District and School Solutions

This training focuses on the purposes of written curriculum; how written curriculum supports instruction and how that role influences curriculum design and components. Participants will be able to describe the two main types of differentiation:  curricular and instructional, and discuss how the need for each influences curriculum design.  Participants explore what the district’s expectations for effective instruction look like, inclusive of differentiation, and discuss the instructional model and the framework for strategies that will form the basis for curriculum design and development.  Participants then develop a list of non-negotiable curriculum components that should be in every guide in preparation for developing a unit-based written curriculum.

This training provides all participants with a common vocabulary concerning curriculum and instruction and the effective management of each.  They will discuss why written curriculum is so important and how this critical tool supports engaging and cognitively challenging instruction.

This training engages participants in first creating the structure for the written curriculum, and then presents the steps involved in developing the components that make up a quality written curriculum.  Participants will learn what the most critical components of a written curriculum are and will decide on what components they deem non-negotiable and will also consider formats and organizational structure, based on the learning and goals from Module One.

Participants will see how the content in all the standards for a unit or course is made manageable by breaking it into “chunks,” or units, and will learn how to hold pacing within a course or year consistent while allowing for flexibility in daily and weekly progress through the use of the unit structure.  Participants will also brainstorm possible concepts or big ideas to form the unifying focus or theme of the units, in preparation for developing a scope and sequence, and will consider how to develop multi-disciplinary units, when and where appropriate.

After this module, participants should use time off-site to finalize the structure and formats for each content area’s guides, finalize the focus of each unit in terms of the learning students must master, and check the vertical and horizontal sequencing of that learning.   Module Three works with participants to finalize this and gives more focused attention on the learner expectations for each unit.

Participants will review the importance of the scope and sequence, a refined set of learner objectives that are derived from the standards that are measurable and specific in terms of what mastery looks like.  This set of objectives distills the standards into a manageable set of non-negotiable skills, concepts, and knowledge that are to be mastered by each child and places them in a PreK-12 sequence.  They will examine their units and review for each which are the most critical, mastery-level objectives, and which are the supporting, ancillary, or “en route” objectives.  The supporting objectives are those discrete pieces of knowledge or prerequisites that students gain while learning and mastering the mastery-level objectives, using classroom time more efficiently.  Participants will review the unit priority objectives for appropriate sequencing, within each grade level/course and across all grade levels of the system.

The units will also be reviewed for their respective framework of sequenced instructional modules and attention will be given to refining and finalizing this work.  If there is time, participants will be asked to think about possible larger, mastery-level performance-based assessments for each grade level or course that may transcend the units and support cognitively complex instruction. This work is intended to lead into Module Four.

This training focuses on identifying deeply-aligned, performance-based assessments for every course and content area at each grade level and developing corresponding rubrics for each.  The training then gives participants guidelines in developing and/or selecting formative assessment tools for frequent student progress monitoring.

Develop the sequence of lessons, with models for those types of lessons that can’t be scripted or captured adequately in writing, such as a guided reading lesson.  Participants will begin to review resources to attach to specific/model lessons and student activities.  Participants will also identify non-negotiable resources that every teacher must have at each grade level to effectively deliver the curriculum as written, and will review those resources for proper alignment across the dimensions of content, context, and cognitive type.  (3Cs)

The suggested sequence of activities or model lessons for each unit will incorporate suggestions for differentiating instruction for special populations, such as ELL students, Special Education students, or gifted students.  The facilitator will also present and integrate the principles of culturally-responsive instruction, to assure that students’ backgrounds and learning styles are taken into account when teachers plan instruction. Other initiatives that the district has currently underway can be integrated into the units, as well, such as socio-emotional learning or multiple intelligences.

*Resource Alignment (1 Day) (training is available in conjunction with this training; an additional day)

Curriculum Management Planning:  Planning the design, development, delivery of curriculum to maximize student learning

Differentiation Training: Planning for student-centered instruction using flexible learning arrangements

Cognitively Challenging Instruction:  Engaging and challenging students in the classroom with high levels of cognition (can also be done in conjunction with Culturally Responsive Instruction)

Effective strategies in the classroom:  implementing cognitively challenging instruction with high-yield strategies.

Resource Alignment and Examining Student Work:  Protocols for assuring deep alignment of resources and student work with the standards and objectives of the curriculum and with related assessments.

CMSi also offers formative review of curriculum, assessments, and related plans to provide ongoing feedback