How
I Develop
Our Curriculum
A curriculum is really just
a master plan that is a combination of several elements. Books might be
an element, workbooks may be another (depends on the age of the student),
software might be, travel may be one of the elements of the curriculum.
Look at curriculum as your "goody" bag of mentoring tools. It
helps you help you take on the role of mentor and enables your gifted
student be the student and the teacher.
In my opinion, you can't
develop a curriculum without considering the learning style of the individual
student and this is why many of the "canned" curriculums fail.
I develop a series of "study guides" that are the structure
to how our "curriculum" works. Each study guide serves as a
road map my student uses to move himself through a topic. Often, he'll
explore the topic further using his own means once he has been started
down a path of uncharted study through these guides. Sometimes he'll even
cross out my "suggested stops" in the study guide. But by starting
this sort of methodology in developing these study guides several years
ago, I have managed to keep my student on a path where he pretty much
works on his own and takes ownership for his own education.
There are many ways to develop
a study guide I suppose. Below are the steps I use
to develop my study guides. These instructions will guide you through
building a study guide like what I use for one topic. Even if you plan
in this way, you still may find yourself (or your student) adding more
time or "subtopics" as you move through the guide you started
with. Keep notes, so you remember what you did.
Always, I
combine these study guides with specific travel and community service
and that is typically what our curriculum consists of. The combination
of these items are described in detail in a document I call a "Course
Survey". I use the "Course Survey" to describe and document
our school year. I have our course surveys in overview form with resourc
lists [here].
My Tools and Methods
My
master plan starts as a series of topics that I'll get from a number of
places. One source I used heavily as a guide for several years was "Home
Learning Year by Year : How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool
Through High School" by Rebecca Rupp. The other
resource I refer to is the "What
Your X Grader Needs To Know" books by
E.D. Hirsch. I also refer to curriculum posted at private
schools so I have a pretty good idea what other kids my students age are
learning. Between the two books and what I know my student prefers and
what he lists as topics of interest I move on to develop the guides we
end up using.
As we moved into high school
age, I began to look at the subject requirements of the universities my
student hopes to get into. One resource that has been very good are the
AP course descriptions at the College Board. You can download PDF files
that describe the various topics:
AP
Central
(is the official online home for anyone interested in or involved with
the Pre-AP or AP Programs.)
Developing
a theme to use in your homeschool is a good way to help keep you on track.Our
homeschool is more of an eclectic one and I use these two themes when
I think about a school year:
My
student... has an evolved sense of humor &
takes pleasure in thinking divergently
In
planning, I look at certain resources as "guides" and others
as simply reference. I rarely use textbooks. There are places where you
can review textbook errors. Daphne
the Science Guinea Pig went once on a the search for Bad
Science. Anyway, Here are the resources I can recommend:
You
Can Develop Your Own Curriculum - Ideas
If you use a purchased curriculum,
eventually, you will want to assemble some sort of curriculum on your
own because often the ones you buy are weak in content for the gifted
and talented student. You'll find that somehow you'll need to "tweak"
whatever "canned" package you buy for your gifted and talented
student. I have found it is just makes more sense to build your own curriculum.
Over
the years, I have had questions where people want to know what their student
ought to know at a certain time. I have found with my gifted student,
we've never been on the "schedule" that is outlined by the professional
educators. This is probably true with most gifted students. But if you
are new to homeschooling, you might feel the need and the curiosity about
what your student "ought" to be learning and when. There are
standards of course, set at a state by state level. Do a search on "Academic
Content Standards" + [Your state name] and you'll find them.
We
are in Ohio, so here are the Academic
Content Standards for Ohio.
An
even better idea instead of state academic standards is to go to some
of the better private schools in your area, you know the ones I am talking
about, and get their curriculum outline. Let them think you are considering
enrolling your student and the information will flow. The best time in
the midwest as "contracts" for private schools are signed in
February is to inquire in the December/January time frame. Inquire when
contracts are due and then collect your information in the months prior
to that.
Resources
I know about: The
Waterford School, The
Cincinnati Country Day School.
If
you a re planning curriculum for High School, check out our "Upper
School" Pages.
