Curriculum Leadership Institute

Pathways to School Improvement

Curriculum

Curriculum is a Roadmap

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“Curriculum” is discussed on a daily basis in conversations within schools among administrators, teachers, support staff, and outside stakeholders.  Strangely enough, it is a term that carries fundamental misconceptions that make those conversations difficult.  Unless everyone involved in the conversation has the same definition for curriculum, what is said and what is heard are often very different.

Perhaps the most common misconception about curriculum is that a textbook or series is the curriculum. Textbooks or any other instructional materials are actually resources. Resources are used to teach curriculum, but are not the curriculum itself. Many textbook series have a curriculum embedded into the resource; however, it is critical that a district determine its curricula locally before resources are adopted. This is to ensure that adopted resources properly support the learning that the district feels is essential – not the hidden curriculum that the publisher values.

Another misconception about curriculum has to do with the federal government’s requirement that each state determines a set of standard skills and content that must be taught at each grade level for each content area. Although these sets of skills and content are clearly called state standards, many educators are under the false assumption that they are curriculum. It is clearly stated in most standards documents that they are not curriculum and that districts need to determine their curricula locally to assure that students meet the identified standards for content and skills.

True, local curriculum must fully employ state standards, but the district may value additional skills and content. Furthermore, standards documents may not be organized into a teachable sequence, but rather they are typically categorized according to similar attributes (strands or domains) such as reading skills, number sense, or presentational skills that would not necessarily be taught in isolation of the other strands or domains within the subject area standards.

Please examine this graphic representation of curriculum as a roadmap and note the role that resources and standards play in the student’s learning journey.

Curriculum illustrated as a roadmap

In this illustration, the journey begins with a teacher and her students. This teacher is tasked with leading her students to their final destination (the end of the “road”) which includes their ability to demonstrate skills and knowledge of the state standards and the district-defined values. This could be a daunting task, particularly if the “road” is not broken down into teachable chunks or units. The breakdown of the journey, the roadmap, is the curriculum.

Relationship between Curriculum, Resources, Standards, and Differentiation

Curriculum should be organized to include curriculum targets that can be accurately assessed after a unit is completed. The desired “outcomes” for each of these teachable units are depicted as blue flags along the road in the illustration. Essentially, these outcomes are significant checkpoints of student learning along the way.

To ensure that students can be successful at the unit outcome level, learning must be broken down further into smaller steps that will be formatively assessed on a regular basis (daily or every few days, at least). These narrow curriculum targets are depicted as footprints along the road. Each unit outcome (flag) includes its own set of footprints.

So, where do resources, best practices, and differentiation fit into this analogy? Resources are what you pack in your suitcase. They are the supplemental materials that make the trip fun, engaging, and successful. There is rarely one resource that will align perfectly to your curriculum, which is why we use the suitcase to represent resources; it is filled with many great tools and materials – some are essential, others are nice to have along.

Incorporating best practices (e.g., 21st-century skills, math practices, ELA text complexity, and ISTE standards) into instruction is like the sun that sheds light on the trip. Best practices help to produce a well-balanced experience for students.

Lastly, differentiation activities (i.e., intervention and enrichment) are the rest areas along the way. It is essential to pause to ensure all students are on board and ready to progress, using formative assessments as indicators of who might need remediation or intervention activities.  It is equally important to provide engaging, relevant activities for those students who are already with you and can keep up the pace.

There are so many elements that go into effective teaching; but, the foundation of everything is to determine what students need to know and be able to do – the curriculum ­­– and how it will fit into the time that you’re given. If you haven’t already made your roadmap, make it a priority to identify curriculum targets. You’ll feel more confident about having a plan and the chances of students arriving at the destination are much improved!

Fidelity to the New Curriculum

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In scientific research, certain conditions need to be followed carefully in order to have reliable results.  Procedures are put in place to ensure variables are isolated because the influence of extraneous variables can greatly affect the outcome of an experiment in a favorable or negative way.  Implementing a new curriculum is similar to conducting a scientific investigation in that it is important to follow a set procedure.  Conditions need to be controlled, and progress needs to be carefully followed and monitored so the results are accurate.

Clarification: Curriculum is not the same as a textbook, textbook series, or program. Rather, it includes the unit outcomes and individual learning targets (components) that supplemental resources like textbooks or programs must align.

