Curriculum Update 2015: BC Senior Science

Many of you will have heard of the pending curriculum changes to all BC curriculum. These changes started a several years ago with the release of the BC Ed plan. The goal of this revision is to have:

“A more flexible curriculum that prescribes less and enables more, for both teachers and students and a system focused on the core competencies, skills and knowledge that students need to succeed in the 21^st century.”

The K to 9 curricula are now available for interested Districts and schools to begin implementation with full implementation in Sept 2016.

An August 2015 draft of grade 10 and High School courses has been posted at

https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/10-12 and feedback can be provided at https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/online-feedback .

Senior Science Format

The current draft is an “outline” and the courses are not considered “complete drafts (sic) but offer a flavour of what optional courses could encompass.” Implementation of this curriculum is currently scheduled for September 2017.

Many of you will recognize the similar format from the K to 9 science curriculum. First there are the core competencies. All curricula are designed to support the core competencies of and educated citizen: Communication; Thinking; Personal and Social Responsibility. As a side note, I would watch how reporting practice change over the next couple of years to better support these core competencies.

Each grade or course is built around 4 to 6 Big Ideas. These Big Ideas “tell the story of science thorough the concepts featured”. At this point, it’s best to look at these Big Ideas as a work in progress. There is a lack of consistency in how they are written and how “Big” each statement is in terms of scope. I suspect in the next revision the Big Ideas will be more succinct.

Supporting the Big Ideas are the Learning Standards. These standards are broken into two parts: Curricular Competencies and Content. Both parts of the Learning Standards are somewhat limited in scope so the Ministry plans to include elaborations or explanations in future drafts. For the K to 9 science curriculum these elaborations provide limited guidance.  The Curricular Competencies are similar to the process skills found in previous curricula. The Content is similar to current PLO except the statement are not written in an assessable format. This is a serious shortcoming for all curricula and leads to the question: “How do I assess student performance?” Students are expected to ‘do’ and ‘know’, but there is minimal assessment direction from this document. This lack of direction will be a major challenge for Districts. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with the vision of this current round of curricular change, the bottom line is that an ‘A’ will be different in every classroom in the province.

Two areas of interest to senior science teachers will be grade 10 and course structure.

Grade 10

There are two big questions around grade 10: Will there be an exam for this grade; and what do I have to teach? At this point in time the first answer is “YES” and the second answer is in the table below:

Topic	Big Idea
Genetics	Genes are the foundation for the diversity of living things.
Chemical Reactions	Chemical processes require energy change as atoms are rearranged.
Energy	Energy is conserved, and its transformation can affect living things and the environment.
Space	The formation of the universe can be explained by the big bang theory.

Course Structure

The following Table outlines the current and new course structure for senior sciences. Students will still need a senior science course to graduate. Many will welcome the optional nature of this new curriculum and the new environmental science courses. But, it’s not clear how timetables, and consequently funding, will allow for combinations of various courses. It is also not clear how students currently taking Science and Technology type courses will find an appropriate course to reflect their needs.

Current IRP	Proposed Provincial Optional Curriculum
Biology 11 and 12	Biology 11 and 12
Chemistry 11 and 12	Chemistry 11 and 12
Physics 11 and 12 Applications of Physics 11 and 12	Physics 11 and 12
Earth Science 11 and Geology 12	Earth Sciences 11?
Sustainable Resources 11 and 12 Science and Technology 11	Environmental Science 11 and 12

For more detail on each course, please see: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/s_10-12.pdf

Future posts will examine the changes in each curriculum, but in broad strokes only Biology 11 will have significant changes. And of course, Environmental Science is completely new. It is hard to comment on the Earth Science as grade 12 is missing and grade 11 appears incomplete.

Final Thoughts

As a publisher of print and digital resources, my goal is to provide you with the tools to be successful as a professional and help you create an exciting learning environment for teaching science. While this curriculum clearly has a goal of bringing more students to science and allowing them to explore their interests I am concerned that this is being done with insufficient resources. Not having the time and funds to learn, plan and implement this new curriculum is a recipe for continuing the status quo. We will do our part to support you as the classroom teacher. I believe you know we always have had this goal as our main focus when producing resources for a new curriculum. But, it is time for our educational leaders in Districts to demand sufficient resources before passing these new policies along to the classroom teacher. Towing the party line just to get the job done is no longer acceptable.

We’re OK Canada

November 22, 2014

To: Editor, Globe and Mail (not published)

We're OK Canada

This last weekend I visited Ottawa to see my son who is currently attending Carleton University and works as a Page in the House of Commons.  Coming from Western Canada and working regularly in Toronto, I’ve had the chance to visit Ottawa before, and now, after the events of October 22, 2014 and the sad death of Corporal Nathan Cirillo. As I drove up the nation’s capital I wondered if the city had changed. Did the violence of that fall day change the city, the people and as a result Canada?

I have occasionally visited Ottawa since the time I was on a Rotary Club exchange in my last year of high school and over the visits developed a little tradition. Regardless of the time of day, I walk up to the Parliament buildings, wander over to the John A. MacDonald statue and have a chat with stern looking founding father of our country. I do this because I’m a proud and passionate Canadian.  And it’s my way of acknowledging this fact.

On this trip, I went twice to visit Parliament. The first visit was with my son in the evening after dinner. Standing close to the confederation flame we agreed everything looked very similar to pre-October 22. Other tourists were looking at the flame and glancing at the Peace Tower. There was even a group of women, clearly tourists, chatting with the RCMP officer. The second visit in the morning was my usual ritual to Parliament and my chat with John A. While the police presence was visible, I was free to wander around. It was exactly how I remembered it and how I believe it should be. Free and open to everyone.

