Tripartite Agreement and the Three Ps

I believe a curriculum should offer structure for a subject being taught without anchoring a teacher into obligations or having to check tasks off a list. A curriculum with flexibility for the teacher and student would be optimal. This flexibility would make room for opportunities to shift focus, if the atmosphere of a class changes, to a discussion on another topic. This could be one way to ensure student interest and creativity in the classroom

I idolize a curriculum that is structured yet dynamic to where you don’t know exactly what will be expected. If a teacher is able to keep an element of surprise, and not dread, in the classroom then students may be inclined to start anticipating class.

My hope is to teach a science like biology. I am not sure how often extensive syllabi are used in the secondary level but a goal of mine would be to create a syllabus that outlines the goals of the classroom, in terms of assignments, projects, and expectations for each block or topic within biology.

A component of my biology class would be to read more than just the textbook. I would want my students to start reading journal articles from the web and in print along with excerpts from books. Reading would also be expected to come from newspapers and news websites. This reading along with watching local and national news would help spark scientific discussions on how issues, or topics discussed in class, relate to the world. Infectious disease would be a topic I would be interested in and students can bring their own.

I would want to have discussions, demonstrations, and lab activities more than lectures. I would have scheduled ‘pop’ quizzes and testing would be comprised of more short answer, matching, and fill in the blank questions than multiple choice. For a final grade participation in a Science Fair would be expected.

Writing would also be a focus in my classroom. I think being able to write about any subject would help a student gain proficiency in that particular subject. Writing scientifically, I believe, requires more skill and effort which would spill over into other subjects. To help with this goal I would want to form some sort of tripartite agreement with other teachers. (The Tripartite Agreement was an agreement between the U.S., France, and Great Britain to stabilize currencies in the international market.) My tripartite agreement would be between my biology class and another history and English class, which my students are also in, where students can get threefold credit on an assignment. These assignments would focus on the three Ps: presentations, projects, and papers. Scientific papers can be corrected for grammar and proper citations in a language arts class and the historical relevance on a topic can be presented in a history class for example.

This would be a step to make sure interactive/integrative learning takes place. Participating teachers would benefit from working with colleagues and students can understand how education is not supposed to be segregated.