CSCOPE

[Texas Immigrant]

Did CSCOPE help with planning, or did it make it even more complicated. Did you find you spent less or more time planning?

[olderthandirt]

Yes, CSCOPE helps with planning, especially if you do not have many resources or textbooks (I'm at the elementary level). I usually take a half day each marking period to really plan out the next nine weeks' worth of lessons and prepare the resources if needed, like the suggested activities.

The part that helped me the most is the IFD, because it really gives a good overview of specific skills and concepts as well as the performance indicator (assessment). That's more planning than I used to do, but by going into that much depth last year it will make this year's plans easier to refine. Of course, I'll have a new batch of students who will naturally toss a monkey wrench into the mixture!

[cityboy]

I never even looked at it the second semester. Used it twice, I think, during the first semester. By the time teachers are familiar with it, the powers-that-be will buy into something else and spring it on us ...

[SamBrown]

I am at the middle school level (Science) and absolutely loved it. I did not use all the lessons presented, rather followed their lesson outlines and pulled in other "stuff" I liked. I also work very closely with another teacher who shared her activities; between the two of us, we had more than enough to fill our lessons.

I also pretty much agree with what olderthandirt told you. Give it a shot - you may like it.

[Texas Immigrant]

I don't have to worry about it now. What I'm teaching this year, there are no C-Scope lessons for.

[Yve]

As a fairly new teacher, I liked it -- it helped me get all of the pieces in one place. I didn't do the exemplary lessons verbatim--not all of them work well with my style and my way of organizing things, but getting a picture of what needed to happen helped. There were some errors in the lessons and not all of them really flowed together well---so if someone wanted to cut and paste CScope and be done with it, they most likely had problems.

[BELLTECH]

I liked the old format of CSCOPE much better. It seems like such a struggle now to click on so many buttons to get all the recommendations for one week's lessons in one subject. It has added to my planning. Also, this new format is not as user friendly as the way it was last school year. Is anyone out there reading this that can FIX it or give me a suggestion to save time. Previously, I was a big advocate of CSCOPE...

[FieryPrincess]

I can't believe that CSCOPE could become even more cumbersome!
Yikes! I hope someone has a good answer for you soon.

[Yve]

I download the PDFs onto my portable hard drive and work from there. I did this before school started so I had time to organize. They say these lessons change, but I'm not seeing much change. By downloading the file and renaming them, I can find things more quickly and I don't have to rely on a good Internet connection.