Perhaps more interesting to me was who was there. I observed all ages, all shades of humanity and all engaged in their personal journey to acknowledge how great a country we live in. Wandering over the War Memorial, a similar scene was repeated over and over. And in some instances hugs and tears were part of the moment.

Upon reflection I realized that no matter where you live in this county, when the appropriate time and place presents itself, you get the significance and you act. We understand the sacrifices of Corporal Nathan Cirillo and many others before him made, we get that being a police officer means you strap on a gun when you go to work and we get the sacrifices many people make daily to move our country forward. Sure we are all busy with life, but when it matters, we are there.

Canada is you, Canada is me, Canada is us.

So, it’s with that last thought I ask our federal political leaders from all parties to remember when you deliberate on solutions to the events of October 22, 2014 please remember that Canada is not determined by the actions of one, but rather the actions of all of us. And that is something that would make Sir John A. MacDonald’s statue smile, even on a cold winter day. It sure did for me.

Cool Idea to Save Printing Costs ....

It’s Your Book: Customization = Personalized Learning

At this year’s BC Science Teacher's conference we were very happy to announce that all BC Science Chemistry, Physics (and soon Biology) can be customized. This means you can make the book, and the digital resources, reflect you and your classroom practice. Tell your story, add your best activities, create digital material to support a flipped classroom or differentiate your instruction to personalize thelearning. It’s now possible with our new BC Science customization option.

We are starting to work with leading science teachers across the province to help them create a print and digital program that meets the needs of their daily teaching needs and the learning needs of their students. It’s a very exciting time and I personally invite you to join us and start building your book for next September.

As with any new process, there are many questions that arise. So, here are a few initial thoughts that are emerging as we begin this process.

What can be customized?

The short answer is pretty well any part of the book. But, the longer answer requires you to consider a few other factors. Each BC Science book is provincially approved which means we are aligned to the existing curriculum. This is important for many schools. So, customization like school name of the cover, additional QR codes, no answer key, partial answer key, full answer key are options you can have without compromising the provincial approval.

For our first year, we are recommending that you add up to 20 pages of your own material rather than consider taking anything out. Once you have year to work through your new, personalized book then you can make the appropriate professional judgments as to what should stay and what can come out of the book. It will also give you time to consult with your District to ensure the use of your book is aligned with learning resource policy.

How is my work copyrighted?

All work you create will be done under a Create Commons license. You can find more information at: www.creativecommons.org. But, from their website the following paragraph describes their role and vision:

“Creative Commons (CC) is a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of free legal tools. Their legal tools help those who want to encourage reuse of their works by offering them for use under generous, standardized terms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who want to benefit from this symbiosis. Their vision is to help others realize the full potential of the Internet.”

But, many of you have asked how is existing copyright different from CC licensing? Traditional copyright means every time a work is created, such as when a story is written or a photograph is taken, that work is automatically protected by copyright. Copyright prevents others from using the work in certain ways, such as copying the work or putting the work online.

With CC licenses, creators can tell the world that they’re happy for their work to be copied, shared or even remixed. When a creator releases their work under a CC license, you know what you can and can’t do with the work. As a result, you can freely copy, share and sometimes modify and remix CC material without having to worry about copyright, as long as you follow the license. It makes sense to me that material created for the use of your students is based shared in this manner. It works for your kids and maybe it will work for other kids in another school. Or maybe it will need to be modified by the teacher so that it works for his or her kids. A CC license allows for this to happen; whereas a traditional copyright would prevent it from happening.

Some key aspects of a CC license that differ from a copyrighted material include the users rights and obligations:

User rights

Every CC license allows you to:

• copy the work (e.g. download, upload, photocopy and scan the work);

• distribute the work (e.g. provide copies of the work to others);

• display or perform the work;• communicate the work (e.g. make the work available on the internet; and

• format shift verbatim copies of the work (e.g. rip MP3 files from a CD or a MP4 clip from a DVD).

Source: Adapted from ‘Baseline Rights’, http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Baseline_Rights

User obligations

When you use any CC material, you must always:

• attribute the creator of the work (for information on how to attribute a work;

• get permission from the creator to do anything that goes beyond  the terms of the license;

• keep any copyright notice attached to the work intact on all copies of the work;

• name the CC license and provide a link to it from any copies of the work;

• where you make changes to the work, acknowledge the original work and indicate that changes have been made.

Source: Adapted from ‘Baseline Rights’, http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Baseline_Right

As part of the development process we work very closely with each teacher to ensure they understand and follow the obligations of the license.

In terms of the CC license, there are six licenses available for use. The following graphic provided by the Australian Creative Commons group is a flow chart that helps decide which is the best license to use.

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16540395/which-creative-commons-licence-is-right-for-me-poster

This graphic from the Creative Commons group describes the different licenses in terms of use. Our default license is a BY license as it allows for the greatest potential of dissemination of the work and use by others. If you feel your work would be better suited under one of the other licenses, we will work with you to determine the best option.

Source: http://creativecommons.org/examples

Can I use other work that is copyrighted?

No, you must contact the copyright holder and discuss with them your planned use. We are happy to work with you and the copyright holder to find a workable solution, but each use of copyrighted material will require you to obtain the necessary approval.

Can I see examples of resources other teachers have included in their books?

Yes, we are creating a database for each course that will reside in the teacher support course located in the Edvantage Science online study guide (www.edvantageinteractive.com/sciencemoodle).

Can I have my own online study guide course at Edvantage Science?

Yes, if you would like to use the existing resources in the online study guide to create your own course, please contact me and we’ll begin the process. If you have purchased a class set or more of BC Science resources there is no charge for this service.

As we progress on this journey, please feel free to contact me with your questions. I will also provide occasional updates here so that you have the most current information with respect to the customization process. I look forward to working with you to create your own personalized BC Science program.