BASH Weekly #9
November 29, 2010

Exam Schedules

Tuesday, November 30- English, Science, Physical Education
Wednesday, December 1- Social Studies, Art, Geometry
Thursday, December 2- Health, Spanish, Integrated Algebra
Friday, December 3- Make up day for those with proper documentation

Great Resource for Historical Documents Online

Primary resources.

Late Work Policy

Please email to Mr. Link by December 2nd. Thanks.

Differentiated Lesson Plan

Please email to Mr. Link. Many are still outstanding. Thank you.

Enduring Understandings

 I’ve noted that there is a bit of struggle going on with regard to Enduring Understandings and unit design. IF you can make a direct connection to our Mission Statement (To inspire student voice in academics, community and self-advocacy), then do so. Otherwise, please consider the following.

Enduring Understandings are statements that refer to the important ideas or core processes that are central to a discipline and transferable to new situations. The ideas and understandings are transferable because they have enduring value beyond a specific topic.

Enduring Understandings specify what BIG IDEAS we want students to come away with understanding.

They clarify the focus of our teaching and connect with our mission and values as a school body.

Samples

  • Social Studies:  Students will understand that HISTORY (the study of the human past) is based on primary sources.
  • Science: There are patterns in the periodic table that are related to atomic structure and can be used to determine how atoms behave and interact
  • Math: Simulations can help us to investigate complicated statistics problems.
  • Language Arts: The use of literary elements in literature allow the reader to more fully appreciate the details and shades of meaning within a text to gain a deeper understanding of both the purpose of a text and message of its author.

Curriculum mapping is really about knowing why you teach what you teach to raise student achievement. This is our professional responsibility. You have considerable freedom in what you use to hit performance targets. Once you define the targets based on data, it is much easier to accomplish our collective goals.