Focus on the Curriculum

With the external mandates of ever-higher expectations for student achievement, school officials are tempted to try a variety of methods, strategies, and programs to gain rapid results.  Sometimes a combination of programs is put into place with the hope of greater gains in student learning.  However, greater gains are not always the result, even when using research-based programs with proven success.  Instead, several variables are thrown into the mix with the lack of fidelity to one method or program.  A conglomeration approach doesn’t allow for educators to determine what really is making the difference. Furthermore, the mixture can even produce negative results. For example, it may seem like it would be helpful, but adding new resources or other instructional programs while implementing a new curriculum creates divided attention for the teachers.  When a new program is put into place at the same time as a new curriculum, it is hard for teachers to know what to “follow,” or how to merge the two, and it is impossible to determine which is truly affecting the results. If a new program is adopted within the district, it is recommended to pilot the program through another curricular area, or if that isn’t possible – to wait another year for adoption, until the new curriculum has been validated.

Supporting the Long-Range Plan

One of the first steps of action a Curriculum Coordinating Council (CCC) performs is developing a long-range plan for the district.  The CCC purposely staggers developing curriculum for the areas of math, language arts, social studies, and science so only one core area is implemented during a school year.  Not only does this help preserve the sanity of teachers responsible for multiple content areas, but it allows the new focus to be on one core area per year.

Also included on the long-range plan is the validation of the new draft curriculum. Throughout year two of the cycle, all teachers of the target subject are expected to frequently provide feedback to Subject Area Committee (SAC) members so needed changes can be made to the curriculum before it is adopted as a final product.  Teachers are specifically looking to see if students struggle with a particular outcome or component and if the pace proceeds as expected so the curriculum will be completed by the end of the year.  They should also note additional materials needed or professional training that would supplement instructional requirements within the curriculum. Collecting this information allows the SAC to make changes to the draft curriculum and request any necessary professional development training.  It also allows the committee members to help guide the selection of supporting resources, which takes place during year three of the long-range plan.

Assessing the Curriculum for Results

During the year a new curriculum is implemented, students may have some growing pains due to increases in expected knowledge or skills. Teachers may have to review some concepts to get students ready to learn or create stepping stones when skills are expected at earlier levels. The pains of the transition from the old to the new curriculum decrease in the following years. In the meantime, frequent checks of student understanding must take place not only to guide instruction but also to help validate the curriculum. Assessing student learning exclusively on the curriculum is critical.  If new resources or old assessments are utilized instead of tightly aligned assessments, results are invalid and we won’t know the true impact of the curriculum. Reliable results are needed before changes can be made and the curriculum approved as a final document.

By modeling the carefully placed steps of scientific study, a newly adopted curriculum can be implemented with validity and reliability.  Fidelity to the curriculum has to be the priority in order to gain the desired results.

Photo Credit: Louis Reed

Leaders Hungry for Details of Systemic Change

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In July 2018, we were invited to present at the Southern Region Leadership Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi, hosted by the Mississippi School Board Association.  The goal for our two sessions was to help district leaders from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas prioritize specific take-home steps for their districts to build and establish systemic leadership for curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  Reflecting upon the group and individual interactions both during and after the sessions, we believe that we achieved the level of interest for which we were striving! District leaders were excited about the specific implementation details for creating systemic leadership and questions for evaluating their current leadership processes for curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

While not a comprehensive list by any means, we present this 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.

  1.      Do we have an academic structure in place to ensure that our curriculum processes are district-based rather than site-based?
  2.      Do we have a model or system of processes we follow, as a district, for alignment of curriculum, instruction, and assessment?
  3.      Does our current model or system of processes have a built-in reporting method so that documentation is readily available for accreditation           visits or mandated reports (ESSA, AdvancED, etc.) without having to spend an extra amount of time and expense to prepare such evidence?
  4.      Have we, as a district studied change theory sufficiently to support first and second order changes within the district?
  5.      Do we need outside help to establish a systemic, shared-decision making culture for these issues?
  6.      Do we have a district-wide, board-approved policy for how curriculum, instruction, assessment, and student learning decisions are made to             ensure stability when there are administrative staff changes?
  7.      Do we have a structured timeline (long-range plan) to indicate the cycle of curriculum development, resource adoption, and the writing of               local assessments for every subject area?
  8.      Do we have a district-wide, representative body of stakeholders (various levels of administration, teachers, specialists, board members,                 community members) that meets regularly rather than leaving the responsibility to a single person to address such things as:
    • Acceptable grading practices
    • Assessment use (security and administration)
    • Accountability requirements to assure implementation of the district curriculum
    • Instructional alignment to the curriculum
    • Definitions of mastery
    • Use of data from assessments
  9.      What roles do the building principal or other administrators play as instructional leaders within the district?
  10.    Do we have consistency in what is taught and what is expected of students within the same grade level or course regardless of the                         teacher, building, or year?
  11.    How are new staff members prepared to follow the model/procedures before they begin teaching in our district?
  12.    How does the district ensure that the required use of the curriculum is put into practice with fidelity?
  13.    Do we have valid, local assessments to use as data for timely intervention for students who are struggling?

