 be able to list all of the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention OR  be able to explain the role of compromise and conflict throughout history using examples from the Constitutional Convention?

 be able to tell you the populations, natural resources, and climates found in Latin America OR  be able to explain the impact of population, natural resources, and climate on Latin America’s role in the contemporary world?  Concepts include:  Global connections  People, places, and environment  Production, distribution, and consumption

 Topic Based  Facts and activities center around specific topic.  Objectives drive instruction.  Focus learning and thinking about specific facts.  Instructional activities use a variety of discrete skills.  Concept Based  Use of facts and activities are focused by conceptual lens.  Essential questions, drawn from concepts, drive instruction.  Facts are learned to understand transferable concepts and ideas.  Instructional activities call on complex performances using a variety of skills.

 Both models value foundation of specific fact- based knowledge and skills  Difference is in culminating focal point of instruction  Topic-based: learning specific facts about a given topic  Concept-based: learning conceptual understandings drawn from the facts  Learning about the relationship between things rather than JUST FACTS.

 Conceptual understandings drawn from and supported by critical content (Erickson, 71)  Basis of conceptual teaching  Provide scaffolding  Standards provide specificity to concepts  This is essence of what students should take from the unit/course

 Units will have multiple EUs  Intended to be broad  Apply to many situations  Apply to different units  Apply to different courses/grade levels  Written in present tense  References theme and is easily tied to specific knowledge from the unit.

 Students will understand that movement of ideas, people, goods, and culture have both positive and negative impacts on the development of societies.  Students will understand that distribution of power in government is a result of existing documents and laws combined with contemporary values and beliefs.  Can be generalized widely across social studies!

 Look at standards for common THEMES or CONCEPTS  What do we mean when we say “history repeats itself?”  Think cause and effect relationships  What causes wars? Why do people create governments? How does location impact a society? What’s important about technological innovations?

 First unit is key!!!  MUST teach the themes to the student  Relate themes to ideas/experiences students already have  EVERY LESSON should got back to one of those themes  Every element in a course is tied to a theme

 Review of the Enduring Understandings and unit connecting themes for the course  Focus on helping students see the relationship of EU’s to their own lives  Make the EU’s relevant to students  Have them give examples from personal experience  Socratic like discussion  Develop examples from :  Historical events  Current events  Course related topics

 Brain learning  New knowledge builds upon previous knowledge  Organized according to some structure  Previous knowledge  Students experience  What they already know about topic  Organizing structure  Enduring Understandings  New knowledge  Standards and elements

 Goal: student understanding of EU’s before starting the course  Provide schema for course material  Up front students know where the course is going  Start with the end in mind (Covey)  Acceleration (Max Thompson, Learning Focused Schools  How Students Learn History in the Classroom National Research Council  Course ceases to be set of units with info to be memorized for a test

“If you study to remember, you will forget, but, If you study to understand, you will remember” - Unknown “It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.” - Alec Bourne