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ECHO
New Bedford ECHO Project
The New Bedford ECHO Project is a unique collaboration between the New Bedford Oceanarium--trading as the Ocean Explorium--and the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The New Bedford ECHO Project initiatives include cultural exchanges, collections sharing, internship and apprentice programs, and ocean learning activities. Additionally, the Ocean Explorium and the New Bedford Whaling Museum offer educational experiences. The New Bedford Whaling Museum works primarily with students and their teachers in the areas of history, culture, and marine science. The Ocean Explorium focuses on teacher education through professional and curriculum development initiatives of the Connecting Oceans Academy.
The Connecting Oceans Academy: Teacher to Teacher
The Connecting Oceans Academy (COA) offers a variety of professional development opportunities aimed at supporting teachers in meeting the complex demands of diverse student populations. The Connecting Oceans Academy is unique to the New Bedford ECHO Project in that the staff includes five highly skilled classroom teachers, each of whom has extensive experience in elementary, middle, and/or high school classrooms. The Connecting Oceans Academy Staff, which includes art, language arts, reading, science, and social studies teachers, understands the demands of teaching in a standards-based environment and knows how to work collaboratively-teacher to teacher-with new and veteran educators... read more
The learning opportunities offered by the Connecting Oceans Academy staff are research-based, practical, and intellectually exciting. The COA Staff have created standards-based curricula in science, social studies, art, math, and language arts for elementary, middle, and high school-grades that teachers can download and use in their classrooms "tomorrow."
What is Echo?
ECHO is an educational and cultural enrichment initiative, annually serving thousands of children and adults in
ECHO programs amplify educational benefits, foster greater appreciation of local and national history and the natural environment, and assist communities in maximizing the social benefits of new technologies. The ECHO Partners include the Alaska Native Heritage Center and North Slope Borough in Alaska; the Bishop Museum in Hawai`i; the New Bedford ECHO Project including the New Bedford Whaling Museum and the New Bedford Oceanarium collaborating with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts; and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
The educational programs shared though this partnership embrace educational and cultural exchanges between schools, museums, and communities at many levels. The programs bring together tradition bearers, elders, and young people in shared learning experiences. Significant outcomes include exhibits, collections access, teacher professional education, the development of curriculum materials, and distance learning through the Internet, digital media, and videoconferencing. Program planners have successfully balanced direct human interaction with the most modern technologies.
Ocean Explorium (New Bedford Oceanarium Corp.)
The New Bedford Oceanarium--trading as the Ocean Explorium--is a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing quality marine science education, ocean experiences, and maritime curriculum to the diverse population of SouthCoast Massachusetts. The Ocean Explorium's goals are "to educate as we entertain, to foster scientific research and awareness of our oceans, and to generate employment opportunities and economic development for Southeastern Massachusetts". The Ocean Explorium delivers educational programs to teachers and students through the WOW Mobile, Project Oceanology's Enviro-Lab, and the Connecting Oceans Academy.
Whaling Museum
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is the world's leading interpreter of the global whaling story. The Museum relates this story on a broad canvas, tracing the triumphs and tragedies of the whaling trade when it was one of America's major industries and New Bedford was the world's leading whaling port. The New Bedford Whaling Museum invites visitors to reflect on the complex issues—past and present—that the whaling story unveils.
The Connecting Oceans Academy
The learning opportunities offered by the Connecting Oceans Academy staff are research-based, practical, and intellectually exciting. These opportunities include professional development institutes for which teachers receive graduate credit or professional development points. In addition, COA Staff have created standards-based curricula for elementary, middle, and high school-curricula that teachers can download and use in their classrooms "tomorrow."
The Connecting Oceans Academy staff offers research-based instruction that is practical and intellectually exciting. These research-based learning opportunities promote critical inquiry and differentiated instruction and include professional development institutes for which teachers receive graduate credit or professional development points. In addition, Connecting Oceans Academy Staff have created standards-based curricula for elementary, middle, and high school grades that teachers can download and use in their classrooms "tomorrow."
