Curriculum development, like many things, is a cycle. When I first started my job, we were towards the beginning of the cycle. I got to see many projects develop from an idea ("Let's write a unit for third graders about light!") all the way to a finished product ("Wow, we wrote a 600-page behemoth of a teacher's guide. Could this break someone's ( Read more... )

Science gets heavier.

I found this sentence in one of our teacher's guides:

Explain to students, "You will meet with other experts on that planet or moon to discuss the conditions there."

Not saying which brilliant curriculum developer wrote that and didn't notice that it sounds like the kids will be sent to Mars for a meeting. Nope, not saying.

The project I work on was recently funded (yay!) to move from elementary schools into middle schools. We're doing a lot of research and talking to a lot of people as we get started. So far, I have gotten the following message ( Read more... )

Seriously, I am asking this question for real: if you could do anything, what would you want to do?

Forget making money, forget practicality, forget what you're trained to do or skilled at, or even the laws of physics -- what do you actually want to do? I honestly would like to know ( Read more... )

Me: This unit I am editing is driving me crazy. And everyone is on furlough so there is no one around to answer my questions ( Read more... )

(I forgot to renew my paid account, so I can't actually make a poll, but ( Read more... )

...where I have to go to the Scary Reading Conference and present papers that involve complicated statistics I don't understand. I am usually an author on these papers because I wrote the "intervention," i.e. the curriculum in question, which is great and all, but I am expected to have at least some level of familiarity with what happened beyond " ( Read more... )

Kid: Hey, are you the science lady ( Read more... )

"If Canada is above us, how come we don't see it when we look up?"

Whoa.