the rover had to pick up supplies because Watney wasn&#8217;t going to have enough food or oxygen to make it to the Ares IV landing site.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5535\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5535\" class=\"wp-image-5535 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-144x144.jpg 144w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/IMG_0295-120x120.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5535\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Practicing in class to rescue Astronaut Watney.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5536\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Maze.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5536\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5536\" src=\"http:\/\/www.educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Maze-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Maze-300x400.jpg 300w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Maze-113x150.jpg 113w, https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Maze-768x1024.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5536\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Another challenge &#8211; get your rover through a maze!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post was originally published at the WA CORELaborate website. &nbsp; May 24 our Science Subject Area Committee (SAC) presented our plans for a new Science Curriculum Adoption. This is the third adoption in which I\u2019ve played a role in the 20 years I\u2019ve worked at Chimacum Middle School. I played a much bigger role &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link btn\" href=\"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/2017\/06\/27\/adopting-a-new-curriculum\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[3815,575,3827,3828,3825,3826,3461,3472,3642,3543,1781],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-adoption","tag-curriculum","tag-ev3","tag-iqwst","tag-lego","tag-mindstorms","tag-ngss","tag-robotics","tag-scichat","tag-science","tag-stem","item-wrap"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5540,"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions\/5540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatoral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}