Posts on “ curriculum ”

Last Friday, I had the honor of being one of the judges for the the Rube Goldberg Machines Boss Level at NYC’s Quest 2to Learn School. With all of debate surrounding assessment, it was refreshing to witness a unique approach to middle school finals (or as Quest to Learn refers to them with a kid-friendly nod, “boss levels”). A “Rube Goldberg machine” is a device that’s designed to complete a simple task in a complex fashion. For this challenge, 6th-graders teamed up to create simple machines that served different purposes – one created art using paint, another lifted a tissue out of a tissue box. In order to complete their boss levels, these 6th graders had to design a solution to complete the tasks that they were assigned. Beyond the curricular content students had to apply, they were collaboratively problem solving, planning, testing, and iterating as a team in order to complete this challenge — a very accurate set of real life skills that we employ regularly at BrainPOP.  We visited six classrooms and assessed the completed projects using rubrics, providing authentic feedback to the students from a variety of professions represented by the judging panel. Upon entering each classroom, the excitement of… Read the Rest»

Have you checked out BrainPOP ESL lately? If so, you may have noticed our new content: Level 3, Unit 4! We are excited to announce the launch of this new unit, which brings BrainPOP ESL up to 80 specific lessons! In addition to exploring higher level grammatical concepts, the movies are also increasingly content-driven – a development that can help all students. Take, for example, “A High Probability” (Level 3, Unit 4, Lesson 3). This BrainPOP ESL topic page focuses on infinitive verbs, but also explains the mathematical concept of probability. Learners essentially get two lessons in one. Beyond the new content, BrainPOP ESL has new features too. “Words to Know,” the all-important word introduction feature accompanying each lesson, now includes “Word Connections.” “Word Connections” explains various verb forms in the classic visual, clear style you’ve come to expect from BrainPOP. Powerful new reading and writing extension activities highlight specific forms of written expression. Within “A High Probability,” the “Read It” activity invites students to explore a persuasive essay, with thoughtful multiple choice comprehension questions that engage readers. The “Write It” section delves further into the art of persuasion by prompting students to write an advertisement within the structure of… Read the Rest»

Join us for Wednesday’s webinar at 4:30PM ET. At BrainPOP we’re committed to providing high quality games not only through GameUp but by supporting game design projects in multiple education settings. To that end, we welcome Shannon Sullivan, Vice President of World Wide Workshop, for this special webinar on the Workshop’s Globaloria game design curriculum and social network for learning. She’ll explain how it’s inspiring innovation and learning among thousands of students across the country.