Curriculum Mapping

Curriculum mapping is a tool that is used to build cohesive learning communities. For instance, in District Five the teachers were noticing that the change in student population required the curriculum to be changed to create high expectations for all students. In order for this to happen the same way throughout the entire district, District Five leaders felt that curriculum mapping was the way to go.

Curriculum mapping allows teachers from the same content area from different schools to plan out what information they will teach each month so by the end of the school year all 4th grade students will have learned the same information. Although there are state standards, if there are too many standards teachers begin to pick and choose what they want to teach. The problem with this is that every teacher does not pick the same standards to teach, so by the end of 4th grade, each class could have covered some of the same information and some different information. Curriculum mapping stops teachers from picking and choosing what they want to teach, and creates more of a uniformed curriculum.

I suppose we curriculum map in my district. My curriculum is so old that I don't think that it has been mapped in at least 15 years. However, this year during my PIP meeting with my principal I was discussing creating a new grading rubric for the phys. ed. department. After talking this process through my principal decided that my best option may be to curriculum map so I know what I really want the students to know. Once I have this information it will be easier for me to create a grading rubric. I have not begun the curriculum mapping process yet because of the homework I have been doing this semester. I will probably start this process in January when I have more time.

While District Five was curriculum mapping the teachers were noticing gaps in learning throughout the grade levels. For instance, at one of the professional development days when the teachers were in mixed-group and like-group they discovered that the high school teachers feel that reading is what will make a student extremely successful. It was also discovered that reading skills were not taught past the 3rd grade. By discovering this the district was able to plan the curriculum in such a way that reading skills were taught throughout all grades.

Curriculum mapping can bring out the strengths or weaknesses in the curriculum being taught. Is what the teachers are teaching aligned with the curriculum? These are questions that can be answered when curriculum mapping. When weaknesses appear it is an opportunity for the district and school to change the curriculum so it becomes a strength.

UBD Implementation

I had to write a unit plan in UBD format for my Curriculum Development class and then also write some lessons for that unit. When I used this particular lesson it worked out really well, and I happen to use the essential question all the time, especially the question about how working cooperatively with your team affects the team's success. My middle school students are very competitive and think that it is better if they play a game like soccer and never pass the ball or include only certain team members in their strategies. But when I ask this question I can see that they are truly thinking about how they are playing and how they can change the way they play. Nine times out of ten when they include everyone in the game, they become the winning team in the class tournament.

These two games that I picked for the shooting lesson really helped the students when they were tested on their skills. I do not normally like to test on skill, but as part of this unit I tried it out. The students found that the two games, around the world and horse, really made them focus on their shooting and they saw that by using different shooting techniques their shots had different outcomes. For instance, some of my students tried to shoot with two hands, which was forcing them to push the ball and not shoot it. This made their shot very inconsistent. But when I helped them with the correct shooting technique, they saw that even if their shot did not go in the basket, their shot was in line with the basket and they were much more successful in the long rung.

I would like to use UBD more often for my lessons, but due to the fact that I teach so many different age levels and different topics, I am overwhelmed by the process of it.

UBD Lesson Part 2

Lesson Plan: Day 2 Shooting

Established Goals:

Standard 2.5 – Motor Skill Development: All students will utilize safe, efficient, and effective movement to develop and maintain a healthy, active lifestyle

2.5.6 A – Movement Skills
2.5.6. B – Movement Concepts
2.5.6 C – Strategy
2.5.6 D – Sportsmanship, Rules and Safety
2.5.6 E – Sport Psychology

SWBAT shoot a basketball using proper technique at a proficiency level of 70%
SWBAT explain what a foul is and what happens if a foul is committed.

Essential Questions:

• How does working cooperatively affect your team’s success?
• What key strategies that were previously learned can be applied to this unit? How is this significant?

Understandings:

• Following through on your shot, keeping your feet spread apart, and taking the shot in one fluid motion are all key aspects of a successful shot
• Shooting is how you score points, and you need points to win, but being a good shooter is not the only thing that helps a team to win

Misunderstandings

· As long as the basketball goes into the basket, it does not matter the technique used

Students will know

· Students will learn the rules of around the world and horse, both shooting games to reinforce the proper shooting technique.

Assessment Evidence:

Visual Assessment

While students are playing around the world and horse in their groups I will walk around and observe their shot. I will make corrections or suggestions where needed.

Question and Answer

When the class is over I will ask the students to explain to me the proper shooting technique. Along with their description I will ask a student to demonstrate the proper shooting technique.

Students will be asked to explain the rules of both around the world and horse.

Learning Plan:

After warm-ups, a demonstration of how to shoot a basketball, and a demonstration of the game around the world, students will be broken up into six groups and each group will have their own basket. While they are at their baskets I will walk around and observe their shooting and how they work with their groups as far as encouraging each other and helping each other out. About half way through the class the students will be stopped, have a seat at their basket, and will watch a demonstration of horse. Students will continue to work in their groups while playing horse. Again I will walk around and observe their shooting technique and how they work in groups.

