A two-day introduction to modern evidence-based teaching practices, built and maintained by the Carpentry community.

Software Carpentry lesson that teaches how to use databases and SQL In the late 1920s and early 1930s, William Dyer, Frank Pabodie, and Valentina Roerich led expeditions to the Pole of Inaccessibility in the South Pacific, and then onward to Antarctica. Two years ago, their expeditions were found in a storage locker at Miskatonic University. We have scanned and OCR the data they contain, and we now want to store that information in a way that will make search and analysis easy. Three common options for storage are text files, spreadsheets, and databases. Text files are easiest to create, and work well with version control, but then we would have to build search and analysis tools ourselves. Spreadsheets are good for doing simple analyses, but they don’t handle large or complex data sets well. Databases, however, include powerful tools for search and analysis, and can handle large, complex data sets. These lessons will show how to use a database to explore the expeditions’ data.

The purpose of Design Dilemma is to encourage students to use resourceful and creative behaviors to think like a scientist. Students will demonstrate these behaviors to design and build a suitable structure for a fourth little pig. Although the use of the book The Fourth Little Pig is helpful, the module may be taught without it. This module is meant for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually impaired students, where appropriate.

OverviewThe purpose of Thinking Big is to immerse students in a series of research-based cognitive behaviors that are foundational to school and life success: creativity, logical reasoning, memory, and spatial reasoning.Thinking Big was developed by Frederick County Public Schools and is made up of single-day experiences designed to instruct students in the behaviors and elicit them without additional prompting. While arranged in order of difficulty, lessons may also serve as “stand-alone” experiences throughout the year grouped by cognitive focus. Most lessons use mathematical thinking prompts and manipulatives. The focus of the unit is not on math, but on thinking and reasoningThe lessons have also been mapped to the relevant gifted behaviors that are taught and observed through the PTD Program. There are two scoring guides: one that allows the observer to record the names of those students who exhibit a command of the cognitive behavior(s); and a REPI-aligned continuum, which allows the observer to note the affective behavior that undergirds a student’s high-level completion of the cognitive behavior. This module is meant for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually-impaired students, where appropriate.

The purpose of the module, A Sense of Wonder, is to encourage students to use inquisitive and persistent behaviors as they wonder about their world. The module extends the strategies introduced in prekindergarten. These strategies include using questions to approach problems and identifying attributes to sort, classify, and make inferences. The attribute strategies serve as the foundation for subsequent Grade One and Grade Two Primary Talent Development (PTD) modules. This module is meant for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually impaired students, where appropriate.

The purpose of the module, All About Attributes, is to encourage students to use communicative and perceptive behaviors to think like a scientist.  The module strengthens observation, description, and sorting skills.  The attribute strategies serve as the foundation for subsequent Grade One and Grade Two Primary Talent Development (PTD) modules. Throughout the lessons, students will manipulate materials, play thinking games, and create products. This module is meant for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually impaired students, where appropriate.

This video is simple in its appearance, but it contains a wealth of relevant information about global climate models.

The purpose of the module It Fits is to encourage students to use perceptive behaviors to think like a scientist. The module introduces strategies developed in kindergarten. These strategies include identifying attributes to sort, classify, and make inferences in order to create analogies on collected observational data about our world and are for all students.

The purpose of Making Sense of Our World is to encourage students to use communicative behaviors to relate their thinking like scientists. The module introduces strategies developed in Kindergarten. These strategies include identifying sensory attributes to sort, classify, and compare observational data about our world, and are for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually impaired students, where appropriate.

This Remote Learning Plan was created by Amy Brown in collaboration with Eileen Barks and Caryn Ziettlow as part of the 2020 ESU-NDE Remote Learning Plan Project. Educators worked with coaches to create Remote Learning Plans as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.The attached Remote Learning Plan is designed for 11 Grade, English Language Arts students. Students will begin with an introduction to Willa Cather through autobiographical readings and video.  They will then move to “A Wagner Matinee” a short story written by Willa Cather and either write a short paragraph describing the theme of the story or create a graphic Theme drawing.  The final lesson in this is to read My Antonia by Willa Cather, annotate the chapters, and create various character projects at the end of the novel.   This Remote Learning Plan addresses the following NDE Standard: 12.1.6b,12.1.6h, 12.1.6i,  12.3.1 a, 12.3.1b; 12.3.3a, and 12.3.3b. It is expected that this Remote Learning Plan will take students 7 Weeks to complete.  

The purpose of Preservation Problem Solvers is to encourage students to use leadership and resourceful behaviors to think like a scientist. This module extends the Essential Strategies of Attributes, Questioning, and Creative Problem Solving introduced in Kindergarten and First Grade, is for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually impaired students, where appropriate.

Tremendous Trees or Tree-mendous Trees encourages students to use inquisitive and creative behaviors, to think like a scientist. The module extends the Essential Strategies of Attributes and Questioning introduced in Kindergarten and First Grade. Students use questions to approach problems and identify attributes to sort, classify, and make inferences to create analogies on observational data about our world using this module for all students. The classroom teacher should work with a specialist or special educator to find or develop alternate activities or resources for visually impaired students, where appropriate.

Echolocation is the ability to orient by transmitting sound and receiving echoes from objects in the environment. As a result of a Marco-Polo type activity and subsequent lesson, students learn basic concepts of echolocation. They use these concepts to understand how dolphins use echolocation to locate prey, escape predators, navigate their environment, such as avoiding gillnets set by commercial fishing vessels. Students will also learn that dolphin sounds are vibrations created by vocal organs, and that sound is a type of wave or signal that carries energy and information especially in the dolphin's case. Students will learn that a dolphin's sense of hearing is highly enhanced and better than that of human hearing. Students will also be introduced to the concept of by-catch Students will learn what happens to animals caught through by-catch and why.

Software Carpentry lesson on how to use the shell to navigate the filesystem and write simple loops and scripts. The Unix shell has been around longer than most of its users have been alive. It has survived so long because it’s a power tool that allows people to do complex things with just a few keystrokes. More importantly, it helps them combine existing programs in new ways and automate repetitive tasks so they aren’t typing the same things over and over again. Use of the shell is fundamental to using a wide range of other powerful tools and computing resources (including “high-performance computing” supercomputers). These lessons will start you on a path towards using these resources effectively.