Summary
Blog Post 1- CBCI for the Thinking Classroom - Scheerer
- CBCI Main Points
Learning about Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction has required a mindset-shift for me. I think oftentimes looking at curriculum and instruction from a special education and intervention specialist lens, we see both the broad, big picture of curriculum when we are looking at annual IEP goals and objectives. We often use backward planning or backward design to map our steps and strategies we need to follow or use to help students make adequate progress towards their IEP goals. We also look at planning on a micro level daily, taking tasks and classwork and breaking them down into smaller steps and processes to help students understand concepts and skills daily. In my current position, I am primarily an “inclusion” teacher, following curriculum and instructional plans based on the classroom teachers units and lessons. Since I am not always the one planning those, I have really needed to process what Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction (CBCI) means for students with disabilities (SWDs). One of the main points around CBCI that has influenced me is the idea of critical thinking and transference of skills or ideas. Students with disabilities often struggle to think critically and transfer one idea or skill to another without direct instruction. In developing a unit using CBCI, it seems that transference of skills is purposefully interwoven into the entire unit, teaching with the intent of helping students to make these connections and transfers more naturally, instead of telling them how topics or ideas relate. At first, I thought this was a negative and would be difficult for SWD’s. However, as I learn more about CBCI, I believe that this would actually be a huge benefit for SWD’s as a teacher could design entire units to more easily reach all students with a variety of learning profiles and better develop critical thinking, instead of rote memorization of information. I believe that explicit teaching and integrated instruction of critical thinking and skill transfer would highly benefit all students.
- Define CBCI
Being a new student of CBCI, I see it as an instructional classroom design strategy that teaches students concepts and ideas from a broader perspective, then guides students through a learning process that helps them make connections to these concepts through real world examples. CBCI purposefully designs instruction for students to help them develop and build deeper and more critical thinking skills. This instructional strategy moves away from traditional knowledge-based instruction, where students are taught information to memorize, or teaches concepts in silos. CBCI makes connections across disciplines and connects the process of learning to knowledge and facts. It allows students to take knowledge that is at their fingertips, (through today’s digital world) and build and develop analyzation and critical thinking skills to broaden their ability to better understand topics and ideas. I think of it as helping students independently get to those “AH HA!” moments within your classroom. For example, if you teach history, you could just teach from a more traditional model of providing facts and dates and reasons a war happened, requiring students to memorize and regurgitate those. In this model, they may talk about or touch on relating those ideas to current event or real-world ideas. In this model students do not get opportunities to make those connections themselves and have that light bulb moment, the “AH-HA!” moment of understanding. However, that traditional process is almost reversed in CBCI. A teacher would begin with the big idea or question, leaving students to begin thinking about the concept without all the specific facts. As the unit develops, the concepts are taught in a way that allows students to critically think about how the war was developing, what the landscape looked like, what was happening politically, and a wide variety of topics that can be related to a historical event. Then the more specific facts are woven into the instruction. But in a CBCI model, the focus is critically thinking and analyzing the topic instead of just learning the facts around the topic. This model provides open opportunities for students to make their own connections and have that “AH-HA!” moment, which can be significantly more meaningful in a student’s educational experience. I feel that this approach to instruction engages students more fully in the process of learning and creates additional opportunities to develop critical thinking skills. I also feel that this approach helps teachers to serve a diverse group of learners because information and ideas can be modified and scaffolded to fit unique learners’ needs and explicitly teaches transference of skills, a much-needed area of explicit instruction for students with disabilities. CBCI helps students apply their knowledge to many areas of education and the real world. Ultimately, this broadens a teacher’s abilities to deepen student learning.
- My CONCEPT/PROCESS
The concept/process I will develop for my unit plan is an interdisciplinary unit around the concept of voice. First, I will create a title for me unit. After that, I will decide on a conceptual lens. From there, I will look at what subject areas I can connect to my unit (the web). From that, I will brainstorm a variety of topics and content that I would like to include in my unit. Once I decide on concepts and content, I will begin the process of writing generalizations and what students need to understand by the end of the unit. I will consider how students can purposefully make connections to help them transfer these ideas and skills to other areas. I will also write the guiding questions, or the questions that help students to critically think about the concepts in the unit. These questions will lead to identifying the facts and critical information students need to know to deepen their understanding of the topic and make connections. I will also list the key skills and connect them to academic content standards. I will develop an assessment and paired rubric that effectively allows students to demonstrate their knowledge, critical thinking and how they can make connections to the topic. Finally, I will identify learning experiences and ways to prepare students (no surprises in the assessment!) throughout the unit for the final task. The very last step will be to reflect on the unit and get back to the beginning by writing an overview, complete with a “hook” to grab attention and engage them in the unit.
Overall, my major challenge will be getting started. I do not typically write unit plans as in Intervention Specialist in my building, although I *have* written them previously. I feel as though I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around the entire concept. I am the type of person that feels like they need to understand something fully before diving in and I need concrete and hands-on examples. With this being an online class, I suspect I may need to have a meeting to discuss the process and concept more fully so that I feel more confident in beginning and executing the assignment.
- Threshold Concepts:
- CBCI fosters the threshold concept of “curriculum is more that standards, textbooks, and courses of study.” I believe that CBCI fosters this concept because the strategy is really focused more on the idea of deepening student thinking and critical analyzation of topics, over just learning a standards-based idea from a book or studying a topic. CBC I truly addresses the development of the student as a learner in order to be a critical thinker in today’s society. As mentioned previously I think that with my job as an intervention specialist, i think developing these skills specifically for students with disabilities is very important in helping to create diverse learner communities. When we help students think critically about their world, I believe we can improve student outcomes.
- CBC I fosters the threshold concept of “teachers and students engage in critical consciousness.” If we solely teach from the more traditional model of memorization or superficial understanding, we aren’t fully developing the whole child to be critical thinkers. When we engage students in this idea of critical consciousness, through developing critical thinking in the CBCI model, we help students become aware of how to think deeply. I think that this creates mindful learners and problem solvers. This can impact their ability to address problems and develop solutions to real-world issues. This will help them mindfully engage to learn new or difficult concepts and understand how they can consciously and positively impact the world around them.
https://x.com/cabyington/status/1042909795668320256?s=20
My X post: https://x.com/scheerer71094/status/1708221081545306174?s=20