Bill Robertson, Ph.D. - Classes
Teacher Education Department

SCED 3311 - Curriculum Planning in Secondary Schools - Mid- Term Assignment

Task

You are tasked with planning, researching, and developing a framework for an appropriate grade level activity in your specific content area. This designed activity and its brief presentation (10 minutes max) will be your Mid-term assignment. The purpose is to have you create the outline for an inquiry based topic that would be appropriate for you to use in your current classroom. You should plan to integrate pedagogical techniques including Socratic questioning, cooperative grouping, constructivism and other methods in your framework as your prepare your activity.

Product – Design Activity

The activity that you present must focus on specific TEKS standards in your content area. The design of the product should encompass the use of the initial phases of the backward design framework, as outlined in Chapter One of The Understanding By Design Handbook. You should include a title for your activity, identify the specific TEKS that you are addressing in the activity, provide a brief introduction (or hook) to engage the learner, explicit descriptions in establishing the curricular priorities, as well as extension explorations and questions that engage the learner in making connections to real world situations. Additionally, you need to provide a 300 word reflection on how you believe you could best use this activity in the classroom and the appropriate methods you would use in order to present this as the instructor. The methods and resources outlined in class and in The Case For Constructivist Classrooms might be helpful in preparing this overview. Each student will have 10 minutes to present the foundations of their activity and its design in class.

Evaluation

The evaluation for your Mid-term grade will be based on the product that you develop and your presentation in the classroom. There will be a mid-term evaluation rubric that will be used for the evaluation of the product (specific demonstration that you do for the class – please remember to present a write up for the instructor). The final score that you receive will be out of a total of 90 possible points.

Midterm Evaluation Rubric- This rubric will be utilized in order to assess the design and content of midterm project in a classroom setting and your classroom presentation.
UTEP College of Education