Around the world rules:

All students will start at the first hash mark, closest to the basket, and try to make the shot in. If they make the shot in they move to the next spot. If they miss the shot they go to the end of the line and wait for their turn. If, though, the students make the shot from the first mark but then miss the shot from the second mark they have two choices: 1. they can stay where they are until their turn comes again, or 2. they can chance it which means if they make the shot they move to the third mark, but if they miss the shot they have to go back to the first mark. The game continues like this until one person has moved from the right side of the basket to the left, and then back to the right side.

Horse rules:

One student will pick to shoot from anywhere on their court. If they make the shot in then the second person has to make the same exact shot. If the second person misses the shot they will receive the letter H, but if they make the shot then the third person has to also make the same exact shot. If the second person misses the shot then the third person can shoot from anywhere (if the person in front of you misses the shot you can shoot from anywhere, but if they make the shot you also have to make it to not get a letter). The first person to spell H-O-R-S-E looses.

Equipment:

2 basketballs per basket (12 in total)
Poly spots to mark the spots for around the world.

Follow-up/Homework:

None

Online Class Thoughts

At the beginning of the semester I was very happy to see that there were a few online classes. I have a very busy semester and will welcome any online class so I can get to bed early on Thursday nights. After the first online class I was pretty overwhelmed by all of the parts that had to be accomplished. Plus, it took me much longer to complete the assignments than the time suggestions. I decided that I would much rather be in class then at home spending many hours on work.

As the semester went on I enjoyed each online class. Granted it continued to take me a long time to complete assignments, but each lesson brought new challenges. Each lesson definitely had me doing things that were out of my comfort zone, but if it weren't for the online classes I would have not done this type of work. As I am writing this I am very frustrated that I can not figure out how to get my UBD lesson onto the blog!

After my experiences in this class I would take a class like this again, but I would not take a class that is completely online. I am the kind of person that learns better from being in the classroom, listening to and participating in discussions. I am glad that I had the opportunity to take a class like this and have enjoyed being in it.

UBD Lesson

Creating the ideas for this lesson was not difficult because I use this lesson at least twice a year during my basketball unit. It was different to think backwards, although it makes perfect sense to create lessons this way. There are times when I create a lesson and sometimes don't get the results I desired. When this happens I have to go back and figure out what I did wrong. Using UBD though, you think about your desired results and then you figure out how you want to achieve your them. When writing this lesson with UBD I feel like that I could give this to anyone and they can go teach for me. UBD made me think through more ideas, more than I may normally think about. I have recently signed up to work with the Curriculum Coordinator and other teachers i my district to work with UBD in lesson design and curriculum design. I think it is a great design and am excited to work with it more.

What was difficult was using the UBD format. It would take less time if I used all the categories that UBD did, but used my own format instead.

Results Now

I would like to think that when Schmoker wrote this he was not speaking of teachers that I teach with, or even teachers like myself. There are days when I wake up and am so tired that I would love to roll the basketballs out and let my students shoot hoops, but this is the exact reason why I became a physical education teacher. I wanted to change the idea that some people have, that the "gym" teachers sit on the bleacher all day and read the paper while the kids shoot hoops. So even when I wake up and am tired, I go into school and teach lessons that I know are fun, exciting and worthwhile. I know that if I drove to Montclair on a Thursday night and was given busy work to do for a few hours, I would not be happy, so I would never give my students busy work.

Schmoker speaks about how schools will not improve until administrators begin to work with teachers to truly oversee and improve instructional quality. This I agree with. I do not teach a tested subject, therefore I get left alone by all the administrators. Of course this is great because I do not have to constantly explain why I am teaching a particular unit, but at the same time, administrators do not know what I am teaching. The only clue my principal has to what I am teaching is when she reads my lesson plans.

Fortunately I team teach so my colleague and I are able to bounce ideas off of each other. We though are isolated from the rest of the school, only seeing other teachers when they drop their classes off and pick them up. Not that we aren't motivated to change the phys. ed. curriculum, but I think if my principal visited the gym more and encouraged us to change our program, we would be more motivated to make changes at a faster rate.

Did You Know?

When watching this video it truly puts into perspective how big the world really is, and how each person, though only playing a tiny role, helps to create what the world has become today. These changes are manifesting our worlds the same way it manifested our parents, grandparents, etc. Most of our parents had to learn to use computers when it first came out; when our kids are in their teens, I'm sure there will be some kind of technology that they are using in school that we will also have to learn.

This is a scary idea, but I do not know if there is anything we can do to prepare for it. If we are training our children for jobs that do not even exist yet, how will we know what to change? All we can do is encourage our children to learn everything they can to the best of their abilities, and hope they remember us when they are successful.

In one of the slides it spoke about a supercomputer, which is not even built yet, that will be able to exceed the computation capability the human brain. I recently read a novel titled "The Footprints of God", by Greg Iles, which was about a supercomputer and the capabilities it had that went beyond the human brain. This novel was copyrighted in 2003, which means all these "crazy" ideas already exist, and if they exist they will one day be a reality.

With all this in mind, I don't know if we can prepare for these changes. The best thing we can do is keep on truckin'. When these changes come about, we will have to keep an open mind about them and adapt to the changes as best as we can.