Curriculum Leadership Institute

Pathways to School Improvement

systems

Illustrate Your System for Teaching and Learning, Literally

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One of the best parts of working with amazing school districts across the country is being able to highlight their awesome ideas for promoting positive changes in teaching and learning. Sweetwater County School District 1 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, identified a need to better communicate their district-wide expectations for teaching and learning. In a large district like theirs, they realized that not all teachers understood the system for curriculum, instruction, and assessment and therefore were not following it. To better communicate these processes with all teachers, they created the following graphic:

In this graphic, you’ll note that at the center of all curriculum work is the question of, “What’s best for students?” Sweetwater CSD1 is a PLC district and have aligned the four PLC questions to each phase of their system. The foundation for teaching and learning is curriculum (they call curriculum maps). This clarifies the curricular targets for teachers and students. Teachers are then able to create aligned instructional plans (IPRs), including short-cycle, formative assessments. Following their initial instruction, PLCs meet to go over data and determine ways to prepare students for common assessments. This may include re-teaching or further differentiation strategies. Then, they give their district-created common assessments. Again, PLCs meet to analyze local data gathered from their common assessments and determine if re-teaching and reassessment are necessary. Lastly, they revisit their IPRs to update them or make notes on what worked and what didn’t. The intent behind all of these steps, of course, is to improve teaching and learning for their students.

Your district may not implement the exact steps represented in their graphic. But, if you’re using the CLI Model, your process should include curriculum, instruction and the use of pacing guides and Instructional Planning Resources (although you may call them something else), common assessments, and analysis of data. A more generic version of this graphic might look like this, created for Sublette County School District 1 in Pinedale, Wyoming:

In this graphic, the district added pacing guides to plan out roughly when the curriculum is going to be taught and to ensure that teachers stay on track. The analysis of data is maintained, as well as re-teaching and reassessment.

Although the graphic for your district might look slightly different, an illustration of your teaching and learning process both appeals to visual learners and can easily be distributed and posted in all schools, classrooms, teachers’ lounges, etc. in your district. It will help to close the gap between teachers who understand district-wide expectations and those that don’t.

How to Evaluate Your Capacity for a Systemic Culture

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Districts are challenged more and more to develop or maintain a systemic culture for curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  Very often, the first challenge is in determining the extent to which a systemic culture exists and in this E-Hint, our goal is to give you the questions and some tools to figure out where your district is and what steps might help move you closer to solving the challenges of establishing a systemic culture. 

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, posed from a first-person perspective, could help an administrative team affirm or evaluate their current curriculum structures and processes. 

  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, State Accreditation Models, 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 in their buildings as well as 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?
  14. Do we have a method or practice to examine student learning data to improve our instructional strategies, our assessment techniques, or our expectations for students?

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.

Does Your District Have All the Pieces in Place to Improve and Maintain Teaching and Learning?

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Pieces to Improve Teaching and LearningImprovements in teaching and learning can be rather challenging to come by and to maintain over time, and in order to make systemic changes within your district, you need to have all staff on board and prepared to do their part. The graphic below illustrates the relationships between the various working groups throughout the process.

Much like puzzle pieces fit to create a complete design each of these working groups must complete their assigned duties (part of the systematic process) to achieve and maintain results. Evaluate your curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices to determine if your district has each of these pieces in place.   If they were in place at one time, are they still actively in place and fully functional?

Throughout our experiences, we have found that these steps and these engaged professionals are critical to accomplishing the foundations of a district aligned curriculum, intentional instruction, and valid, local assessment. Maintaining these quality cornerstones to improve student learning requires systematic attention with engaged professional staff members.

Systematic Implementation to Achieve a Systemic Vision

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In current school accreditation models, the existence of a systems approach is valued and evidence of that approach is necessary for a favorable review.  Accreditation teams are looking for indications of examining the whole system as well as documentation on taking care of the details.  One accreditation team’s review of a school district stated that “The district has a strong understanding of the big picture but does not seem to have a method of reaching their desired outcomes.”

Identifying the big picture is an example of systems thinking.  Systems thinking is a frequently used term within education circles, as well as industry discussions, but many participants in those discussions are not aware that there are two critical aspects of that view – systemic vision and systematic implementation.  Vision and implementation are partners in the entire change process. Each can be defined as follows: Systemic change (vision) is “change that pervades all parts of a system, taking into account the interrelationships and interdependencies among those parts.” Systematic change (implementation) is defined as “to be methodical in procedure or plan, or marked by thoroughness and regularity.”

Attention to one aspect of systems thinking without attention to the other can lead a district to a false expectation of success.

Systemic change (vision) demands that all subsystems and constituent parts be considered for potential impacts by proposed change.  Then, all members (the working parts) of the systems and subsystems must be involved in the discussions and thoroughly briefed as to the rationale of the change and the new reality in which the system as a whole is expected to operate.  Without the input of the interrelated and interdependent parts of the larger system, there is little chance of successful transition.  The working parts of a system each have a specific role in the success of the system.  Without the opportunity to study the change and to evaluate and communicate the potential impact of the change, the parts of the system may work at less than peak efficiency and result in the appearance of conflict with change.  In a school district, a permanent, representative group of the separate systems or subsystems is necessary to continuously review and monitor success or determine need for change.

Systematic change (implementation) is critical to prevent breakdowns within the system.  The concept of systematic change implies planning for timelines for the subsystems and parts to implement their necessary steps.  Once the systemic view is clearly defined, the systematic changes must be planned for implementation and maintenance.  Too often, continuous attention to the health or needs of each aspect is not planned and falls by the wayside.  With a group of representative stakeholders to maintain systemic view, the systematic needs become a regular detail to be considered and discussed.

A systems approach to decision making provides a basis for continued health of a school district.  Both aspects of the systems approach demand attention.  The number of “moving parts” within a district demands a systemic vision and a systematic approach to implementing the vision.  The “big picture” is important to see, but without the details of the “picture” the meaning is often lost or unclear.