Transcript Teachers - Big History Project

PRESENTER INSTRUCTIONS
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•
This slide deck has notes! PLEASE READ ALL THE NOTES BEFORE PRESENTING. Use the notes as a script, if
you like.
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We've designed this presentation to provide the raw materials any teacher might need to describe the Big History
course to administrators, parents, and other teachers.
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You should customize and tailor the presentation as needed.
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You should update Slide 8 to reflect how the course would function in your specific environment.
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Slides 12, 13, and 14 each illustrate a sample deployment type for the Big History course (year-long, semester,
world history). You might want to delete two of the slides and only keep the one that best reflects your intended
deployment.
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BIG HISTORY PROJECT / COVER PAGE
1
The
Big History Project
Introduction to BHP
Presentation overview
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What is Big History?
Course overview
Website, teacher resources, & online community
BHP student writing data
Standards alignment
Teacher testimonials
What is Big History?
WHAT IS BIG HISTORY?
A social studies course covering 13.8 billion years of shared history.
• Big History weaves evidence and insights from many disciplines across 13.8 billion years into a single, cohesive, science-based origin story.
• The concept arose from a desire to go beyond specialized and self-contained fields of study to grasp history as a whole.
• Big History explores how we are connected to everything around us and where we may be heading.
• It provides a foundation for thinking about the future and the changes that are reshaping our world.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / INTRODUCTION
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What is Big History?
WHAT IS THE BIG HISTORY PROJECT?
A collaborative effort to create a Big History course for middle- and high-school teachers everywhere.
• Complete, free curriculum including assessments, lessons, and hundreds of diverse content items.
• A website that provides easy access to course materials for educators and students.
• Training and professional development opportunities, resources, an online professional learning community.
• Active community of teachers who keep the course fresh, impactful, and connected.
• Advocacy organization to support schools and districts seeking to deploy the course.
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What is Big History?
WHO IS BEHIND THE BIG HISTORY PROJECT?
1
Teachers and Schools
The engine behind BHP: The course is built in conjunction with a core set of pilot schools, both public and independent.
2 University of Michigan
Research partner: Manages student data (always anonymous!) and drives course strategy.
3 Experts / Guest Lecturers
Broad range of experts on cutting edge of their fields – Walter Alvarez, Janna Levin, Skip Gates, John Green, and many more
share their perspectives throughout the course.
4 David Christian and Bill Gates
David Christian was one of the pioneers of Big History, and his college-level course inspired Bill Gates to explore a collaboration
designed to bring Big History to high-school students everywhere.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WHAT IS BIG HISTORY?
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What is Big History?
WHY OFFER BIG HISTORY?
It’s a unique opportunity to engage students in a powerful learning experience that prepares them for broader, more
integrative thinking.
1. Interdisciplinary: weaves together elements of traditional history, science, and twenty-first century skills
2. Common Core aligned: we engineered the course to deliver on CCSS ELA standards for ninth and tenth grades
3. Innovative online model: makes distribution easy and engages multiple learning styles
4. Flexible: modular curriculum can be adapted to fit school-specific needs spanning PBL, STEM, ELA, world history, and more
BIG HISTORY
BIG
HISTORY
PROJECT
PROJECT
/ INTRODUCTION
/ WHAT IS BIG HISTORY
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What is Big History?
COURSE THEMES
Our students are the next generation of expert thinkers and problem solvers. They need to confront the biggest challenges we face – and
succeed. BHP’s course themes lay the foundation to take on these challenges and ignite a passion for inquiry and exploration. Every student
needs to be able to execute the skills and comprehend the concepts below throughout the course.
ESSENTIAL SKILLS
CORE CONCEPTS
THINKING ACROSS SCALE
THRESHOLDS
INTEGRATING MULTIPLE DISCIPLINES
COLLECTIVE LEARNING
MAKING AND TESTING CLAIMS
ORIGIN STORIES
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WHAT IS BIG HISTORY?
See notes below for more details
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What Is Big History?