Although not exhaustive, these are some examples of questions that the Curriculum Leadership Institute Model for School Improvement provides support in answering.  Click here for a rubric to determine where your district’s current strengths and weaknesses are in addressing these critical issues.

Photo Credit: Jamie Street

Curriculum: A Catalyst for Change (Part Three)

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This is the third segment of Curriculum: A Catalyst for Change co-written by Sara McGinnis and Kyla Slate.  Sara is the curriculum director at Sheridan County School District #1 (SCSD#1) in Wyoming. Kyla is a former consultant with the Curriculum Leadership Institute (CLI) who worked with SCSD#1 over a 4-year timeframe to implement the CLI Model, a comprehensive, systemic school improvement model.   Other contributors are noted within each part.  Part 1 focuses on intentional change at the district level.  Part 2 focuses on the role of principals as instructional leaders.

Teachers in Charge

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. When developing the curriculum, teachers also contemplated key targets locally that were not included in state standards, but were still important for students.  They applied various proven educational methodologies such as Bloom’s Taxonomy (rev. Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) and Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 1996, 2009) to build the curriculum—a foundational necessity for creating common assessments and aligned instruction.

Jill Fightmaster, department chair/teacher at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School District  #307: 

“This process has brought about more collaboration among the teachers in the department than I have ever experienced.  There are conversations daily regarding best practices in teaching, assessment strategies, and ways to engage students in learning.  The process has made us truly “dig in” to our teaching and we have all become better for it in the end.”

As teachers collaborate with other grade level cohorts to create the final products, many are excited for change and the challenge of building a new culture in their district.  Some are early adopters who believe reform is positive and can only help students.  Others may be concerned about moving away from traditional roles or methods, don’t see the need for change, or see the work as overwhelming.

Tiffany, also from BBCHS#307 in Illinois gives some good advice for leading collaborative change initiatives and some reflections about possible reasons for resistance:

“Especially in the field of education, I think people are profoundly uncomfortable with change.  Changing habits is hard work.  Taking a look in the mirror and realizing that maybe what you have been doing might not be the best course of action is a hard realization for most. It hasn’t been until recently that this profession has supported and encouraged reflection and innovation as valued ways to spend time.  As educators we always feel like we need to be right.  To admit that we might need to change somehow admits that we are not good. Of course this is an illusion that we convince ourselves is reality. As our profession gets more collaborative and reflective this will change. Luckily, there are a few ‘innovators’ that thrive in the zone of change.  It is those people that you need to help lead the change in a district.  If you can get them on board along with some early adopters, it is much easier.”

In many cases, for the first time in their careers, teachers are afforded all the rights of a true professional. Once this happens, they realize their opinions as decision-makers are highly valued. They often need a little guidance in that role to become focused leaders and catalysts for change.

Kyla (CLI):  “In my work with various districts, I am in a unique position to have witnessed the transformation of teachers who went from resistance, to understanding, to commitment, to being a leader.  Sometimes the trans-formation is simply stunning and it can only take place because leaders within the district are not only asking questions and coaching teachers, but also providing support when needed (or getting out of the way when necessary!) and serving as living examples of the shift in culture.” 

When teachers are placed in a group of their peers and lack confidence in their roles, they may retreat into themselves, fearful of voicing new ideas or opinions that differ from others, or may delay work completion efforts. These are natural and common responses to change.  Michael Fullan (2001) states that we must listen to those resistant to the process. They often bring up ideas we may have missed and suggest alternatives that we hadn’t thought about. Don’t give up on teachers in this category… leaders can be built.

Sara (SCSD#1):  “When someone struggles with this process, I try to discern what may be missing.  In some cases, teachers don’t understand the vision.  Others may understand the vision, but feel they lack experience or skill.  Or, perhaps they don’t have resources in time, money, or support to be successful.”

Yes, we categorically believe that change IS possible.  However, it isn’t always inevitable for everyone.  We purposely focus on the positive aspects of change; but, it is important to realize that not all resistors convert into supporters.  There is a point where persistent resistance transforms into refusal.  The reality is that change is a choice—a choice that not everyone will make, no matter what supports are provided.

Tiffany (BBCHS#307):   “I think this process has strengthened us as a family in that we are learning and growing together.  However, with everything being new and different, we have had our growing pains. Changes in philosophy may mean losing staff; and that is okay.”

