Featured Teacher Sam Stier’s Recommendations

Name: Sam Stier
Role: Curricula developer and teacher trainer
School: Learning with Nature
City, State: Missoula, Montana
Number of years teaching: 11

How I use Curriki: I use Curriki to see how others approach teaching a topic, and just to explore what teaching resources are readily available. The breadth, depth, and quality of the materials available are exceptional. Peer review really matters! The search function of the database is also terrific.

Here are some of my favorite Curriki resources:
* Contagion Lab – How Diseases Spread
* A curriculum unit to introduce engineering to junior high school students
* Fish Mummy Overview
* Play Together, Learn Together
* Inquiries with Acids and Bases

Here is a resource that I’ve contributed to Curriki:
* Concrete without Quarries: a sustainable chemistry lab inspired by nature

See Jemma Heliker’s Favorite Classroom Resources

Name: Jemma Heliker
Role: Middle and High School Language Arts Teacher
School: Mastery Charter, Shoemaker Campus
City, State: Philadelphia, PA
Number of years teaching: 5

How I use Curriki: The resources on Curriki cover every possible subject and area. As a busy teacher, I appreciate the teacher reviews to guide me to outstanding resources. Curriki has definitely improved many of my lessons and units.

Here are some of my favorite Curriki resources:
* MEET ME AT THE CORNER, Virtual Field Trips for Kids
* Middle School Grammar Unit by Robert Lucas
* Writing How – To Resources by Andrea Chen
* Literature Collection by Shmoop

Here are some resources that I’ve contributed to Curriki:
* The Secret Life of Bees Novel Unit
* The Kite Runner Novel Unit

Meet Featured Teacher Nate Merrill!

Name: Nate Merrill
Role: Middle School Social Studies teacher, Technology Integration Specialist
School: Long Trail School
City, State: Dorset, VT
Number of years teaching: 16
Twitter Handle: @Nate_Merrill

How I use Curriki: Curriki is a great site for me to find resources to enhance my teaching repertoire. I enjoy looking for new lessons and sharing my own. I can quickly find inspirational instructional ideas and then adapt them to my needs. Curriki is a great site for new and veteran teachers.

Here are some of my favorite Curriki resources:
* Podcast Collection
* The Constitution
* How do we Progress
* Oceans Alive!
* Political TV Advertisement Project

Here are some resources that I’ve contributed to Curriki:
* Why Use Twitter
* How to Use Twitter

Meet Featured Teacher Andrea Chen!

Name: Andrea Chen
Role: former high school English teacher, current Executive Director at Propeller: A Force for Social Innovation
School: New Orleans Charter for Science and Math High School
City, State: New Orleans, LA
Number of years teaching: 3 in classroom; currently teaching entrepreneurship (among other things) to start-up organizations addressing social and environmental challenges
Twitter: My current organization is @gopropeller

How I use Curriki: When I was a classroom teacher, I used Curriki to find lesson plans and activities for books that I was teaching or wanted to teach in my own classroom. I am no longer in the classroom, but I had posted many of my resources and units on Curriki. It is a wonderful feeling to know that other English teachers around the country have found the resources I created five years ago helpful. It makes me want to go back and create more resources for the community, even though I am no longer teaching English literature!

Here is one of my favorite Curriki resources:
Women in Literature

Here are some resources that I’ve contributed to Curriki:
* Invisible Man Reading Guide, Vocabulary, and Assessments
* Short Story Unit
* Drama Unit: Waiting for Godot
* Literary Analysis Essay Outline Graphic Organizer
* Catcher in the Rye Unit Guide

Meet Featured Teacher Sarah Lorntson!

Name: Sarah Lorntson
Role: High School English Teacher
School: Mahtomedi High School
City, State: Mahtomedi, MN
Number of years teaching: 11
Twitter: @slorntson

How I use Curriki: Curriki is my go-to resource when I have new material to teach or want to try something different with my curriculum. I can find premade, high-quality lessons and activities that I can use right away or tailor to my students’ needs. I also love sharing my resources because I am sympathetic to the needs of new teachers (or experienced teachers with new challenges). It’s a way for me to give back to help other educators in the same way that other people have helped me to become more successful in my own classroom.

Here are some of my favorite Curriki resources:
* Avoiding Plagiarism by Christine Mytko
* American Literature an entire course by Emily Boyle
* Research Paper Assignment by Rachel Wiener

Here are some resources that I’ve contributed to Curriki:
* English 10 (entire course)
* Socratic Seminars
* Political TV Advertisement Project
* Jane Eyre Unit

MOOCs for High School

By Kim Jones, CEO, Curriki

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are one major result of the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement. They have been around a few years, but really took off with major visibility and growth last year. The best known MOOC organizations are edX, Coursera, and Udacity.

These are all organizations founded by universities or growing out of universities, and they are focused on undergraduate-level courses.

What about extending MOOCs to the high school level? A CalTech MOOC on machine learning, targeted at the undergraduate level,  attracted roughly 10,000 high school level students out of the 100,000 who signed up. Clearly there is interest coming from high school students!

Brown University may be the first to have created a MOOC for the high school level, with the preparation of an overview course on engineering under development. The course is designed to expose students to the possibilities available to them in engineering majors and careers. A blog from the New York Times discusses this new MOOC for high school students.
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/brown-university-creates-a-mooc-for-high-school-students/

There are at least a dozen courses delivered by M.I.T.’s Open Courseware program (the original basis of edX) that have been addressed to high school students and not only in math, science and engineering disciplines (including astrophysics, calculus and audio electronics). There are also courses in the humanities as well. Online resources including videos of lectures and other course materials for these are available at:
http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/courses/

Image from an MIT high school course: Crab Nebula X-ray pulsar. Credit:  NASA/CXC/SAO/F. Seward et al.

There’s even a Spanish language MOOC resource currently linked from Curriki which could be useful for advanced Spanish language learners in high school.

What do you think, do you see this as a possibility in your own community or district? Do you know of other high school level MOOCs currently available or under development?