This year will be a heavy travel year with presentations around our country and in different locations in the world. A friend is traveling with me to the Netherlands and Austria and we are going to take in 3 days in Paris–my first trip there.
I am encouraged as I see different states realizing that state standards must provide a “conceptual framework” rather than a detailed list of content based objectives. Iowa is a state that has made a strong commitment to concept-based curriculum and instruction. They are a state to watch! They sent 20 participants from around the state (Area Education Agency Consultants) and a principal to last summer’s Certification Institute in Montana. On August 2, 2011, I am training over 300 principals and teachers in Iowa on C-based Unit Design to support their state standards. I also trained over 200 Iowa principals in June. The state is getting fired up and ready to roll! Other states are also working toward concept-based models for state standards.