Curriculum Planning Task
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Here is a step-by-step suggestion for the process of completing Assignment Two. Some of you may already have made good progress, and others may wish to do things in a different order. Even so, I suggest that you read this document to see what benefit you can get from it.
- Read through all parts of the Assignment Task carefully, noting that Part B is the ‘core’ of the Assignment and should take most of your time and effort.
- Be sure to examine the Criteria Sheet to see what is worth the most marks.
- Download the Template, which you will need to make four copies for Part B.
- Make sure that you have read the Unit Topic Notes for this assignment.
- If unsure about the steps involved in the Cognitive Inquiry sequence model, revise Topic B.1 from EDSS411 (formerly coded EDSS968), which has been made available in a special block on the Moodle site for this current unit, just below the block for this assignment.
- Remember, this Unit of Work is for a senior secondary level, that is, Yr. 11 or 12.
- Decide which syllabus topic you will choose the content from.
- Since your Unit of Work will be for 5 weeks you will need to make sure the topic selected has content that covers 5 weeks.
- Next, you will need to construct your Focus Question for the Unit of Work as a whole and your four Sequence Questions. The sequence questions should follow a cognitive inquiry model and contribute to answering the Focus Question in each case.
- Imagine the Year 11 or 12 class that you will teach this Unit of Work to. This could be a class that you have actually encountered or one that you make up (imaginary) based on your own knowledge and experience of what a senior secondary class might be like. Try to think of individual students and their particular learning needs.
- Now start to look for appropriate information sources and think about learning activities for each of the four sequences. You just need a minimum of one main source for each sequence and each source should provide enough information for students to be able to do the main learning activities. It is important to select a variety of different kinds of source for the different sequences, that is, they should be different media, rather than all video clips, for example. Also, keep in mind the appropriateness and application of the sources you use. Consider their origins, the filtering/quality control which has gone into the production of each source especially for online source material such as via youtube etc.
- Once you have begun to formulate some ideas, move on to the next step – there will be time to make final decisions as you write Part B later.
- Now you are ready to start writing Part A. In A.1, naming the class is easy, but your description will need to be based on the ideas that you thought of at step 12 above.
- A.2 – use APA style to name the syllabus. This can later be cut and pasted into your Reference List.
- A.3 – Give the topic name and information relevant to finding it in the syllabus, including the page number.
- Write your Focus Question. Make sure that the FQ really is a question, with a question mark at the end. Avoid double questions (two questions in one).
- Write your four Sequence Questions, again avoiding double questions. Make both the FQ and the SQs as succinct and grammatically correct as you can. (Remember that you need to model literacy for your students.)
- Write the outcomes from the syllabus in full. These are for the whole Unit, and do not have to be tied to any particular Sequence Question.
- List the specific outcomes under a) –d). Be succinct here, too – concepts are generally single words. You do not want too many, but you should at least include the concepts mentioned in your FQ and SQs.
- Now you can begin on the core of the assignment, Part B. Download the template, make one copy of it and start writing the outline of the first of your four sequences. Remember that each sequence should appear on only one page in size 12 font – there is no need to try to squeeze more in by going over the page or using a smaller font, since this is meant to be an outline only. You or another teacher should be able to use it as a guide to make a more detailed, stage-by-stage sequence plan at some later time, but you do not need all of those details here. Do not, at the other extreme, try to squeeze 2 sequences onto one page – just use one new page for each, even if there is some blank space!
- Carefully read ‘Advice about how to do this part’ in the task (four dot points).
- Column 1 just contains the main learning activities, so you do not need to put down everything that you or the students will do, but you should take up most of the space in the column – use single spacing inside the template, as the task specifies. At this step, keep in mind what you have said about the composition of the class at Part A.1, making sure that you will have something to say when you get to Part C.
- Column 2 has your resources listed in it. Make sure you include the justification. We want to know why you thought the resource/s were useful for this sequence. Remember, the careful selection of resources will be important for assignment 3.
- Column 3 should be almost blank! You might write something like ‘The essay will be used for assessment of learning’ or some other assessment task you may want to give your students. Try to vary your choice here, keeping in mind the various outcomes that you listed in Part A.
- Complete the other remaining three pages of the template (one page for each sequence, making a total of four) as per steps 24-26 above.
- Now begin Part C, referring back to your response to Part A.1 and the learning activities in your plan. The best way to approach this is to make your own list of the ways in which you cater for diversity and deal with each of these one at a time in your response. Make this as clear as you can and take care with literacy.
- Provide a Reference List in APA style, including the syllabus and the information sources from your plan.
- When you have finished, check to see that you have met the criteria listed in the rubric.
Finally, check your work for grammatical correctness and spelling. (Aside from spellcheck, a good additional method is to print and read aloud, marking corrections with a pencil and then typing them in). It is important that your work is organised and presented in an orderly and professional manner.