List
of other resources that have been recommended:
Steps
I use to develop study guides |
STEP |
EXAMPLE |
1. List Your Topics
Start with a list of topics you want to cover in
your course. Realistically, you can cover one or two main topics
and several related subtopics in a course. It helps if the main
topics are related. In this example, well use the idea of
a Life Science course, with the main topics being
Taxonomy and Cells. |
Life Sciences
Topics: Taxonomy & Cells |
2. Schedule
Get out your calendar and decide how often or how
many hours your student may want to spend on the topic. It works
best for us if there is a beginning and an end. It also helps
if you mentally break up your school year into quarters
or semesters. If you follow a traditional
school year, youll find that it can be neatly broken up
into 36 weeks, so your quarters can be 8 weeks, or semesters can
be 12 weeks. In this example, our Life Science occurs for 1 hour,
twice a week, for a quarter, so that means we will need to develop
16 1 hour-long "sessions". This kind of "scheduling"
also helps you when you bing to think about preparing transcripts
for college entrance. |
Life Sciences: Taxonomy &
Cells
1 hour twice a week |
3. List Your Subtopics
Take your topics list and list all the
important subtopics related to each of your two main topics. |
Life Sciences: Taxonomy &
Cells
Subtopic List
Classification
Cells
Plant and Animal Cell Structure
Cell Mitosis & Meiosis
The Five Kingdoms |
4. Prioritize Your Subtopics
Take your subtopics list
and determine how many classes you want to dedicate to each subtopic.
Put them in the order you want to present them. Remember to leave
time to review or further explore a topic. If you have field trips
planned, allocate for that. If you have a video planned allocate
for that. |
Life Sciences: Taxonomy &
Cells
Classification - 1 Class
Cells - 1 Class
Plant and Animal Cell Structure - 1 Class
Cell Mitosis & Meiosis - 1 Class
The Moneran (Archaebacteria & Eubacteria) Kingdom - 2 Classes
The Protist Kingdom - 2 Classes
The Fungi Kingdom - 2 Classes
The Plant Kingdom & Photosynthesis - 1 Class
Plant Kingdom: Plant respiration - 1 Class
Plant Kingdom: Leaf Pigments - 1 Class
Animal Kingdom (9 Phylum) - 1 Class
Animal Kingdom Invertebrates & Vertebrates - 1 Class |
5. List Your Resources
Develop a list of the resources you want to use.
Restrain, yourself, this list could be endless! For our Life Science
course, we can list Internet (to develop our own workbook), books,
purchased workbook. You will eventually need to research your book
titles and workbooks. |
Life Sciences: Taxonomy &
Cells
Text Resources:
What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch
Teach Yourself Genetics Popular Science Series
A+ Projects in Biology by Joyce VanCleave
Steck-Vaughn Life Science Workbook (Grade 5)
"Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on
Earth" by Lynn Margulis
Life Science: Taxonomy & Cells our workbook generated
from a number of sources. |
7. Research your subtopics.
If you already know what books you will use, youre
probably already in good shape as for the material you want to
present. Review videos. Visit websites you plan to use as part
of the class. |
|
6. List Your Activities
Develop a list of activities you want to incorporate
into your course. This could include crafts, experiments, videos,
reports and field trips. This list grows as you begin to research
your topics. Youll need to prune it back when you put it
all together. |
Life Sciences: Taxonomy &
Cells
Activities
Activity: Illustrate the classification of 2 animals
Lab Activity: Can we observe the parts of animal and plant cells
with a microscope?
Activity: Workbook (Steck Vaughn)
Activity: Internet Quicktime Video Animations: Mitosis and Meiosis
Lab Activity: Grow Micro-organisms
Lab Activity: Yeast Chemistry.
Lab Activity: Mushroom farm.
|
8. Develop Your Syllabus
Build your plan, by combining your selected resources
and activities. |
Life Sciences: Taxonomy &
Cells
Class 1 - Classification
Reading: Life Science: Taxonomy & Cells pgs: 1-2
Activity: Illustrate the classification of 2 animals using the book:
Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth.
Start with the taxonomy worksheet.
Class 2 - Cells
Reading: What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know pgs: 331-335
Reading: Teach Yourself Genetics pgs: 3-7
Reading: Life Science: Taxonomy & Cells Workbook pg: 3-4
Lab assignment: Can we observe the parts of animal and plant cells?
Lab Activity: Microscope work: Observe and record, illustrate. Items:
Cork, cheek cells, blood, plant stem, onion skin.
Class 3 - Plant and Animal Cell Structure
Lab assignment: Can we label plant and animal cell parts from previous
lab?
Activity: Label observations from previous lab using the diagrams
in our work book pgs: 5-8
Reading: Life Science Workbook (Steck Vaughn) pgs 12-13
Activity: Life Science Workbook (Steck Vaughn) pgs 16-17 |
9. Assign Dates to Your Classes
Develop your class calendar by deciding the estimated
start and finish dates. Once you get to the "end" of
your plan, if you are developing a transcript for college entrance,
you will have a tidy way to determine "credit hours"
using this method. |
|
10. Review Your Presentations
Just prior to each class, review what you are going
to present, if you're going to "present" anything and
get the supplies you need for the activities. |
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