This course allows students to gain a perspective of our past and our national heritage. Concepts are taught in conjunction with historical events in order to improve student understanding of continuity and change over time. Students examine both domestic and foreign issues and make judgments about their impact on the development of our nation.
The focus is on skills including, but not limited to, our global competencies, historical thinking, inquiry, respectful discourse, analytical reading and writing.
US History 32 Units include:
Unit 1: Slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction
Unit 2: Gilded Age, Progressive Era, WWI, and the 1920s, Harlem Renaissance
Unit 3: Great Depression and World War II
Unit 4: 1950s America, Post WW2, Cold War and McCarthyism
Unit 5: Vietnam, Counter Culture, and the Civil Rights Movement
We are proposing that we move to using the science instructional resource, OpenSciEd, at BMS. Currently we are using STEMscopes.
OpenSciEd is an open education resource; therefore, it is "open" to districts and there is no cost, other than science supplies that may be needed for investigations. There is money in the BMS building budget to purchase science supplies.
This is a high quality instructional resource rated highly by EdReports because of its alignment to the NGSS, it’s coherence and scope, along with its usability.
OpenSciEd is a comprehensive middle school science program that empowers students to ask questions, design investigations, and solutions, and make sense of the world.
The program is:
Phenomenon Based - Centered around exploring phenomena or solving problem
Driven by Student Questions
Grounded in Evidence - Incremental building and revision of ideas based on evidence
Collaborative - WE, the class and the teacher, figure out ideas together
Equitable - Builds a classroom culture that values ideas and learning of all
Each OpenSciEd unit includes an assessment system that offers many opportunities for different types of assessments throughout the lessons.
Every lesson has a lesson-level performance expectation and a three-dimensional learning expectation (Disciplinary Core Idea, Cross Cutting Concepts, and Science & Engineering Practices)
Progress Trackers are included- a way to synthesize the lesson level learning in relation to the unit concepts and phenomenon
There are multiple resources accessible for our teachers:
Teacher Handbook - Provides overviews of features of the OpenSciEd units and resources that are likely to be new to many teachers. Each chapter focuses on a different feature.
Teacher Resources and Tools - Provides a collection of all OpenScieEd tools and resources that can be used and customized for other units.
Professional Learning Materials - There are six different professional learning sessions that support the classroom materials, starting with the Curriculum Launch. All the professional learning resources are Open Educational Resources (OER) so they can be downloaded, adapted, and shared.
The BMS ELA program has been piloting an ELA open educational resource, EL Education- Second Edition selected by the BMS team.
The program:
Includes guiding questions and big ideas, content connections, technology and multimedia, independent research, and optional fieldwork/service and extensions
Requires use of the global competencies: critical thinking, collaboration, discovery, inquiry, and problem solving
Assesses learning through models, reflection, critique, rubrics, and conferencing
Builds equity through a classroom culture that values ideas and learning of all
There are 4 modules per grade level and each module has 3 units and includes supporting materials for teachers and students, including guidance for supporting multilingual learners.
Assessment- Each unit in the 6-8 Language Arts program has two standards-based assessments built in, one mid-unit assessment and one end of unit assessment. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize students' understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.
There are multiple resources accessible for our teachers:
Teacher Guide
Supporting Materials
Student Workbook
Guide for Multilingual learners
Anchor Text Guidance
Curriculum Tools- including conversation cues, language dives, and family letters
There is a listing of required trade books needed. We have been purchasing them using grant funding.
This is a high quality instructional resource rated highly by EdReports. Per the EdReports review texts are of high quality and include rigorous reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language practice. Students have the opportunity to engage with texts and tasks that promote knowledge building and are engaging. Supports for teachers to implement the materials with fidelity are clear and include guidance for differentiating to authentically grow students’ skills.
5. Public Comment (Please note: The Board welcomes Public Comment and asks that speakers please limit their comments to 2 minutes. Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them. The Board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education personnel and students, nor against any person connected with the Bethel Public School System.)
