Contact Information
Mrs. Fran Warner
Curriculum Director & Testing Coordinator
fwarner@margaretta.k12.oh.us
Margaretta Board of Education
305 S. Washington St.
Castalia, OH 44824
Phone: (419) 684-5322
Fax: 419-684-9003
Connecting Children to their Dreams.....
District Curriculum
October 12, 2009 Faculty Looks At the Future Needs of Education
Rounding out our teachers’ time with Dr. Bacon Steven Sinacore a systems engineer from NASA Glenn Research Center brought them up to date on Camp Aerospace. They had a chance to get the feel of camp with the hands on build a rocket project with their four person teacher teams. Each attendee was also presented with Dr. Bacon’s book, “The Parallel Bang: Non-Linear Thinking in a Non-Linear World”. “Teachers need to use a multi-modality approach, teach critical thinking, how to identify the “best” choice, and processes (like the scientific method) not facts.” Dr. Bacon summarized. He said our world is changing so fast that the facts and information our freshman learn today will be out of date by the time they graduate. We must all become life long learners, learn how to learn, seek out important information, make well researched and thought out decisions because new information and ideas are coming at us faster than we can keep up with them. Our challenge as educators is to make our students ready for this challenge of life long learning. October 2009 Fall OGT Testing Juniors and seniors that have not passed the Ohio Graduation Test will have another opportunity to take the test on October 26 – 30. 2009. The students are tested in Reading, Writing, Math, Science and Social Studies. One test per day is given in a two and one-half hour session. Students are given state approved calculators to for the mathematics and science tests. If your junior or senior has not passed these critical graduation tests please make sure they are well rested and in attendance during the testing week. These tests must be passed in order to receive a diploma. Curriculum Study CORE curriculum will be recognized nationwide soon. Ohio and 47 other states plus our three territories are developing national standards. Each state in this group agrees to comply to 85% of the national standards and are free to adjust 15% to state and local norms. Basically, we will be teaching approximately the same curriculum at the same grade levels across the nation. Phase I which includes Mathematics, English Language Arts, Science and Social Studies will be completed by June 2010. Ohio schools will have three years to implement these four revised curriculums. Phase II which includes World Languages, Fine Arts, Business Education, Computer Literacy and Financial Literacy and entrepreneurship will follow. This year we are reviewing our Social Studies and Elementary Health curriculums. We will be watching what the state is doing in these areas and adjust our timeline to fit. Discussion and evaluation of this process will take place throughout the year at department meetings and curriculum meetings. |
Margaretta faculty and some Perkins teachers gathered at the Colonnade on October 12, 2009 to listen to historian and futurist Dr. Jack Bacon present man’s journey from fire to space from a technological perspective. How the invention of mathematics opened up a whole new way of thinking and led man on his journey to the stars was one of the many interesting "parallel bangs" in history. Dr. Bacon has often been referred to as “a new Carl Sagan”. He is distinguished lecturer and in his daily work he is on the management team overseeing the construction and operation of the most complicated technical project in history: the international Space Station.