IT_Academy_Units

A Foundation for Common Experience: Towards an IT/Film and Media Academy Curriculum
In the fall of 2008, an implementation team made up of a volunteer group of teachers from the IT/Film & Media Academy at the Springfield, MA High School of Science and Technology were given the task of developing interdisciplinary teaching units. At our first meeting, it was determined that these units would represent and describe a common, grade-specific student experience.

In our early discussion, however, we realized that the task was difficult without a clearer understanding of what our particular Academy's strengths and content were to be. In order to pave the way for unit development, we set about establishing a rough outline of that larger Academy content which would necessarily apply to not only all Academy curriculum, but also to the experience of the Academy itself for its students.

In order to create a commonality -- that is, in order to have Academy consistency -- we decided to begin by identifying those elements which would need to exist "within" the Academy before we could comfortably create usable curricular units. Consensus was reached that these elements would necessarily include: 1) Essential Questions and 2) a Common Vocabulary. . language and structure for such units

Criteria for Academy Units:
Common Vocabulary: All Academy units should use common language to describe common unit ideas, and use a clear but finite set of Academy vocabulary employed in all classrooms and disciplines participating in the unit

Focal Points: All Academy units should reflect one or two essential questions

Multidisciplinary Relevance: A simple, identifiable, easily described focus that would connect with existing elements in each participating curricular area.

Essential Questions:
Visualization: What are the different ways of seeing? How does //image// affect perspective in art, in language, in science, in math, as well as in human interaction? Representation: How do we //describe// or //show// comprehension? Is there a "best" way to represent thought, an ultimate correctness? Coding: What layers of understanding and meaning exist between the machine and our minds? How does the act of encoding/decoding make communication common; how does it make communication unique? Organization: Are there models of information organization (linear, hierarchical, "webbed") that enhance understanding; or, are organization models individualistically effective? Technologies and Tools of communication and the Mind: Is the mind process predictable?

(Note from Dan Radin: Obviously, the essential questions are not finished. Is there something missing from the end of the Coding question? I am not criticizing. Mostly, I just wanted to see how the editing interface worked. Great job Joshua!)