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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action

James Waller
PME 831-001

Taking a Risk That Addresses My Goals

Taking a risk through innovating my curriculum planning should be an attempt to work
towards my desired next steps from earlier in the course. I wrote there about the nature of my
role as an ICT Educational Specialist, the changes to the Ontario curriculum with which I work,
specifically the Algebra strands that have been updated to include coding, and the challenge that
it would be to get teachers and students without a coding background on board. This is
exacerbated by the fact that I, myself, have a very weak background when it comes to coding, at
least on the written language front.
Through my readings in the course, and some recommendations from peers, I found that
one framework would actually address some of my concerns with this step forward. It was the
Critical Thinking Framework, specifically outlined by Garfield Gini-Newman and Roland Case.
The concepts of instilling wonder in the students, integrating elements of an inquiry based
approach, offering clear objectives and beginning from powerful questions that would
emotionally invest my students would be key elements from the framework of critical thinking
that could potentially get my coding units to where they need to be.
This does feel like a significant risk to me, as the easiest route to go to implement
scaffolded coding (we’re helping develop this for Grade 1-Grade 8 and trying to ensure it carries
on to the design and computer science courses in Grade 9-12), would be simply to follow an
existing scaffolded coding skills program. Something along the lines of a www.code.org where
you can find all of the skills required by the new curriculum (concurrent events, nested events
etc) and activities are offered at increasing levels of difficulty.
For me to begin with my own powerful questions to connect the students to an emotional
problem in relation to coding seems tangential, and opens up the inquiry options for students to
take this in multiple different directions - web development, app development, game
development, robotics programming etc). This could get messy and there’s a high chance for
failure. I also have to get my new ICT partner on board, and so I will use him to evaluate the
strengths, weaknesses and overall effectiveness of including a critical thinking approach to our
units.
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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action
James Waller
PME 831-001

Critical Thinking & My Current Practice - Examples in Action

One of my goals, and one of the reasons I was so interested in this course at this
particular time, is that we are rolling out our new Ontario Mathematics curriculum next year and
this will include the coding expectations, which will need to be taught and assessed from Grade
1-Grade 8. In my role as ICT Educational Specialist, I will have a big influence on how this is
rolled out to teachers and students and I want it to be something unique, engaging and
meaningful. Many of the teachers and students have no background in coding, and this seems
like a daunting task to them. That is why I think the critical thinking approach works so well
here. I could immediately make it an authentic, valuable experience by incorporating the
following elements:
- Begin with powerful questions that inspire wonder and connect emotionally
- Include an inquiry approach where students have choice in solving the problem
while learning the basic skills from the curriculum
- Provide an authentic audience to give meaningful feedback and allow for re-design

Starting with the first one, this idea comes from both the writings of Gini-Newman and
Case. In his piece “Inspiring Wonder Through Learning and Thinking”, Garfield Gini-Newman
states that studies show the longer students are in school, the less they want to be there. The
answer to this, in his estimation, is to do a better job instilling wonder in our students through the
problems we offer them to solve (Gini-Newman). On the other side of this, Case offers a
potential solution to how to do this. In his piece, Bringing Critical Thinking to the Main Stage,
he offers the opportunity to engage through powerful questions, which he describes as questions
that “give you lots of information, are specific to the person or situation, are open-ended – can’t
be answered by yes or no, may be unexpected, are usually not easy to answer.” (Case P49).
This is going to be a challenge given that the expectations for the Grade 5 unit, as an
example, are as follows:
C3.1 Coding Skills solve problems and create computational representations of mathematical
situations by writing and executing code, including code that involves conditional statements and
other control structures
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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action
James Waller
PME 831-001

C3.2 Coding Skills read and alter existing code, including code that involves conditional
statements and other control structures, and describe how changes to the code affect the
outcomes (Ontario Grade 5 Mathematics Curriculum Document, 2020).

Given this, I think I am going to start with what I consider to be a powerful question:
“Can I teach a machine to learn in a way that will help us solve a problem”. This will allow
students to move in the direction of goal 2 of this approach - Include an inquiry approach where
students have choice in solving the problem while learning the basic skills from the curriculum.
Gini-Newman states that students don’t have the opportunity to learn about whatever they want,
but we can teach basic skills through the inquiry approach by inviting kids to explore and solve
meaningful problems. (Gini-Newman, 2017).
By giving them the hook, and showing them examples of emerging artificial intelligence,
examples such as the Hong Kong born robot Sofia who has appeared on all kinds of shows
including Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Students can start to explore the possibilities that
coding opens up and allow them to start exploring areas of individual interest - web
programming, robotics, game programming, app programming etc. This way, they can each
answer this question while learning and exploring a type of technology that includes coding that
excites and interests them. This should help give them a platform to learn the basic skills laid
out in the curriculum expectations, while also allowing them to go deeper in a field that truly
excites and inspires wonder for each individual. It also addresses what Case describes as the
“Separation of ‘skills’ from content. Curriculum content becomes the priority and critical
thinking becomes taught as a stand alone skill.” (Case, 2010 P.46).
I can achieve this curriculum embedded approach in practice by including a choice board
based on coding option similar to the following example for media:
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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action
James Waller
PME 831-001

The final goal of this innovation to the curriculum is to, as Gini-Newman puts it,
“Provide students with feedback from an authentic audience (to)....let children live with
problems longer so they go deeper.” (Gini-Newman, 2017). I think the best way to achieve this
is to allow Grade 5 students to showcase their work to their older, more experienced peers and let
them get feedback on their examples. I think for this, I would turn to the Grade 12 Computer
Science students in the Secondary school in order to host a sort of “Shark Tank'' event where
students showcase their ideas, their coding-in-progress and get feedback on what works, what
could be improved, and give them a chance for a redesign period. This would allow students to
have the chance to live with the big questions longer and think about ways they can improve
their application of learning, showing a growth mindset. With these changes to our Math
program in place, I feel like we will have successfully enacted tangible examples of the critical
thinking approach and innovated our curricular approach in a way that will be valuable. This is
just my opinion, so in order to better evaluate the effectiveness of this, I will turn to my new ICT
partner to tell me his take on the strengths, weaknesses and changes that should be made upon
implementation of this approach.