BIG HISTORY AT (YOUR SCHOOL)
Target grade: For example, ninth/tenth grade elective
Teachers:
Approach: Pre-AP preparatory; designed to prepare students for AP US and world history by providing background and
emphasizing core skill development.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WHAT IS BIG HISTORY?
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Course overview
COURSE STRUCTURE
The Big History course covers 13.8 billion years of history
Split into two sections, spanning 10 units
1. Formations and early life: theories and evidence of origins of the Universe, planet formation, elements, and life.
2. Humans: the development of humans, civilizations, and key milestones in our progress.
Formations and early life (35%)
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
What is
BH?
The Big
Bang
Stars &
Elements
Earth &
Solar System
Humans (65%)
Unit 5
Unit 6
Life
Early
Humans
Unit 7
Unit 8
Unit 9
Agriculture &
Civilization
Expansion &
Interconnection
Unit 10
Acceleration
The Future
Research Paper and Presentation
Pre-Course Survey
Writing
Assessment 1
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / COURSE OVERVIEW
Writing
Assessment 2
Writing
Assessment 3
Post-Course Survey
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Course overview
COURSE CONTENT
VIDEOS
LEVELED TEXTS
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / COURSE OVERVIEW
ACTIVITIES
LESSON DOCS
INFOGRAPHICS
PBL ACTIVITIES
UNIT INVESTIGATIONS
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Course Overview
APPROACH TO READING
See the notes below for an overview of our approach
to reading, and check out the full reading guide here.
Three close reads - assumed
All texts are leveled across multiple Lexile levels
Videos include notebooks and transcripts
BHP has partnered with NEWSELA to level all of the
articles in the course. Each article is available in at
least three Lexile levels, which allows readers at
different ability levels to access and synthesize
content.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / COURSE OVERVIEW
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Course overview
APPROACH TO WRITING
Big History is a course with a lot of writing. We ask students to keep a journal. We ask them to
write both formally and informally in a number of our activities. We ask them to write essays. At
the end of the year, we ask them to write a lengthy term paper as part of the Little Big History
project.
However, perhaps the most important writing activities in the course are the Investigations at the
end of each unit. Modeled after Document Based Question assessments (DBQs), these activities
mimic the kinds of instruments your students will see on the SATs and other increasingly
common performance assessments.
Check out our full writing guide here.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / COURSE OVERVIEW
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Course Overview
APPROACH TO ASSESSMENT
Consistent writing and presentation rubrics
Activities repeat and reinforce
Practice quizzes for lessons
Little Big History project
Investigations
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / COURSE OVERVIEW
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Course Overview
SAMPLE COURSE PLAN: YEAR-LONG
Click here to see the full year-long course outline & details
Course Overview
SAMPLE COURSE PLAN: SEMESTER
Click here to see the semester course outline & details
Course Overview
SAMPLE COURSE PLAN: BHP WORLD
Click here to see the BHP World course outline & details
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BHP website, teacher resources, and community
WEBSITE MAIN PAGE
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WEBSITE, RESOURCES, AND COMMUNITY
See notes below for more details
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BHP website, teacher resources & online community
UNIT PAGE
Each unit has its own page, which is divided into rows that represent
lessons. The unit view provides the highlights of each lesson so you can
quickly jump to different content elements, and access them individually.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WEBSITE, RESOURCES, & COMMUNITY
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BHP website, teacher resources & online community
TEACHER RESOURCES
The Teaching Big History unit is an online course, designed to help
teachers:
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prepare to teach BHP
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covers the big ideas of BHP
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the instructional practices
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the program details,
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and the BHP Teacher Community.
We worked with our BHP teachers and the University of Michigan to
develop the scripts and articles for the course so that it reflects the
latest thinking about teaching social studies and has a strong
classroom focus. We’re hoping this course will give teachers a
running start to the year.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WEBSITE, RESOURCES, & COMMUNITY
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BHP website, teacher resources & online community
See notes below for more details
BHP TEACHER COMMUNITY
When you start teaching Big History, you join a
dynamic, global community of educators who are
working toward the same goals. It’s a complex
course and there is no reason for each teacher to
reinvent the wheel.
