Hi Jeannine,

I am a senior at Washington University in St. Louis studying psychology, education, and social systems, and I plan to be a science teacher. The first and most exciting thing that came to mind as I read your post is William Penuel's work at University of Colorado Boulder. I got to speak with him just last night after he gave a talk on our campus. He has developed a framework grounded in systemic inquiry for creating and implementing the sort of STEM curriculum that you described, called Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR). He and his team have put this into practice in their district's high school science courses to design and implement 8 week chunks of curriculum that teach content aligned with state standards through a systems framework. The DBIR model creates structures that support the transition from R&D to actual implementation in schools, and sets up systems that enable continues improvement and collaboration between teachers, district curriculum supervisors, and university researchers and engineers.


This is great work that I hope to soon be a part of, thank you for sharing your ideas!


Sincerely,

Julia Winemiller

From: cle_k-12xxxxxx@simplelists.com <cle_k-12xxxxxx@simplelists.com> on behalf of Kornfeld, Jeannie <xxxxxx@hanovernorwichschools.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 4:32:32 PM
To: cle_k-12xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Subject: CLE K-12 Discussion: teaching high school chemistry using systems thinking
 

I am a chemistry and environmental science teacher at Hanover High School, a public school in Hanover, NH and am currently on a year-long sabbatical to revise the chemistry curriculum so that it is taught in the context of environmental issues using a systems thinking approach. Having spent a considerable amount of time looking for others that have done this, I have not found much. There are a few textbooks that teach chemistry in the context of environmental and societal issues but the curriculum lacks the mathematical rigor and theory found in traditional college-prep chemistry courses. Further, systems thinking is not applied. I am hoping to spend the first four days of the course getting kids familiar with using systems thinking, and then teach the course through a systems thinking lens that increases ecological literacy through a rigorous college-prep chemistry curriculum. So I am wondering if anyone else has pursued this kind of work, is interested in developing such a curriculum and would be willing to collaborate. Respectfully, Jeannie Kornfeld


To unsubscribe from this list please goto http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=csfF2sKF4HwsO20FRxly7uoigIRvhKb8