Curriculum Paper Outline Approval: Fill & Download for Free

First and foremost, congratulations for taking up the most difficult highschool curriculum in the world!Currently I am in my year 2 of my IB Diploma, May 2016 exams. I take Computer Science at Higher Level, so here's my take:Paper 1: This paper is worth 40% of your marks in both HL and SL.Read, read, and reread the syllabus content! It is arguably the most important piece of document I have read for the entire 2 years of studying Computer Science. Don't spend time studying things that will not show up in the exam.Focus on the programming section as it counts a lot towards the marks that Paper 1 carries. Algorithms and pseudocodes should be your bestfriend. Get a copy of the approved IB Pseudocode notation.If programming isn't your forte, don't worry! You WILL still able to get a 7, by making sure you master the other chapters. Again, this can only come with practice.Time management is critical. Don't spend too much time on answering questions that do not carry lots of marks. As a rule of thumb, the marks that the question carries should be the amount of time in minutes you spend on it.Paper 2: This paper is worth 20% of your marks in HL and 30% in SL.As you have probably known by now, there are 4 options: Databases, Modelling and Simulation, Web Sciences, and Object Oriented Programming. I studied OOP for 1.5 years before switching to Databases due to an incompetent teacher. Here's my take:Seriously, read the syllabus outline and do your research. Go through each aspect and find information online. There aren't many textbooks dedicated to this option, if any. Doing your own research is essential to understand Databases.Your definitions of command terms should be excellent. They are really useful to understand different questions.Try to understand a bit of SQL. Although not necessary, it can be quite useful in your understanding.And as a general tip, practice past papers! They really help you to understand the type of questions that they ask, especially in Paper 2. Time yourself while you are doing the papers.Good luck!

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.All running start is, if you're talking about the program where smart high school kids are put into college, is a combination of a money-saving by the state while pulling a hoax on the voters.Parents love bragging: "My kid is 15 and already taking college courses." Your kid is being done a grave disservice.The school system should be offering AP and Honors classes, but doesn't want to. They cost too much money, and you have to hire a good teacher, and veer from the state-approved end-of-grade curriculum into that messy, dangerous area called thought.Instead, you put a 15-year-old into a room full of 20-year-olds. They're misfit geeks to the regular kids; they have no social cohort. They may be exploited sexually, or just ignored, or laughed at.They often don't have the discipline required to write a single 20-page paper to get a grade, instead of the discipline taught in high school by handing in an outline, a first draft, meeting with the teacher, etc.They don't have a school counselor or truant officer noticing if they cut class twice a week and calling the parents about it. (I had the mother who got the phone call and helped the school system arrange a solution.)If they're in any course higher than Intro 1, the other students have a background of college-level knowledge and behavior, and your kid is as likely to get a C as an A.Running Start is a fool's paradise. Even a runner doesn't learn to run by running, and any kid who's constantly running into class a few minutes behind is going to have both academic and emotional fallout of some sort.

There is no single individual in charge of curriculum in schools in the United States.States have a few requirements, and those requirements can be and usually are different in each state.Beyond that each local school district sets its own curriculum for both required subjects and elective subject.I'm a little bit speechless— not something that usually afflicts me— at the idea of a goal to make history and geography more prominent because of something other countries do.If you want to add a course to your local school the thing you do is to1. Resesrch the state regulations and local policies and local curriculum to know exactly what the already offered, what is already required, what is elective, and other such issues.2. Develop an outline for the course you want to offer and make an appointment to visit about your ideas with the head of the high school history department and the district curriculum coordinator. If you are dealing with a below High School level class you want to involve the teachers at the level your writing for.3. Depending on the information you get from the teaching and curricular people, your next step might be to get a spot on the school board agenda, and present your idea. Be prepared to discuss budgetary and Staffing concerns.If the school board is interested (and that's a big if) there will be a lengthy process involving the department of teachers in the school the curriculum people all kinds of folks in that one school district to add that course.If the school board is not interested they will tell you so and that will end it.I wrote an elective course once for the district I was employed by at the time.I started in October, I did get it approved through the process, and it and it was implemented in the next school year. That was considered a rapid adoption.Your question suggests you want your course to be required . You will need to also consider when is going to be required, how often is going to be required, and what's going to be given up by students in order to add a required course to their curriculum.It will be far more difficult to get a school board, or a district office curriculum staff, or a teaching staff, to add a required course than it is to add an elective course because students get choices and that's a major part of the educational system.If schools attempted to require every class that every writer on quora or even citizen in their Community believe should be required students would be going to school 18 hours a day until they were 45. Part of the reason for having electives is to encourage students to set goals and priorities and make choices.Regarding your belief that history and geography are not emphasized heavily enough, you need to consider that US history is required of all high school graduates in every state of which I am aware. Geography is given as a standalone class in some districts, and some districts probably choose to require it, but many districts include geography as units in other course titles. The only way to know for sure how each subject is being taught is to get a copy of your District curriculum course description guide and read it course-by-course to see what's being offered.Since your profile indicates that you are a high school student, that should be pretty easy. Your counselor or the office secretary can give you a printed copy and/or there should be an electronic copy on the district website, or the website for your specific High School. It is common for students to be given a printed copy at the time they enroll; however, increasingly districts may be saving paper by going to electronic copies. I'm sure if you have no computer availability you will be able to get a printed copy.In addition, at least one semester of American Government is required to graduate from high school in every state in the United States— that is without exception.There are other history classes that are available some of which are required by some districts, and some of which are not required by any districts, and any possible combination. . But if you add another requirement you take something away. Virtually everybody has a suggestion about what they think should be thrown out because it's a waste of time; you might be amazed to know how many people would put history and geography in that category claiming that they are a waste of time. It is impossible to get consensus from everybody regarding what classes to require and what classes to drop if you're going to require something new.But your local school board is the only one who can do it so if you're really determined and you're willing to put in the work then get on the board’s agenda and talk to them about it.This process takes a long time and it's one course at a time, one school district at a time, and just a hint:Don't go into your local staff or school board and compare what you see to other countries because that's a turnoff right off the bat.