Page 16 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 and 10: Science, 2008 (revised)

THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 9 AND 10 | science
Half-Credit Courses
The courses outlined in the Grade 9 and 10 and Grade 11 and 12 science curriculum documents are designed as full-credit courses. However, with the exception of the Grade 12 university preparation and university/college preparation courses, they may also be delivered as half-credit courses.
Half-credit courses, which require a minimum of fifty-five hours of scheduled instructional time, adhere to the following conditions:
• The two half-credit courses created from a full course must together contain all of the expectations of the full course. The expectations for each half-credit course must be drawn from all strands of the full course and must be divided in a manner that best enables students to achieve the required knowledge and skills in the allotted time.
• A course that is a prerequisite for another course in the secondary curriculum may be offered as two half-credit courses, but students must successfully complete both parts of the course to fulfil the prerequisite. (Students are not required to complete both parts unless the course is a prerequisite for another course they may wish to take.)
• The title of each half-credit course must include the designation Part 1 or Part 2. A half credit (0.5) will be recorded in the credit-value column of both the report card and the Ontario Student Transcript.
Boards will ensure that all half-credit courses comply with the conditions described above, and will report all half-credit courses to the ministry annually in the School October Report.
CURRICULUM EXPECTATIONS
The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 and 10: Science, 2008 identifies the curriculum expecta- tions for each course. The expectations describe the knowledge and skills that students are expected to develop and demonstrate in their class work and investigations, on tests, and in various other activities on which their achievement is assessed and evaluated.
Two sets of expectations – overall expectations and specific expectations – are listed for each strand, or broad area of the curriculum. (The strands are numbered A, B, C, D, and E.) Taken together, the overall expectations and specific expectations represent the mandated curriculum.
The overall expectations describe in general terms the knowledge and skills that students are expected to demonstrate by the end of each course. There are three overall expectations for each content strand in each course in science.
The specific expectations describe the expected knowledge and skills in greater detail. The specific expectations are grouped under numbered subheadings, each of which indicates the strand and the overall expectation to which the group of specific expectations corres- ponds (e.g., “B2” indicates that the group relates to overall expectation 2 in strand B). The organization of expectations into groups is not meant to imply that the expectations in any one group are achieved independently of the expectations in the other groups. The subheadings are used merely to help teachers focus on particular aspects of knowl- edge and skills as they develop and present various lessons and learning activities for their students.
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