In this month’s E-hint, we present a list of questions to initiate and open a dialogue regarding district-wide academic processes among stakeholders within a district. These challenging questions could help an administrative team affirm or evaluate their current curriculum structures and processes. The questions are posed from a first-person perspective from within a district.Read More
Changes in Professional Development Due to ESSA Requirements and Title Funding
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) recently completed a year of full implementation. While the law is authorized to continue programs from the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act until 2020, there is speculation that funding amounts could change or even be eliminated due to priorities in the annual budget. Even though educators must play the waiting game in order to plan, it is still important to know the features of …Read More
Build-A-House: An Educational Analogy
The processes of curriculum, instruction, and assessment schools should use to assure student learning might be compared to the steps of building a house. Let’s look at those steps and compare them to best practices in education… from what is established at the district-level, through all the stages of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, to what is mandated of schools by the state or other accrediting agencies.Read More
Library Standards to Support Your Curriculum
As we begin the month of April, the annual month celebrating contributions of school libraries and staff, Curriculum Leadership Institute would be remiss if we didn’t call attention to the American Association of School Library’s (AASL’s) newly released standards. After reading this E-Hint summary, you may appreciate visiting AASL’s website designed specifically to assist with the understanding and implementation of these standards:Read More
Following the Trends: A Job for Your Curriculum Coordinating Council
Are you having trouble keeping your district leaders informed on what is going on in the world of education? The CLI Model has the expectation for leaders to continuously review externally mandated assessment and accreditation requirements. Finding time to do this can be a factor, so one solution is to have your Curriculum Coordinating Council (CCC) schedule 15 minutes or more each meeting for regular updates.Read More
Curriculum: A Catalyst for Change (Part Four)
In the current accountability age in education and looking down the road to compliance with the new ESSA requirements, it is clear that standards-aligned curriculum and assessments will play a key role. With four years of work behind them, Sheridan County School District #1 (SCSD#1), Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School District #307 (BBCHS#307), and other CLI client districts may be ahead of the curve in terms of being able to demonstrate such alignment, which also puts them on track to be able to meet other provisions of the act. As the work in these districts continues according to their long range plans, all subject areas will go through the new processes, celebrating the incredible accomplishments and persevering through the bumps and detours in the road.Read More
Curriculum: A Catalyst for Change (Part Three)
Most teachers do not see themselves as curriculum developers, nor believe they have been adequately trained to write valid assessments. Serving on a curriculum committee may seem like a lot of unnecessary work to a teacher initially; however, once they go through the process, they realize that thoroughly studying, clarifying, and organizing standards into units of learning targets and then creating aligned assessments helps them to identify what students need to know and do and how learning will be measured. Clearly defined learning targets direct teachers’ instruction and student learning. Read More
Curriculum: A Catalyst for Change (Part Two)
Since all district leaders were involved in creating the new vision for the district, they all needed a thorough understanding of the curriculum process and how to implement change. A number of the district leaders were selected to lead subject area committees through their curriculum and assessment work; thereby ensuring a common language and a common way of completing the work. Although facilitators can help districts, there is always much to be done between those visits. Building principals and curriculum staff were needed to provide the necessary on-the-spot feedback and support to keep the process moving forward.Read More
Curriculum: A Catalyst for Change (Part One)
t’s been said that change is the only constant. This seems especially true in education. There is always a new initiative, textbook, program, policy, or new personnel coming and going within school districts. Sometimes it is difficult to preserve continuity in the midst of these types of random and frequent changes, no matter how well intentioned they are. It’s no secret that the trend in education is to do more with less, which leaves everyone asking the same questions…how and when?Read More
High Expectations Communicate Respect
As a new school year begins, educators need to set and communicate expectations to the students in their classrooms. When identifying expectations, teachers often struggle deciding whether expectations are too high, too low, realistic, and uniformly applied. Popular research continues to indicate that setting high expectations leads to better results than setting moderate or low expectations, because students feel respected as participants in the classroom community. While the classroom teacher is …Read More