How to break up OER lessons into class periods?

Kevin Grinstead welcome to the OER Project community! Which version of WHP will you be teaching? 

I noticed that the Origins course has been significantly revamped with the newly updated website. The addition of opener and closer activities looks like it's going to be easier now than ever to translate the resources into class periods. For example, I was just looking at the 6.4 lesson on the Black Plague. I would probably do the Contagion activity on the first day, choose either the article or the primary source collection on the second day, and wrap it up with the reflection closer activity on day three. The biggest thing to note is the flexibility of the OER Project courses! You won't be able to fit all the materials into one year, so just pick and choose what works for you and your students. 

Also, if you haven't discovered it yet, the Teacher Resources page has content specific to each state's standards that is really helpful when planning. 

Hi Anne,

I appreciate your response!

I will be teaching 1200-Present. It best fits my standards (Archdiocese of Atlanta) and I love the thematic eras it utilizes. 

I agree with you, I think a lot of it is really flexible and will probably just take some getting used to. I will take a deeper look at the Teacher Resources page as well. Thank you!

Anne Koschmider  has some really good suggestions above. For the 1200 course I would suggest checking out this WHP-1200 Teacher Course Plan, which you can use to help you plan out your daily lessons. Depending on the level of your students you may want to consider that some activities will take longer than others. If you are going to use the OER readings in class with the Three Close Reads for example, usually takes my students about 45 minutes. But I have 80 minute classes, so able to do more than that with them one class period. If I am doing a reading with them I also like to throw in a skills activity in there as well. Let me know if this is helpful and if you have any other questions. 

Hi Tyrone,

Thank you for the further guidance. I have been looking through the course guide, it is a great resource. I will make sure to always account for my students' level as well. 

One more question for anyone with more experience with OER than myself - what do you do for assessments? I like OER's assessments, but I feel like they don't always address the whole unit's content. Do you pair the assessments with traditional tests that cover more content to ensure the unit objective is being met?

I rarely ever just assess for content, but when I do it's usually through stimulus base multiple-choice questions that are usually pulled from a textbook or I develop on my own. Most times though I am assessing for content and skill development so that is usually more writing assessments which can range from just a developing claim, to providing evidence supporting a claim I provided, (usually these range from just sentences to whole paragraph or essays). Doing it piece by piece makes it easier to great as well.

Thank you, Tyone. Your insight has great help as I've been entering this content area and OER altogether. I appreciate it!

Kevin Grinstead You ask great questions!

I think Tyrone Shaw has given great responses as well.

I agree with assessing in small pieces frequently rather than always relying on a comprehensive summative assessment. 

I also think that demonstrating content through the use of a skill is not only a good bang for the buck, but it is also more applicable to life.

Something I might add for pacing is that things will go more slowly and take up more time in the beginning of the course than later on because you will be introducing new skills, routines, and frameworks in addition to content. Once you get past the up-front load, you can plan for more items during your class time.

Last, if you are interested in more traditional/comprehensive assessments to sprinkle into the mix, you must see what Laura Massa   produces. She's amazing! 

Donnetta Elsasser said:

Something I might add for pacing is that things will go more slowly and take up more time in the beginning of the course than later on because you will be introducing new skills, routines, and frameworks in addition to content. Once you get past the up-front load, you can plan for more items during your class time.

Welcome Kevin Grinstead ! Donnetta,  Anne Koschmider & Tyrone Shaw gave some great advice above. I teach BHP, but typically am able to cover 1 or 2 resources per lesson since my class periods are a little over 40 minutes. One lesson can be split up upon several days. Alternatively, two lessons could also be combined into 2 if need be. That's the great thing about OER course materials. There's flexibility in the usage of them! 

I will echo what Donnetta said above. I think it is beneficial for the pacing to feel slower earlier in the school year for all of the reasons she has listed. If you build the OER skills early on, no matter the course, it really helps down the road as you build upon complex academic skills and critical thinking. 

Donnetta Elsasser said:

Something I might add for pacing is that things will go more slowly and take up more time in the beginning of the course than later on because you will be introducing new skills, routines, and frameworks in addition to content. Once you get past the up-front load, you can plan for more items during your class time.

Welcome Kevin Grinstead ! Donnetta,  Anne Koschmider & Tyrone Shaw gave some great advice above. I teach BHP, but typically am able to cover 1 or 2 resources per lesson since my class periods are a little over 40 minutes. One lesson can be split up upon several days. Alternatively, two lessons could also be combined into 2 if need be. That's the great thing about OER course materials. There's flexibility in the usage of them! 

I will echo what Donnetta said above. I think it is beneficial for the pacing to feel slower earlier in the school year for all of the reasons she has listed. If you build the OER skills early on, no matter the course, it really helps down the road as you build upon complex academic skills and critical thinking. 

Thank you for the insight! The procedural knowledge will definitely take awhile... but we will get there! I will keep that in mind.

Kevin Grinstead Of course! Also- I see above you mention looking to balance out your content knowledge. I think that comes with time- but that it is also great that you are in that state of lead learning right now! Some of my best lessons were developed in that stage!

I always find the "view lesson" button super helpful when I am looking to build upon my own content knowledge. It does a good job summarizing and giving additional information to build strong context knowledge.