The Hoboken Curriculum Committee met on Saturday at the Professional Development Center in Brandt School. The following is a brief summary of each groups accomplishments by discipline.MATHEMATICS- This Saturday we completed the Drafting a Design from the Big Idea for College Algebra. College Algebra is a course for Grade 12 and is an elective for high school students. We also completed our narrative of the vertical alignment for mathematics curriculum. Also, we reevaluated what is needed to be completed for grades 1-5. Team Members: Howard McKenzie, Mary Sifonios, Louis Taglieri, Barbara Teller, Mark Schartner
WORLD LANGUAGE- We gather all materials needed to start drafting the curriculum for grades 9-12 regular and honors classes. We review the summary of the vertical scope for The World Language k-12 curriculum. This summary was printed and E-mailed to Dr. Petrosino for his review and approval. Our group also evaluated various resources that we are planning to use as part of the curriculum for foreign languages. Another important part of today's work was that we revisited the mapping for grades 11-12. Changes were made to the mapping for regular and honor classes in grades 9 and 10. Also, we discussed the possibility of implementing a new textbook for grades 11-12 that will accommodate and serve the needs of students in the standard and high levels of Spanish for our IB classes.
LANGUAGE ARTS- Today the language arts team completed the Big Ideas for the first grade. They will work towards completion of the Big Ideas for second and third grades, thus completing the Primary school curriculum for Language Arts. The middle and high school Language Arts curriculum is complete through eleventh grade. Today we completed the Big Idea in drafting by design for the Contemporary Literature course offered in the Senior year.There are currently four other courses offered in Senior year which have not been begun.
SOCIAL STUDIES- We completed the 1st draft narrative (attached) on the vertical scope of the curriculum.
We continued working on our existing units. We completed the 8th grade. Additionally we created a plan for upcoming meeting, including completing the 10th and 11th grades over the November break.
SCIENCE- The science group completed Unit 2 for grade 2; initiated unit 1 for grade 2; revised Grade 5 units 1-7, revised grade 4 units 1-3, and revised grade 1 units 1-3. Goals: Type up assessment projects for grades 1-5; Complete revision of grade 1 units 4-10; Complete revisions of grade 5 units 8-910; Complete revisions of grade 4 units 4-10. Curriculum Mapping Team: Meghna Patel, Erin Kraven, Kelly Sogluizzo, Veronica Ramos
ARTS- This summer, the arts committee completed the curriculum mapping for grades K-10. We then began to focus our attention on designing units using the IB Middle Years Program unit planner for grades 6-10. This remains our focus as we enter the fall component of this process. For the elementary years, we designed themes for each grade level based on the trans-disciplinary approach that the IB Organization uses in the Primary Years Program. Although the Hoboken School district does not participate in this component of the IB, the framework is a good model and therefore serves to guide us in the development of this part of the arts curriculum. The trans-disciplinary themes that we developed along with the consultation of various elementary education teachers provided us with a plan for mapping the K-5 arts curriculum. We feel that it simultaneously addresses our desire to create meaningful thematic connections within the arts, while at the same time meeting state standards. Our plan as a team this fall is to divide into our fields of expertise and continue writing complete units for Visual Arts, Music, and the Theatre Arts for grades 6-10. Upon completion of this task, the next item on the agenda is to finalize the mapping for grades 11 and 12, after which we will begin working on the units for those grades. Our goal is to have the curriculum completely in place for these grades in order to then go back and begin writing the arts units for grades K-5, believing that if we know where the students should be by the end of grade 12, vertical scaffolding for the early years will align more authentically.
Art: Fran Cohen and Lynn Fusco
Music: Stephanie Safko
Theater/Dance: Jared Ramos
