This was at a South Carolina Public School with over 50% of the students being below the poverty line. In order to achieve success (I had a 96% pass rate on the state standardized End-of-Course exam for non-honors students and a 100% pass rate for honors students. Having initially taught in a school where the students took a standardized state exam in biology, the foundational curriculum I wrote for my biology course was designed to allow students to be successful in taking a standardized end-of-course exam. Over the past few years, I’ve tried a few different strategies for my biology classes, and I’ve landed on this being my absolute favorite scope and sequence of all.
I was overwhelmed and overjoyed at the idea of being able to completely redesign my curriculum. (If you are unfamiliar with these, I’ve written a blog post about them here.) My only guidelines were that my unit plans be guided by the *Next Generation Science Standards. I went from being one of 5 teachers who taught my subject matter, which was dictated entirely by my school district, to be the only teacher who taught my subjects, given complete autonomy over my curriculum. Then my husband’s job moved us to a different part of the state and I found myself in a private school.
This was great as a first-year teacher – one less thing for me to have to worry about! But as time went on, I realized I really didn’t like the sequence in which I was told to teach the content and wished I had an opportunity to change it.
This was all provided for me and standardized across my district. Back in the day when I taught at a public school, I didn’t even think twice about my scope and sequence.
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