The following is a summary of the activities and plans of the Hoboken Curriculum Committee for Thursday, July 23rd, 2008.LANGUAGE ARTS - Team A worked steadily and completed all units for the fifth grade in the revised pyp format. They plan to review and make necessary revision on Monday.Team B continued to work on units for ninth grade,.Looking forward they will conduct research connecting literary works in coordinate to tenth grade themes; Recreated Template for PYP planner; Started and Completed Unit 3; Completed Rubric for Unit 1; Completed Rubric for Unit 3; Began unit 4, 5, and 6
Goals for Monday: Complete unit 4, 5, and 6; Begin unit 7
PHYS ED/HEALTH- Today we completed the Health portion of the Seventh and eighth grade curriculum. Next week we will move on to the primary grades one through four. We will use the PYP format as a guide and we forsee that the template will be helpful.
SOCIAL STUDIES- The group had a very productive day, all but two units in the 6th and 7th grade are complete. Since we reworked the map we all seem to be working quite nicely, and we working well together.We have broken up into groups of two and three to work on units. Thank you for your feedback this morning, it was very helpful.
SCIENCE- Completed rubrics for units 1, 2, and 3 for seventh grade science to correlate with NJCCCS; Completed units for ninth grade to correlate with NJCCCS; Complete unit 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 for first grade; Completed units 1, 2,3, 4, and 5 eleventh grade; Completed formal lab report templates for grades 3-5 and 6-8
Our Plan and Goals: Complete units for grade 1; Complete eleventh grade units and initiate rubrics; Initiate unit plans for second grade.
WORLD LANGUAGE- We corrected and typed Units # 4 and 5 for the 7th grade curriculum. The 7th grade curriculum is now completed and ready to be submitted. Also, we worked on the first two units of the curriculum for the 8th grade. The units themes are as follow:
a. Unit 1-Theme: Community
b. Unit 2-Theme: TV Shows and Movies
In addition, we started to work on unit #3. These units will be revised, and typed on Monday. Also, the rest of the units for the 8th grade will be finalized.
ARTS/MUSIC-
·MUSIC: Completed the general topic mapping of all units in grades K-5
·VISUAL ARTS: Completed the general topic mapping of all units in grades K-5
·THEATER & DANCE: Completed the general topic mapping of all units in grades K-2
Standards and Details
·MUSIC: Completed the detailed table mapping of all units in grades K-5
·VISUAL ARTS: Completed the detailed table mapping of all units in grades K-5
·THEATER & DANCE: Completed the detailed table mapping of all units in grades K-3
MYP Turnkey training- As we finished the mapping fro K-5 and approach planning for 6-10, we began our day on Thursday with a crash course of the MYP Arts guide.
Many questions were answered and misconceptions cleared, for example:
MYP is NOT an honors course for certain students, but a teaching philosophy and method of learning for ALL Hoboken students, grades 6-10.
AIMS are our hopes and desired outcomes that a student may experience through the learning and are not measurable or testable
OBJECTIVES are goals that MUST be measured through assessment; man of the MYP Objectives overlap with NJCCS.
AREAS OF INTERACTION are specific lenses through which a teacher will guide the students’ examination and exploration into a particular subject.
A UNIT should try to address only ONE, or at most TWO Areas of Interaction in a particular unit.
WHY? Imagine putting on 5 pairs of glasses. Do you think you could see clearly? Well, an Area of Interaction should be considered to be one pair of glasses. We put them on to look at a particular topic within a certain subject. It narrows are point of inquiry and helps us focus on a specific way of looking at something. By trying to cram in many Areas of Interaction within one unit, the inquiry becomes clouded, muddled, and the connections are vague and contrived. This does not provide the student with a deep and meaningful investigation into a topic.
OTHER TOPICS
·We addressed the needs of our schools to properly meet the expectations for delivering a successful MYP in Hoboken; these needs will be expressed once the mapping is completed and a comprehensive list can be generated