Peer Feedback and Reflection on Strengths, Weaknesses and Changes

Since we are currently on summer holiday, I have turned to my partner in planning and
implementing our new coding units for feedback on the updates to the unit. Here I will recap
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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action
James Waller
PME 831-001
some takeaways from our discussion and analysis on strengths, weaknesses and changes that
need to be made to the plan.

Strengths
After reviewing the additions through the critical thinking approach, my partner
recognized the value in some of the updates we had made. First, opening with our big question
“Can I teach a machine to learn in order to help us solve a problem” is so valuable because it
allows students to inquire about the different fields that are incorporating robotics and coding:
transportation, health care, dangerous labour etc. This means students have the opportunity to
empathize first with an authentic, real-world problem that means something to them and they can
build their learning around that point of empathy.
Next, he liked the inquiry nature of the project and how it allowed for different ways to
showcase learning. The ability for some students to use coding for web development, app
development, game/simulator development and robotics was really intriguing for him, because it
means instead of looking at doing these projects maybe one per grade, we could offer them
across the board to students in every grade who may want to explore these areas to answer the
big question, all while mastering the skills in the existing curriculum document.
Overall, he said this was a much more valuable way to teach the skills outlined in the
curriculum as it has connections to real-world problems and provides the students with a chance
to individualize the way they develop the skills and show their learning. It also makes for a
much more interesting unit for the teachers, as we get to see the project go in a number of
unexpected directions and most likely learn something new each time we teach it. We are going
to attempt to use this unit with Grade 5 next year.

Weaknesses
The first concern that was brought up was time. In order for this project to really be
implemented in this way, it’s going to take over double the amount of class periods as a
traditional skill & drill rollout of the new expectations. Students will need time to research,
ideate, in many cases build prototypes and make changes/revisions to design as well as their
coding. This is a lot more than just showing them how to create a nested event and have them
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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action
James Waller
PME 831-001
complete a series of challenges in code.org. There is a chance grade teams would turn us down
on the basis of not having enough time to do it.
The next concern is resources. What if a student decides to use coding to create a robot
that assists in surgeries? We do have VEX kits, but there are only so many options even for
customizing one of their recommended builds. This could leave students in a position with great,
big ideas and no real way to bring them to life. It also means, if we decided to offer this
framework to other grades, there is a chance the school’s limited resources in terms of loaner
ipads, VEX Go and Dot & Dash robots would be depleted fairly quickly. This means that a
student could have a great idea with school resources to support it, but because of availability,
they may not be able to use those resources. A definite challenge with limited quantities and
budget.
Finally, the piece of an authentic audience. To have the grade 12 computer science
students evaluate the projects is a really nice idea, but just like the homeroom teachers,
secondary school teachers will be concerned with time. In order to evaluate all of those projects
is going to take away from valuable class time and this is going to cause problems if the project
gets too big. This may mean that it is only possible to roll it out with a single grade, or perhaps
even a single class.

Changes
Overall we decided this would be a worthwhile project to attempt, but we wanted to make
some changes before doing so. First, we would need to limit the scope. Perhaps 2 Grade 5
classes in term 1, and 2 more in term 2 instead of doing it all as 1 big group. Next, instead of
individual projects, once students have chosen their path and tools, we could group them
together. This would save time and allow for resources to be shared in a more efficient way.
Finally, our authentic audience would need to be changed. Instead of having the Grade 12
computer science students evaluate projects, turn it into a festival of learning and invite families
to come in and see projects once they are completed. This would allow for teachers to keep most
of the class time while also providing an authentic audience that we are sure would be impactful
to the students.
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Taking a Risk - Curriculum Planning in Action
James Waller
PME 831-001
Conclusion
Innovating our planning by updating the Grade 5 coding unit through the Critical
Thinking framework was a very valuable exercise. This allowed us to revisit a unit we thought
needed an update, and bring in some of the research done throughout the course in order to
ensure the changes are valuable and have some basis. The way the unit shaped up, by opening
with a big guiding question, allowing for inquiry and individualised projects, and allowed for an
authentic audience to take part makes this a valuable update. We will attempt to use this new
plan in the coming school year and hope to have a chance to share feedback on how it goes with
a real roll-out.

References

Case, R. (2010). Bringing Critical Thinking to the Main Stage. Education Canada , Volume 45
(2).hps://www.edcan.ca/wp-content/uploads/edcan-2005-v45-n2-case.pdf

Gini-Mewman, G. (2017, October 27). Inspiring Wonder Through Learning and Thinking
[Video].YouTube. hps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBREL3VVbZI

“Curriculum.” Ontario Curriculum Document. Mathematics, Grade 5, 2020,

www.dcp.edu.gov.on.ca/en/curriculum.