The Connecting Oceans Academy aims to enhance teaching and learning through professional and curriculum development in Science, Social Studies, Art, Language Arts, and Math. With a focus on underserved schools and teachers of culturally diverse classrooms, the work of the Connecting Oceans Academy (COA) is assessment based, grounded in research, aligned with standards, and centered on creating learning experiences that promote inquiry, critical thinking and understanding of the ways the natural systems, especially the ocean, shape and influence social systems. The COA promotes a sense of pride of place and stewardship while seeking connections using interdisciplinary and integrated curricula.
Mission
The Connecting Oceans Academy strives to:
1. provide teaching and learning and curriculum that is research-based;
2. create opportunities for interactive teaching and learning;
3. explore the dynamic connections among the natural environment, commerce, art, science, and history while fostering student pride of place and stewardship of their culture and environment;
4. celebrate cultural and ethnic diversity and inclusion within historic communities in Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Mississippi;
5. build bridges for learning about our history, art, and the natural environment by expanding the presence of our cultural and historical organizations in the community; and
6. provide and ensure effective and equitable access and/or participation in the Connecting Oceans Academy to all teachers.
Philosophy
Basing Instruction on Research
The Connecting Oceans Academy Planning Team--highly experienced classroom teachers--understands the multiple and complex questions confronting teachers of elementary, middle, and high school grades: What is good teaching? Are there instructional strategies that really work? How can teachers meet the individual needs of their students who have varying levels of knowledge and understanding and multiple languages? What is an effective approach to curriculum development? It is these questions and the following research findings that shape the work of the Connecting Oceans Academy.
Good teaching is interactive, engaging, and based on continuous and multiple measures of assessment.
Instructional strategies that really work include:
1. inquiry-based teaching and learning,
2. activating and assessing prior knowledge,
3. the use of graphic organizers and a focus on compare/contrast thinking,
4. the use of models, visualizations, artistic expression, and kinesthetic learning,
5. requiring that students explain their thinking, and
6. content area literacy instruction, particularly in vocabulary and comprehension.
Approaches to teaching and learning that meet the needs of diverse learners 1) use flexible grouping, 2) set clear and challenging expectations that are consistent with students’ current levels of knowledge and understanding, and 3) provide many opportunities for oral language/discussion.
Research to Practice
The Connecting Oceans Academy Staff also recognizes the challenges involved in bridging research findings to classroom practice. Much of that bridge has been constructed by Research for Better Teaching (RBT), a nationally recognized education consulting firm. Their publications and professional development courses provide practical applications of the most robust findings of educational research. The Director of the Connecting Oceans Academy has been a certified instructor of Research for Better Teaching Courses. Connecting Oceans Academy curriculum and professional development offerings incorporate, with permission, many of these “RBT strategies.
Curricula
Understanding by Design (UbD): Research Based Curriculum that Begins with the End in Mind
Recognizing that planning research-based curriculum is challenging, even for the most experienced teachers, the COA staff turned to the experts, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, the creators of the Understanding by Design (UbD) model of curriculum development (sometimes referred to as Backward Design). UbD is an approach to curriculum that engages students in exploring Enduring Understandings (big ideas that go beyond the classroom) and Essential Questions that are controversial, thought-provoking, and have no right or wrong answers. Backward Design is unique in that it asks curriculum planners to begin by identifying the desired outcomes and then to work backwards to develop learning experiences that will bring students to those outcomes.
UbD consists of three stages:
Stage 1
Identify the Desired Results: What should students know, understand, and be able to do? What are the Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, and specific knowledge and skills that will be studied?
Stage 2
Determine Acceptable Evidence: How will we know that students understand the big ideas and content standards (multiple, ongoing, and final assessment)?
Stage 3
Plan the Learning Experiences (LE): What will need to be taught to equip students to demonstrate acceptable evidence of their understanding?
The COA curricula and professional development are shaped by Understanding by Design.
