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For
Curriculum Developers
Collaborative Curriculum Development
The activities of the San Diego Visualizing Earth were developed collaboratively by K-12 teachers in San Diego County and university faculty and researchers at University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University. Early in the development process, the San Diego group chose geology and plate tectonics as the focus for curriculum development. We selected this domain in order to take best advantage of the shuttle images and to complement the weather and atmospheric studies at TERC. The San Diego teachers and researchers used high-resolution NASA Shuttle images as the object of study in a series of geology lessons presented to elementary, middle and high school students. The implementation of these lessons helped us to better understand the ways students use different types of images to learn how to interpret geographic displays, understand differences in fault types, recognize unique geology created by fault action, and understand why volcanoes and earthquakes are associated with fault movement.
Five different classrooms served as "testing grounds" for the San Diego Visualizing Earth activities. In each of the classrooms, a different version of collaboration between university researchers and K-12 teachers emerged during the curriculum development and implementation. The collaborations differed in the roles played by the key participants, but in all cases, these collaborations were organized differently than more traditional models of curricular change. Traditionally, curricular activities are created by individual teachers in their classrooms, but dissemination of these innovations outside of that particular classroom is often limited. In another common model, new curricular activities are developed by professional curriculum writers who provide the fully developed programs to teachers who ideally receive inservice training prior to implementation.
The emerging collaborations in the San Diego curriculum implementation and evaluation activities allowed us to examine new models of curriculum development and identify the factors that affect their organization. In one version of collaboration that emerged, the elementary and middle school teachers chose the instructional content and provided general science instruction, while university personnel served as "guest lecturers" in specific lessons that used visualizations as the focus of the learning. In the second model of collaboration, middle/high school teachers worked with university staff to develop geology activities using high resolution images which the teachers implemented in their own classrooms. And in the third version, university personnel provided technical and assessment support for middle and high school teachers who not only implemented but also led the developed of visualization activities in their science lessons.
A number of factors seemed to influence the nature of the collaboration between K-12 teachers and university staff. Teachers' expertise and familiarity with computers and visual images, as well as their subject matter expertise, seemed to be key factors in how much of the actual classroom instruction using visualizations was conducted university personnel. The computer resources available at school sites directly affected university involvement. At sites with limited access to high-speed network access and computers, university staff needed to provide more resources such as high-quality printed materials to be used in activities, and technical support. Finally, the distribution of responsibilities in the collaboration changed over time. With each successive year of the project, the curriculum design and implementation became increasingly under the direction of the teachers.
Here are the five classrooms in which Visualizing Earth geology activities were developed and implemented by the collaborative team of K-12 and university teachers and researchers.
Grade 3 Classroom of Stephanie Buttell-Maxin
Grade 7 Classroom of Jay Klopfenstein
Grade 8 Classroom of Dave Reynolds
High School Math Classroom of Chris Halter
High School Science Classroom of Anna Wilder - O'Neil
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