Using Google Sites to Increase Curriculum Implementation in the Classroom

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Curriculum Library

School district leaders who are committed to student achievement understand that instruction, learning, and assessment necessitate a vertically and horizontally aligned curriculum.  When teachers have readily accessible curriculum learning targets, pacing guides, and a selection of aligned resources, they are free to select the optimal learning activities that will engage learners in achieving the curricular goals. Teachers are not bound to an agenda as determined by a single textbook publisher, nor do they feel constricted by teaching-to-the-text. Instead, dedicated district teachers and administrators work together to create a living document, truly a collection of documents, that becomes a beacon for student achievement and higher levels of classroom instruction, learning, and engagement.  Organizing and disseminating these documents, sometimes critical to multiple committees and authors, has traditionally been assigned to the curriculum coordinator (AKA: “The Document Stalker”), whose time might be more effectively utilized.  The time is ripe for a better solution.

Within the last year, over half a dozen current and former CLI districts have opted to organize their local curriculums using the new CLI Online Curriculum Library, a Google Site template. The benefits for districts using Google (now called G-Suite for Education) are widely known: free email accounts (Gmail), file storage (Google Drive), and file creation (Google Docs).  One application that may be underutilized due to time or training constraints is Google Sites.  Google Sites could easily serve as your district’s intranet, a closed network only accessible by those within your district.

Use with Google Docs

With the simple addition of CLI’s curriculum organization template, a district is well on its way to creating a central hub where every teacher within their district may access, upload, download, or immediately locate relevant documents pertaining to their subject and curriculum.  The efficiencies created by using Google Sites for organization simply cannot be overstated. Ideally, existing Word documents would either be imported as or converted into Google docs.

Once a document is converted to a Google Doc, it is comparable to a “webpage,” with its own unique URL link — a permanent online presence. With each document within a curriculum assigned its own URL, the ability to interlink documents allows for on-demand information and improved file-finding efficiency. For example, a curriculum document may be linked as many times as needed specifically to each Instructional Planning Resource (IPR), or lesson plan, associated with every component.

Another benefit of Google Docs is the ability to share responsibility for document creation, thus distributing the workload when it’s time to put meat on the bones of a curriculum. For example, maybe you need the English teachers in your district to share ideas and resources for a specific outcome, or in the case of CLI districts, an IPR.  Google Docs enables multiple teachers to contribute to one document simultaneously and instantaneously.

File Sharing and Permissions

With Google Docs and Google Sites, file sharing and permission settings may be customized in any number of configurations. Do you want only the sixth-grade teachers to be able to see the sixth-grade assessments? If the assessment is a Google Doc, you may give document-level access to only the sixth-grade teachers, either as view-only or with editing permission.  Alternatively, you may have uploaded the files to the site as PDFs, in which case, you would only give the sixth-grade teachers permission to view the sixth-grade assessment page (enabled through page-level permissions of your site).[/one_half]

Decisions to Make

When using a Google site, it will be important for the site’s ultimate design and organization to decide whether you are going to use all Google docs, all Word or PDF documents, or some combination of both that makes sense for the situation.   Word and PDF documents uploaded to the site are “physically” stored data on the site and will need to be downloaded and reuploaded for any changes to be reflected on the site. This may be an effective way to control document editing, if that is a concern. Staff with “View only” access to the site may download documents, but not upload them.

Using Google docs instead of Word or PDF files, on the other hand, allows file-level permissions; therefore, changes, edits, or comments may be made in real-time – no uploading or downloading necessary. This could be helpful for documents that require, or would benefit from, team collaboration and the need for immediacy, such as IPRs or lesson plans.

You will also need to decide who will be the administrator (or “owner”) of the site.  This person(s) will have editorial rights and, in addition, be able to determine theme choice, header design and layout, and control site access and permissions. Other questions regarding site administration include: Who needs permission to view this site? Who needs to be able to edit the site? Do we want to enable page-level permissions?  If so, which individuals or teams will have editorial access to which pages?

Most of the districts using the CLI curriculum site template would like for teachers to feel they have the freedom to make updates where they are most needed – on the IPRs. Classroom teachers may find a new website, article, or book to add to their resource list for a curricular outcome. Or, they may see that an old resource is no longer available and want to delete it. When they can keep a document “up-to-date” readily, it truly becomes more functional within the context of daily, weekly, or monthly use.

The gap between curriculum development and classroom implementation is shortened by increasing teacher access to curriculum plans, assessments, pacing guides, and IPRs or lesson plans. The best laid plans are to no avail, if they are buried on a shelf two classrooms down the hall, or on someone else’s hard drive a building away.

