1. Welcome! High School Social Studies March 17, 2006
Introductions
Welcome them as colleagues
3 “Cs” Acknowledge their commitment , their care and their interest in curriculum

2. In our time together we will explore:
Expectations in Social Studies
An Overview of the Global History and Geography Curriculum
A sample unit of study
The power of team planning
How to bring these units to our schools
Resources on our website
Setting the Context for the Session
In our time together we will:
Discuss our expectations of social studies
Provide an overview of the NYS Global History and Geography Curriculum to familiarize them with it
Introduce them to how we go about planning units of study and our philosophy of instruction (big ideas, students becoming experts and students demonstrating their knowledge and expert status in multiple ways)
Explore a sample unit of study on the Age of Revolution to illustrate these approaches and components
Discuss how you can apply this type of team planning in your network
Introduce our Website ( to look for additional support

3. Exploring the Department of Education’s Social Studies Initiatives
Read the Letter and choose what you feel are the 5 most important bullets
Turn and talk with the person next to you & come to agreement on 3 bullets
In groups of 4 (turn to the people in front / behind you) come to consensus on the 1 most important initiative
Give them the letter
Focus them on the bullets
Have them work independently to choose the top 5 bullets most important
Pair with a partner and narrow it down to three
As a group come down to the one most important thing
Have the groups share out
When sharing connect their answers to what we are doing in the units – so for instance
- Lessons are planned around students needs: we need to differentiate which is why we are creating curriculum that is interdisciplinary and has multiple types of assessment
- Students are active participants in their own learning: You will soon see our culminating projects and see how we are trying to integrate this

4. 3 Stages in Creating a Unit of Study
Stage 1 – Determining Goals
What do you want the students to know?
Stage 2 – Acceptable Evidence
What is the evidence of in-depth understanding?
Stage 3 – Planning Learning Experiences
How will students learn the content and skills?
Stage 1 – This is where we want to get to the big idea – what is it that we want students to know both content and skills – but more so the enduring idea –
The process:
Discuss the Content with Colleagues
Brainstorm the Units Possibilities
Summarize the Unit’s Big Idea
Create an Essential Question from the Big Idea
Stage 2- What is the acceptable evidence
Process: We ask ourselves the following:
What is the evidence of in-depth understanding?
What kinds of assessment tasks and evidence needs will anchor our curricular units and thus guide our instruction?
What should we look for to determine student understanding?
Assessment is ongoing -
We believe that each unit should end in a culminating project but along the way each mini-unit should end in a Regents style exam.
We also believe that you should check for understanding along the way
Stage 3 – Planning Learning Experiences and Instruction
Brainstorm the Teaching Possibilities
Map out the content and teaching points that you want to focus on / go in depth with
Decide what skills need to be taught for the mini-unit assessment and for the culminating project
Develop interactive lessons that build on each other and scaffold toward both.

5. Curriculum Overview Units of Study for Global History and Geography
We have tried to incorporate the UBD philosophy into the HS curriculum – We are going to show you and overview of the entire NYS Global Curriculum complete with Essential Questions, culminating projects and time frames.
1- Give out Global History and Geography Curriculum - Graphic Organizers
Point out that these are the NYS’ units and how we have given a quick look at each one
For the specific content outline (hand out the one on the age of revolutions – we have combined the unit, content and cultural resources) the others are on the CD-rom.
2 –Ask them for impressions of the curriculum (one will say – large, overwhelming etc) Lead to that is why we have provided units of study to help group together the big ideas – which is a more effective way for students to understand – These units are different then the old resource guides as they are not lesson by lesson but get at the heart of the big ideas.

