Thoughts from Al's experiences

Thinking about pK-6 curriculum with prior discussions and North Carolina, national standards as back drop

• Procedurally: share opportunity for creative engagement to maximize both process and commitment
• Initial headings for curricula
  • Content - Skills - Assessment/Performance - Resources
• For us, invert skills, content, Assessment/Performance, add Questions to emphasize content chosen to faciliate skill development, match developmental interests
  • Questions - Inquiry Skills - Content - Performance/Assessment - Resources
• Since not "teaching content" need to
  • need to be sure students become familiar with how to get needed information
  • need to give students some experience in expanding their repertoire/abilities, asking for new equipment/resources
  • emphasize (and tolerate) "circuitous journeys", "taking risks"
  • encourage "reasoned discussion", idea that different conflicting stories can not only be accepted but are valuable for their contributions to new stories
  • aim is to encourage continuing development of sophisticated, self-reinforcing inquirers
• Thinking not primarily of sequential skill development but of "spiraling" enhanced sophistication (particularly re PA "science process skills", ie "classifying", "formulating hypotheses", formulating models" etc)
  • Though interested in issue of sequentiality re
    • observing and telling stories to explain observations
    • distinguishing between observations and interpretations
    • creating a number of interpretations for a given set of observations
    • selecting the story that best motivates new observations
  • Additional forms of relevant? sequentiality (added PG)
    • immediacy in environment, abstraction
    • building on own and other's observations/stories
• Unifying concepts (how related to "questions" above?)
  • "things moving" (above) - change
    • in both space and time
    • progressive enhancement of appreciation of space/time scales?
    • changes with time on grounds (minutes, days, months, years)
    • continental drift
  • life and the inanimate
  • patterns and models (and randomness?)
  • diversity and its origins
  • brain and its significance for exploring/inquiring/creating
  • history of science

Next inquiry day opportunity, 24 November, 9-9:30, PG on seeing not necessarily believing?

Weekly late Monday afternoon meetings to continue curriculum discussion

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