Request an invite to the community here.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / WEBSITE, RESOURCES, & COMMUNITY
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BHP student impact data
BHP WRITING DATA
The University of Michigan documents
BHP’s impact on student writing.
Results of the University of Michigan
study indicate that the Big History
course has a positive impact on
student writing across a number of
areas. These areas include cohesion
around claims, purpose, and
reasoning; the use of evidence and
data to support arguments; and
writing quality and mechanics.
One the right is a snapshot of student
writing growth as demonstrated on the
Big History course Investigations.
Click here to see the full write-up from
University of Michigan.
0.3%
100.0%
90.0%
2.5%
13.2%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
0.2%
8.6%
0.5%
14.2%
27.4%
36.9%
40.0%
50.0%
45.3%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
36.0%
47.1%
10.0%
18.5%
9.3%
0.0%
Wave 1 N=1518
1 Inadequate
2 Developing
Wave 2 N=805
3 Proficient
Wave 3 N=1088
4 Skilled
5 Exceptional
Student writing scores on BHP Investigations. Investigations are DBQ-style writing activities.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / BHP STUDENT IMPACT DATA
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Standards alignment
Click here to see our full standards alignment document.
See notes below for more details
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
Common Core State Standards for Literacy (CCSS)
Connections to CCSS are embedded throughout the course. BHP provides a variety of readings and activities, along with
a variety of instructional practices that ensure students are able to meet all of the elements of the four key CCSS
standards (key ideas and details; craft and structure; integration of knowledge and ideas; range of reading; and level of
text complexity). See the full standards doc for mapping of BHP activities and resources to CCSS.
Framework for College, Career, and Civic Life (C3)
BHP addresses all of the dimensions of the C3. Some activities address multiple dimensions, while others are more
directly related to a singular dimension. In the full standards doc, activities are mapped to the dimensions to which they
most directly relate.
State and institutional social studies standards
BHP has created a series of documents that illustrate course alignment to state and institutional level standards. This
growing list includes: California, New York, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Washington, and Arkansas.
World history standards
BHP is often treated as a replacement for world history in schools, which is appropriate given BHP’s scope. During
the 2014/15 school year, numerous activities, articles, and videos were added to BHP to address gaps specifically
related to the National World History Standards. The performance outcomes that are part of world history standards are
easily met by the BHP course. BHP has done an extensive mapping of the course content to the National Standards.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
Big History is not a science course. However, scientific ideas are introduced throughout the course to support students’
historical analyses and understanding. The NGSS were designed to support students in gaining understanding of core
ideas in the sciences through participation in the scientific practices. BH is well suited to support students understanding
of core ideas in Earth and space sciences. See notes for more details.
International Baccalaureate
BHP has partnered with IB to align the Big History curriculum to IB’s Middle Years Program. The two approaches complement each
other very well. Email [email protected] to request our BHP-IB alignment guide.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
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Teacher and student testimonials
“[BHP] has some of the best lessons I have seen in my 20
years of teaching. I am seeing [a gradual] improvement in
writing as students progress through the curriculum and
revisit the practices and skills that make good writers. “
“…we have seen an improvement in APUSH scores from
the students who took BH the previous year, and writing
skills have improved across the board. Great things all
around!”
-Sharon Padget
-Bridgette O’Connor
“I have seen tremendous growth in my freshman students’
abilities to write thoughtfully, using reason and evidence,
which I know sets them up for future success in all their
future high school and college courses.”
”’I cursed those Investigations while I was doing them, but
that process has saved my hide in honors history this year.’
Yes!!”
-Student quote via Jami McLing
-Andrea Wilford
[One of the] most attractive aspects of BHP [for teachers is the active
community on] Yammer! A lively, helpful backchannel of guidance,
resources, ideas, support -- with administrators and teachers helping
each other, contributing to the feedback loop and, in turn, helping to
shape and improve the course .”
-Lisa Kapp
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / TEACHER AND STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
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THANK YOU
BIG HISTORY PROJECT