The understanding of what constitutes effective practice in STEM education and how to support it is still developing, as it is a brand-new field. The present research describes the design capabilities of pre-service elementary school teachers, when they design collaboratively STEM activities. These designing experiences occurred in a context of a…

This practical resource takes educators through a planning process--from selecting standards to designing learning activities--that weaves together language, literacy, and science in ways that are responsive to emergent bilinguals. Drawing on extensive and current research, the authors show how secondary educators can use students' own language…

This paper describes a student-staff partnership to design learning activities and assessments for an undergraduate Film Studies course. Four students and three staff designed the new assessments and learning activities to develop students' knowledge and skills to produce a video essay. The new assessments were co-developed in semester one so that…

Goalball, a sport designed for those with visual impairments, is a competitive and recreational sport enjoyed by athletes around the world. Students with and without visual impairments can experience positive outcomes when teachers appropriately include a goalball unit as part of their inclusive secondary physical education curriculum. This…

The second edition of "Words and Actions" features an expanded framework, a variety of new unit, lesson, and activity examples from different languages and levels, and additional content on how social justice education fits within the context of contemporary approaches to language instruction. The revised text provides concrete examples…

At the intersection of social studies and world language curricula are opportunities to explore students' prior learning with vocabulary-rich content designed to support language acquisition goals. "Funds of knowledge" is defined as socio-cultural, economic, and historical knowledge from home and community settings. The instructional…

This paper uses the discourse of complexity thinking to envision curriculum as six partial and coupled facets that exist simultaneously: curriculum as structure, curriculum as process, curriculum as content, curriculum as teaching, curriculum as learning and curriculum as activity. Such a curriculum is emergent and self-organising. It is emergent…

How does teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) inform their instructional planning? How can this knowledge be enhanced? In an interpretivist study of experienced secondary social studies teachers' planning, we sought to discover clues to the nature and development of these teachers' TPACK-in-action as it was expressed in…

This study compared the efficacy of 3 approaches to professional development in middle school Earth science organized around the principles of Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) in a sample of 53 teachers from a large urban district. Teachers were randomly assigned to a control group or to 1 of 3 conditions that varied with…

From the kitchen sink to the U.S. defense weaponry systems, minerals play a role, and this role should be identified and studied by both elementary and secondary students in geography courses. The basic design for a unit of study is discussed and learning activities are described. (RM)

Presents a unit consisting of 4 lessons which focus on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s childhood, his adult life and family, his civil rights work, and the national holiday which commemorates his birthday. Each lesson features specific objectives, learning activities, and instructional guidelines for the teacher. (TRS)

Community history units can provide a framework for elementary economics instruction. The DePaul Center for Economic Education developed a unit on Chicago's economic history. It includes strategies for collecting and organizing content, locating resource people, and developing materials. (AM)

Discusses the use of children's literature to achieve elementary school social studies curriculum objectives. A sample lesson plan involving literature is presented which uses the concept of interdependence as a base and suggests a number of related books which develop the theme from the perspective of social environment. (SDH)

Initially designed for social studies students in grades 4-6 in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, the purpose of the unit is to help students see the relationships among all the workers and natural resources within the state. It is also intended to help students realize the ways the area in which they live is affected by the climate,…

Offers a unit for sixth graders on consumer education. The unit includes a collection of activity ideas for teaching about money, goods and services, smart shopping practices, and advertising. Includes a brief list of printed and organizational resources. (JDH)