A Five-point Plan for HOT online science teaching

1.       We share successful learning activities (lessons) that have been created and tried by colleague using an online database organized as a cooperative. Our districts buy site licenses. The coop distributes the proceeds to the authors of downloaded lessons.

2.       We submit and choose lessons from the coop’s online database. They are cataloged according to concept, content, and skill (that’s the 3-D) and sixteen other instructional criteria. NGSS’s 208 standards are deconstructed to their underlying concepts for quick access that is still cognitive-based. With the not applicable label, cataloging encompasses any lesson, 3-D or not — after all, 3-D minds-on includes 2-D hands-on and 1-D repetition.

3.       For next week’s lessons, we use the database to choose a concept (from 180! This database spans kindergarten to Advanced Placement) that fits our curriculum, a content topic (from 182!) that fits our individual students’ interests, a context that fits their various home environments, and skills that fit their strengths, preferences, individual access to technology, and available resources and community. A custom search engine finds the closest available lesson to what we want and scrolls down, and up!, to hundreds of options.

4.       Can’t find the perfect lesson? So write it, price it, share it - with the help of the online mentors assigned to all new teacher-authors. For their cut of the copyright, colleagues teaching the same grade and concept are committed to your and your kids’ success. Through an online forum you help teachers implementing your submitted lesson (and giving you ideas on how to improve it). Soon, you’ll become an author-mentor yourself.

5.       It’s all at the curriculum coop