6-12 Curriculum
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Barrington 220 curriculum is aligned to the Illinois Learning Standards Incorporating the Common Core. More information about these standards can be found at the ISBE website. If you would like more information on any aspect of a particular subject or service, you are invited to discuss these topics in greater depth with individual teachers, principals, or district curriculum personnel.
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English
English Vision
Barrington 220 students will develop the ability to independently create meaning from a wide range of sources and texts and will use these new understandings to become more skillful, confident, and critical readers, writers, and communicators.
Guiding Principles- Literacy includes all of the skills necessary for effective reading, writing, critical thinking, and communicating in a variety of contexts.
- Effective literacy instruction should occur in all classrooms with students practicing reading, writing, critical thinking, and communicating skills specific to each subject.
- Guiding students toward independence in their literacy skills and tasks through a standards-aligned, cross-curricular approach is a priority.
- Students should engage with a wide variety of texts and topics that stretch their comprehension skills.
- Students should read and write every single day.
- Adept writers are able to appropriately tailor their messages to a variety of audiences and purposes
- Independent, self-selected reading is an essential part of any high-quality literacy program and will increase the motivation to read and foster a life-long love of reading.
- Explicit modeling of effective reading, writing, and communication skills for students on a continual basis and providing students with regular formative feedback on their progress are non-negotiable instructional practices.
- Literacy is a collaborative endeavor and students should engage with each other and other authentic audiences to enrich their literacy experiences.
- Effective readers, writers, and communicators employ meta-cognitive skills that make them aware of their own thinking in order to demonstrate a critical stance about and from a text.
Links
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Mathematics
Mathematics Vision
A successful Barrington 220 mathematics student will be able to use mathematics content and mathematical habits of mind to become confident critical thinkers and persistent problem solvers.EQUITY
Excellence in mathematics requires that all students have access to high-quality mathematics instruction and sufficient support.
- All students can learn mathematics All students bring unique backgrounds and experiences to our classrooms.
- All students should have access to rigorous math courses at grade level or above. Grade level is defined by the Illinois Learning Standards.
CURRICULUM
Excellence in mathematics requires a curriculum that is coherent, well-articulated across grade-levels, and focused on big mathematical ideas.
High Quality Mathematics Curriculum:
- Has problem solving, adaptive reasoning, and sense-making at its core
- Engages students in mathematical habits of mind places equal value on procedural fluency and conceptual understanding
- Incorporates the Illinois Learning Standards in a vertically aligned and cohesive fashion
TEACHING
Excellence in mathematics requires teachers who plan, teach, reflect, and refine their craft in order to help all students learn.
High Quality Mathematics Teachers:
- Possess a deep understanding of mathematics
- Encourage a growth mindset
- Plan engaging instruction utilizing rich mathematical tasks
- Value depth over speed create a need for mathematical content encourage multiple representations, methods, and solutions to rich problems
LEARNING
Excellence in mathematics requires that students develop a productive disposition towards mathematical content and habits of mind.
Learning Mathematics:
- Requires a growth mindset
- Requires making connections between various representations and solution paths
- Requires explaining, reasoning, working collaboratively, and effective practice
- Is more effective when done within an engaging context
- Requires both procedural skills and conceptual understanding so that students can successfully make sense of and solve problems.
ASSESSMENT
Excellence in mathematics requires that assessments support student learning and provide meaningful information to all stakeholders.
- Students should regularly reflect and assess their own learning.
- Assessments are a valuable tool for making instructional decisions.
- Formal assessment of student learning should include mathematical content and habits of mind
- Students should experience multiple assessment types to measure learning.
- Students perform better on standardized assessments when they think of math as a set of connected, big ideas instead of a set of methods or steps to memorize.
TECHNOLOGY
Excellence in mathematics requires that students and teachers are able to use tools appropriately to enhance equity, curriculum, teaching, learning, and assessment.
Technology can:
- Provide powerful visual representations of mathematical concepts
- Help organize and analyze data
- Perform mathematical computations and symbolic representations efficiently and effectively so students can focus on conceptual understanding and higher-order thinking
- Provide opportunities to learn outside of the regular class period.
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Science
Science Vision
Barrington 220 students will cultivate scientific habits of mind and engage in meaningful scientific inquiry that requires them to develop solutions to complex problems and reason in a scientific contexts.
Guiding Principles:- Adept student scientists are able to effectively critique the claims of others using evidence and reasoning and can think critically and logically to create their own explanations based on evidence. Scientific inquiry is a powerful way of understanding science content. Inquiry is central to the learning of science and reflects how science is done.
- Effective science instruction balances experimental investigation with other scientific and engineering practices like posing questions, developing models, analyzing and interpreting data, designing solutions, and communicating findings.
- Effective science instruction should implement a research-based model for developing students’ conceptual knowledge over the course of a unit, like the 5E Model:
- Engage: Create a teachable moment
- Explore: Recognize students’ current understandings and abilities
- Explain: Develop new understandings and abilities
- Elaborate: Transfer concepts and abilities to new situations
- Evaluate: Assess students understandings and abilities
- Explicit modeling of effective scientific, engineering, and communication skills for students on a continual basis and providing students with regular formative feedback on their progress are non-negotiable instructional practices.
- Guiding students toward independence in their scientific skills, tasks, and inquiries through a standards-aligned approach is a priority.
- Student scientists engage in meaningful opportunities for discussion, debate, and written reflection. They also share their learning and findings with a larger, authentic audience.
- Effective student scientists employ meta-cognitive skills that make them aware of their own thinking, preconceptions, and misconceptions and that allow them to reconstruct their understanding of the natural world as new learning occurs.
- Effective science instruction engages students in meaningful field studies that connect them with scientific experts who guide them to solve real-world, local problems.
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Social/Global Studies
Social/Global Studies Vision
Barrington 220 students will develop the ability to independently read, write, think, and speak through rigorous and authentic learning experiences that incorporate a wide range of sources and texts. Students will become active and informed citizens of a democratic society who understand multicultural, national, and global perspectives.
Guiding PrinciplesIn an effective Social/Global Studies classroom:
- Students have informed and productive discussions on controversial issues and the teacher models how to have a civil and respectful conversation.
- Students engage in meaningful research and written reflection to form their own perspective and share their findings with a larger, authentic audience.
- Students explore multiple perspectives in both historical and current issues so they can develop informed opinions.
- Students are critical thinkers who question, analyze, and interpret primary and secondary sources and evaluate them for accuracy, relevance, perspective, and bias.
- Students make their own claims supported with evidence and critique the claims of others using compelling evidence and sound reasoning.
- Students participate in decision-making processes and engaging simulations of democratic processes that connect them to the local or global community.
- Students work toward independence in the inquiry process.
- Middle School Curriculum
- High School Curriculum
Contact
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Kelly Hansen
Director of Secondary Education
khansen@barrington220.org
847-842-3541
Bio
Stephanie Conboy
Administrative Assistant
sconboy@barrington220.org