Using Data to Improve Instruction in Five Steps or Less

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In a recent conversation, a principal at a Curriculum Leadership Institute (CLI) client district expressed concern about the sixth-grade math team. The district received state test results and it was clear that the sixth-grade students, as a whole, underperformed on one specific state standard. Unsure of the correct course of action, his initial plan was to re-evaluate their current resource. It is possible that the issue may be a misalignment between the current resource and the curriculum, but there are a few things to consider prior to spending the money on adopting a new resource.

Before being able to analyze and address the solution to the problem, the school district must have some essential pieces in place. The first piece is a locally-written curriculum. As stated in a previous E-Hint, state standards or an adopted resource are not synonymous with curriculum. But rather, curriculum is what your individual district defines as essential skills and knowledge for all students. The second task for the district is to have common assessments in place that are carefully aligned to the curriculum.  Each skill and piece of knowledge included in the curriculum must also be assessed in a way that allows students to show they can demonstrate the required learning.  Additionally, instructional plans must be created throughout the district. We, at CLI, recommend using a standard planning format for all teachers. We use the Instructional Planning Resource that includes formative assessment (component assessment) with predetermined criteria, teacher methods, student activities, resources, and differentiation. Instructional plans should be housed in an easily accessible manner so they may be evaluated for effectiveness and, if effective, used from year-to-year.

When all of these pieces are in place educators may begin to look at assessment data. Remember, there are three different types of assessments: formative, interim, and summative. Formative assessments are created and used by individual teachers and PLCs to immediately drive instruction and predict student success on major assessments or high stakes tests.  Interim assessments are larger assessments that incorporate several targets (components) and assess

at the unit level (outcome). These are formative in nature as re-teaching and re-assessing are still possible. Finally, districts are state and federally required to implement summative assessments, often called state or other standardized tests. These tests are typically used to evaluate a district as a whole. They are considered summative assessments as they are not used to drive instruction for the same population of students since scores are not known during the same school year and re-teaching and re-assessing are not possible.

When teachers receive data from formative and interim assessments, it may be clear what the next steps are in terms of re-teaching and re-assessing.  But, when teachers receive data from the previous school year’s summative assessments, oftentimes the next steps may be somewhat confusing or daunting.  The first thing to keep in mind when analyzing this data, is to look for big things that stand out. In the example in the introduction, the big “Aha!” was the sixth-grade students under-performing on one entire standard. So now what?

Now, review the three essential pieces already mentioned above: curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Begin with the locally-written curriculum. Check the alignment of the curriculum to the state standards; particularly the standard that students performed poorly on. Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Does the local curriculum require the same skills and knowledge as those in the state standards?
  • Is the “essence” of the standard the same when it was transferred to curriculum language?

If the curriculum checks out, and you’ve determined that it is appropriately aligned to the standards, take a look at the corresponding local common assessment (interim) that is in place. Determine if the common assessment is aligned to the curriculum. You may cross-reference the common assessment with the curriculum rather than the standards (since you’ve already critiqued the curriculum for alignment). Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Does the content (knowledge) in the common assessment meet that which is in the curriculum? Does it go beyond?
  • Do the verbs (skills) in the common assessment align with those in the curriculum? Do they go beyond?

Then determine if the expected performance on the common assessment is appropriate. Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Is it developmentally or task appropriate?
  • Is the rigor aligned to descriptions of student performance from the curriculum?
  • Did the student performances on the common assessment match the performances on the summative assessment? Are there commonalities in the performances of students that match the data from the summative assessment performance?

If you’ve determined that your common assessment is properly aligned with the local curriculum, you should move on to evaluating instruction. Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Do in-class activities allow for practicing the same types of tasks appearing on the assessment?
  • Does the content being taught (amount and type) align with the curriculum/assessment?
  • Is the rigor of learning activities high enough to prepare students for the assessment?
  • Is there sufficient instruction, practice, and remediation?

Typically, after evaluating the local curriculum, common assessments, and instruction, you’ll be able to determine the issue and correct it. But sometimes, the issue may not fall within the documented curriculum, assessment, or instruction. If that is the case, ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Do the common assessment and the state assessment value the same skills?
  • Does curriculum pacing allow for instruction and assessment of appropriate learning prior to state tests?
  • Have interventions been effective?

In the example being used, it turned out that the sixth-grade math team was teaching the standard in question after the summative assessment was given. So in their case, they were able to re-organize their pacing to solve the problem, rather than purchase or create a whole new resource. Had they not taken the time to disaggregate the summative data, they could have arbitrarily changed the curriculum, instruction, and/or assessments, or purchased a new resource without seeing any improvement in scores. This type of thorough data analysis undoubtedly leads to overall evaluation of curriculum, instruction, and assessment which benefits both teachers and students.