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Retiring the old Big History??

Geoffrey Robinson

Hello,

I'm just checking in to continue a conversation we were having last summer when the new Big History was posted. I thought we had reached a place where OER admin was going to consider keeping both classes up and running. I just saw in a thread that the old version will be done away with in a few weeks.

Now, I did see the Google Drive that was shared with all of the materials. But my concern with not making the old version publicly available seems valid, as it's going to make it harder for those pitching it to high school administrators to get it accepted in the curriculum. In my case, I have many people in my district that would like Big History done away with. Deleting the curriculum from it's online space will give them ammo to possibly argue that even OER didn't have faith in the course. This could be devastating! If you want to promote the new version, go for it! But please please please don't do away with something so many people have spent years building.

Parents
  • 0

    Hi Geoffrey,

    Thanks for the note and the follow-up. I can absolutely understand your concern, but I can promise you we still feel very strongly about the value and importance of Big History, although the look of the course has certainly evolved. 

    When Big History was first created it was intended to be an interdisciplinary course that could be taught in the early years of high school as a way to set up students for success in world history. As the course evolved, additional world history resources were added to the course, and many schools (and it sounds like yours may be one) chose to adopt the curriculum as their world history requirement. 

    Once we began creating world history courses, we wanted to get back to the original focus of the Big History course which was providing student with a framework for all knowledge and the requisite skills needed to be successful in the remainder of their social studies courses. As we reviewed state standards, we saw that not only would Big History fit as a wonderful 9/10th grade course, but it would be even more amazing if middle school students had the opportunity to take on this learning as well. 

    As part of that “return to the roots” we removed some of the additions that made sense when Big History was the only course we offered--namely the science materials and the more in-depth world history content that can be found in our other courses. 

    My suggestion would be to show your administration the new site, including the streamlined lesson structure, the continued emphasis on skills (literacy, causation, claim testing, geography), and an interdisciplinary approach that still addresses all of the major threshold moments.

    From there, you are also able (as of July 28) to look at the unit page and scroll to the bottom in the Teacher Resource section and see a document that links the most used and loved materials from the legacy course now aligned to the new unit structure. When you click on the link you will open up the document as it appears today on the site. It will look like the same experience as before.

    While there are certainly some differences, the foundational underpinning of the course remains the same, as does our belief in Big History. 

    I hope that helps some. If you'd like to set up a time to chat with someone on the team about how to talk about the changes with people in your district, please don't hesitate to reach out to team@oerproject.com and we'll be happy to schedule something. 

    Best,

    Chelsea Katzenberg
    OER Project Academic Lead (and former Big History teacher Slight smile)

  • 0 in reply to Chelsea Katzenberg

    Thank you for all of your help. I was curious if you could provide one piece of information about the old Big History course. In unit 1, when logged in as a teacher, the section next to the right of the resources is labelled with a title and a paragraph offering advice and a link to the community forum, for example Investigation Writing in Unit 2 and Causation in Unit 3. When not logged in that space is occupied by the driving question for students "why do we look at things from far away and close up?" Would you have any record of specifically what Unit 1 said in that space when logged in as a teacher?

  • 0 in reply to Venn DC

    Hi Venn,

    The logged in language for the teacher in Unit 1 was a welcome message that linked to the home page of the community, and welcomed teachers to introduce themselves in the community. 

    Hope that helps, let me know if there are further questions!

    Best,

    Chelsea

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