Week 2

E-126 Week 2

Week 2

Week 2 Lab

1. Go to:http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ent

2. Register if you have not already done so

3. Start a new design in the CCDT

4. Tour the CCDT

5. Explore ALPS and ENT web sites

Week 2

Goals for This Week

• Understand how to select and frame generative topics 

• Be able to identify targets of difficulty for a generative topic 

• Appreciate how to connect a generative topic to disciplinary academic standards and to your "throughlines" for your classroom 

• Consider how new technologies can help make topics more generative • Appreciate how to engage in a learning community with colleagues

Week 2

Activities in Class

1. Discussion of Readings (N&W, TfU)

2. Throughlines—what do you most want students to understand after a year or term in your classroom? 

3. GTs and ToDs 

3. Introduction to Dynamic Earth:  Shamsa's Generative Topics 

4. Brainstorm project topics (small groups) & review guidelines

5. Signup for technology demo/presentations

Week 2

ThroughlinesWhat do you most want students to understand

after a year or term in YOUR classroom?

Overarching goals, themes, or “big ideas” for a course

Understanding goals for particular units should be closely related to one or more of the overarching goals of the course.

Make them explicit

Tend to be rooted in deeply held but rarely articulated beliefs and values about both the subject matter and the teaching and learning processes.

Clarify and revise over time.

Week 2

Examples of Throughlines

What do you most want students to understand after a year or term in YOUR classroom?

• For an American history course: "How does our historical past make us who we are today?”

• For a general science course: "Students will understand that 'doing science' is not the process of finding facts but of constructing and testing theories.”

• For an algebra course: "How can we use what we know to figure out what we don't know?”

• For a literature course: "Students will understand how metaphors shape the way we experience the world."

Week 2

Throughlines

Free write for 10 minutes: What do you most want

students to understand after a year or term in YOUR classroom?

(Post your throughlines in the course web site--> Upload Assignments)

Week 2

Generative TopicsWhat topics are worth understanding?

Characteristics of GTs:

Focus on authentic problems, tasks and ideas

Central to one or more domains or disciplines, and connectedto multiple important ideas within and across subject matters

Fascinating and compelling for students and teacher

Can be approached through a variety of age-appropriate resources, curriculum materials and technologies

“Bottomless”--stimulates continuous inquiry

Week 2

Generative TopicsWhat topics are worth understanding?

Examples of GTs:

In biology: the definition of life, rain forests, dinosaurs, endangered species, global warming, energy. evolution…

In literature: interpreting texts, folktales, cultural influences, multiple perspectives, poetic forms…

In business: ethical dilemmas, interpreting market trends, organizational change, leadership…

In history: maritime disasters, survival, revolution, conflict, power, geography, technology…

In mathematics: the concept of zero, patterns, equality, representations of data, size and scale, estimation…

Week 2

Generative TopicsWhat topics are worth understanding?

“Targets of Difficulty”

Focus on topics that are perennially difficult for students to graspe.g., heat vs temperature, weight, mass and density, paradoxes in history, metaphors in literature

Focus on topics that are particularly difficult to teach e.g., critical thinking, multiple perspectives, grammatical forms

Amenable to leverage of new technologies

Week 2

Generative TopicsCase Study: Dynamic Earth

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are needed to see this picture.

Week 2

Generative TopicsExercise: Brainstorm GT/ToD

Brainstorm project topics in small groups:

o Use language and criteria from readings to discuss what makes your topic generative

o Target of difficulty for the teacher?

o Target of difficulty for the student? 

Week 2

Preparing for Next Class

1. Take the animated CCDT Tour 2. Start a design in the CCDT and add the instructor 

3. Enter your throughlines, GT and ToD in the appropriate section of your CCDT design. Be sure to explain how your topic meets the criteria for generative topics. 

4. Research and enter standards related to your topic 

5. Complete reading for the next class