CLI Model

The CLI Model is a comprehensive, in-depth process for creating lasting systems in the development and improvement of curriculum, instruction, and assessment within your district. Districts who contract with us want to increase student success, make sure they’re fully meeting state mandates, and want to make sure that the professional development they offer teachers is meaningful. The problem is that they don’t know how to make all of that happen. The CLI Model includes phases for curriculum, instruction, and assessment with the work being governed by a council so decisions do not lie on the shoulders of just one person.

Governance

Governance is the structure for overseeing the curriculum, instruction, and assessment phases of learning. It is the foundation that each district needs in order to be successful in all other phases. It begins with the creation of curriculum policy and a Curriculum Coordinating Council (CCC), which is made up of representatives from various roles across the district.

Council duties then include such things as creating a long-range plan to see that the work is maintained for years to come; making decisions about teacher implementation requirements, grading, mastery, and assessments; looking at the district mission statement; creating open lines of communication; and integrating appropriate staff development. 

Curriculum

In Year 1 of the model, your consultant will guide representative teachers of a single content area (the Subject Area Committee) through the process of creating a local, research-based K-12 curriculum that is aligned horizontally, vertically, and with state or other required standards. Remember, standards are NOT curriculum!

Each Subject Area Committee will remain intact through an entire curriculum-instruction-assessment cycle. It meets regularly in the first year to create the curriculum and then less often in subsequent years when the curriculum is in place. Once the curriculum has been validated (during the second year of the cycle), the district can begin collecting various types of data to inform instruction and assessment.

Instruction

Once the curriculum is in place, the next steps in the model consist of creating a pacing guide, organizing teaching materials, and building an Instructional Planning Resource (IPR) to facilitate daily planning.

CLI’s IPR is a valuable tool containing information pertaining to outcomes, criteria, assessment, teaching methods, student activities, and resources.

During this phase of the model, all subject-area teachers go through staff development in order to ensure lessons are directly aligned to the new curriculum, and on the process for providing feedback so the Subject Area Committee can make revisions when necessary. After this phase, your district will have a solid curriculum that has been tested and validated.

Assessment

The final phase of the curriculum cycle is creating and validating common assessments aligned to the new local curriculum. During this phase, the Subject Area Committee will receive detailed training in the areas of assessment construction, administration, and scoring.

Most districts will complete assessment validation within the fourth year of the curriculum cycle, with the Subject Area Committee meeting only a couple of times to make revisions. After completing all phases of the CLI Model, your district will have a K-12 aligned curriculum which serves as the basis for all instruction in that content area. Your teachers will have unified expectations for their students and targets to aim for. Their instruction will be aligned and their assessments will be valid and reliable measurements of student learning.

They will then be able to improve their instruction and improve student learning.