6. Age of Revolutions A Sample Unit of Study
Stage 1 – Determining your Goal
Page 6,7,8
Stage 2 – Acceptable Evidence
Page 9, 26
Stage 3 – Planning Learning Experiences
Page 14, 15, (16-25)
As we stated – so far we have fully created one unit which is posted on the website – The Age of Revolutions – we are going to walk you through it to show you how the three stages look in reality.
Page 6 –Determining your goal – Content goals from the state
Page 7- The big idea of the unit according to the teachers who wrote it – as well as the Essential Question
Page 8 – Skill and Content outcomes
Page 9 Culminating Project – While each Mini-unit will end in a Regents Style exam – the entire 14 week unit will end in a project – the Revolutionary Mural
Page 26 – Sample Mini-Unit assessment – regents style exam – thematic essay
Planning for learning experiences –
Page 14 – The first step in beginning to write a mini-unit is to do a collaborative interdisciplinary brainstorm – which we are going to do together later on – note that its purpose is to get the ideas flowing of what is possible.
Page 15 -We only did one mini-unit in this with the hopes that schools see this as a sample to use this as a guide – as you will notice this page has content focusing questions on the Mexican Revolution, explains the content, process and skills - all of this scaffolds to the Mini-Unit and Culminating assessment.
Wiggins's 2nd stage is to think of what is the acceptable evidence students will need to show to demonstrate their mastery of the goals you set forth
This process of working backwards (creating the culminating project) is not easy but – if done then you can really devise a culminating assessment that is valuable, rigorous, and will guide the instruction for the unit
Explain how the NYC DOE units combine two types of assessments – Regents Style exams for each mini-unit to show mastery of the pieces as well as culminating project at the end of the big “mega” unit.
Refer to culminating Project in the Age of Revolutions Unit – A Revolutionary Mural – This is not just a poster but their panel they create has to have …. In addition they have to collaborate and understand a second revolution so that they can create a center panel that compares and contrasts the two. Thus the mural. Beyond the mural there is also a writing assignment.
Continuing on with the third stage –
1- Now that teachers have brainstormed the possibilities and have reviewed the State’s content – They have to decide what they want to focus on – As you saw from your brainstorms – there are endless possibilities in Social Studies – But what makes sense with the EQ, and what makes sense with my students -
2- With the content in line we need to think about skills the students will need to be successful on the assessments – both the mini-unit assessment and the culminating project –

8. Stage 3 Planning Learning Experiences and Instruction Begins with a
We thought it would be useful for you to experience the benefit of team planning so we decided to have you engage in the brainstorm the Teaching Possibilities activity – We encourage this as the first step in stage 3 – planning the learning experiences.
Hand out Brainstorm web and the one-pager on industrialization.
2- The brainstorm is a purposeful activity as it begins the content conversations. i.e. What is important about this mini-unit? What message do I want to get across? With the free flow of thoughts people will see that there are many directions in which they could go
Give the Group 5-10 minutes in groups to brainstorm the Mini-Unit Industrial Revolution –
Model an idea that could go into a box.
Have someone else offer a suggestion for another box.
Let them refer to the content outline and the one pager for background if needed. Let them work for 10 minutes brainstorming some ideas
And then have them present
Have them share out some ideas for the mini-unit –
Ask them what they felt about this process.
The point you want to hit – is that this brainstorm professionalizes teachers, gets them excited about the content, and also shows them that there is no way to do everything but it serves a purpose as a starter. Most of what went into the brainstorm will not be used in class.
In addition this is a process that requires infastruture and time. .

9. Reflecting on the Planning Process
How did you feel about being part of the brainstorming process?
Why is team planning important?
If possible some things to stress are:
So we are saying that their schools will need time but it is worthwhile and more so effective!
Effective instruction takes planning time
Well thought out curriculum is rigorous, interdisciplinary, inquiry driven and is designed to around the needs of the students

10. Applications What does this mean for Your Network?
How can you help your schools move in this direction?
You experienced a bit of what we see as effective planning –And you see that it took a while –
How can you help your schools make time for this and make this a priority – what support can you give and what do you need from us
Let them turn and talk to each other about this and share out

11. Are there any barriers you might face? How can you overcome them?

12. What is One Thing You can Do Instantly?
Have each person write down one thing they can do instantly to make this happen –
Have a few share out

13. www.nycsocialstudies.org www.nycenet.edu/socialstudies
Our website – has a plethora of curriculum support, materials for Administrators, resources etc.
There are two urls you can use

14. Inside you Will Find…

15. Any Questions? Hadiya Daniel-Wilkins – SS RIS Region 6
Phil Panaritis – SS RIS Region 2
Lainie Leber – High School SS Instructional Specialist – Tweed