Know a teacher on the fence about trying OER Project? Our new standalone course extensions are a great way to sample what we do.
If you logged into the OER Project platform recently, you probably noticed two new course offerings: Project X and Project Score. You might be asking yourself, “What ARE they and who should use them?”
At OER Project, we've been working hard to make great content easily accessible to all social studies educators. We know many teachers would love to leverage the free content and tools from our year-long courses, but don’t have the time and resources to implement a full course like World History Project (WHP) or Big History Project (BHP). So, we’re taking the same approach that BHP and WHP teachers love—engaging and rigorous content, and scaffolded learning tools—and applying it to shorter, two- to four-week offerings that can be used to extend any existing world history course. Project X and Project Score both offer new opportunities for teachers to experience the OER Project.
Project X helps students understand, evaluate, and use data in their own arguments. It can be taught as a standalone four-week course, or integrated into any existing social studies course. The course culminates in a final presentation in which students use historical data to predict the future and offer solutions to some of humanity’s biggest challenges.
Project Score combines rubric-aligned pre- and post-writing activities with Score, an automated essay-scoring feature that works like a teacher’s assistant to provide ongoing support and feedback to young writers when you can’t.
Who should use these extensions?
If you’re already teaching BHP or WHP, many parts of these extensions are already integrated into the curriculum you’re teaching. You can continue to assign prompts for Score—the automated essay-scoring service you know and love—through the classes you’ve already created. In WHP, you’ll find Project X activities and articles in Eras/Units 2 through 7. For more information, check out the Project X Guide.
Of course, we’re not saying you SHOULDN’T go check out these new offerings if you’re already teaching BHP or WHP. We just want to make sure you know where to find much of the extension material in the course you already teach! In fact, what we’d really love is for you to spread the word: Post to your teacher networks! Tell a friend!
If you’re new to OER Project, it’s a great time to test us out! Have you been curious about OER Project in the past, but weren’t ready to commit to a year-long course? These extensions allow you to ways to dip your toes in the OER Project water.
We’ll be providing more detailed information about these extensions in the New Year. In the meantime, if you feel like poking around these new offerings during your well-deserved break, be our guest!