Standard 9 Reflection: Evaluate and Use Effective Curriculum Design

Standard 9 Reflection:evaluate and use effective curriculum design

Background

Before starting my masters in Teacher Leadership,  I had a basic knowledge of how to evaluate effective curriculum design since I was part of the team that recommended the adoption our social studies current curriculum from McGraw-Hill entitled Discovering our Past:  A History of the World which I used over the last two years. We recommended it for adoption by our school district after looking at three curriculums that had been vetted by OPSI.  This curriculum was chosen because it was well organized, aligned with the Common Core Standards, and covered a wide variety of ancient civilizations. The curriculum also has online resources to use for differentia- tion, but they are difficult and time consuming for teachers to use.  As a result, we have need to use additional resources to supplement this curriculum in order to meet our student’s needs.

I also had a basic knowledge of how to use effective curriculum design to create lesson plans and framework as I also helped create the initial framework and pacing guide for this curriculum which included looking at the Common Core Standards and then coming up with learning targets, success criteria as well as formative and summative assessments.  Additionally, over last few years in our school district we have been focusing on learning good instructional practices. We started off with learning how to write good learning targets. Then we moved on to including success criteria in our instructional practices. Our most recent work has been on formative assessment and differentiation. Besides having administrators look for these things in our lessons as they visit our classrooms, we submit a lesson plan at the end of the year which is scored by administrators.  Using this information administrator decide the focus of our professional learning the following year

Learning and Applied Practice

Most of my gained knowledge of how to evaluate and use effective curriculum design came from the Curriculum Design class I took this summer.  In this class we started by evaluating a curriculum  that we were familiar with and I chose to analyze our McGraw- Hill curriculum entitled Discovering our Past.  Our next step was to look at the standards for our particular content area.  While doing this work it was interesting to see that even though we have the Common Core Standards, each state still has its own standards for the different content standards.  We also have technology standards which we need to incorporate into our frameworks and pacing guides.

One of things that I am doing in my current position as Future Ready Library is taking curriculum and revising it to meet the needs of our district and more importantly our students for our STRETCH (Students Reaching Toward new Challenges) class which meets for 45 minutes Monday through Thursday.   Since I had been asked to modify a curriculum from Google that teaches students how to create Google Sheets, manipulate data on a Google Sheet, and create a Google Map as they create an interactive area guide which worked out nice (https://applieddigitalskills.withgoogle.com/c/en/curriculum .html)  so that it would meet the needs of our district,  I used this to work with as we practiced effective curriculum design.  I started by tying it to the Common Core Standards for Writing for History, Science and Technology as well as to the ISTE (International Society for Technology Education)  standards for technology.   Then I created ten learning targets based on the standards as I started writing this curriculum.

We then learned about different types of formative assessments that we can use to help us and students learn how they are meeting this learning target.  We learned through Lalor (2017) the different types of assessments-- recall, product, demonstration and process -- as well as the three purposes of assessments - diagnostic, formative and summative in chapter four.  She suggested using multiple types of assessments in order to accurately evaluate if students are able to move on as well toward the learning target.   She also suggested that we as teachers clearly identify the purpose of our assessments and share that information with our students through our learning targets and success criteria.  

Next,  I created a couple of sample lesson plans using our district’s template that included activities that would actively engage my students, learning targets, success criteria, formative assessments, and differentiation based on the information I received from the formative assessments.  Over the last few years in our district we have discussed how to change from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom and have emphasized the use of formative assessments, so it was fairly easy for me to implement these ideas into lesson plans. I often use the gradual release of responsibility model into my lessons as I find that it provides students a clear understanding of what is expected since it is modeled by the teacher and then as a class before the students is asked to do this on their own.   It also provides many places to insert formative assessments. At the end of the Curriculum Design class I had my unit started.

Issues Encountered/Problems of Practice Addressed

One of the things we have noticed once we started using the Discovering the Past curriculum that even though it was aligned with the Common Core Standards, some of the standards were being assessed more than others and that some ancient civilizations had a limited amount of information.   Therefore we need to change some of our assessments, find supplemental materials, and create new lesson plans in order to meet these needs.

Additionally, when I was evaluating this curriculum for my Curriculum Design class I

noticed that not only do we need to meet the Common Core Standards, but also those of our state.  It amazes me with the emphasis on Common Core Standards, that all states also then have their own standards and they can be, and usually are different from state to state. We also have technology standards to be teaching as well so that our students will be successful in their current learning as well as once they leave our education system. As a librarian I also need to become familiar with the American Association of School Librarians standards (AASL)  which I didn’t even know existed until another classmate discussed them in the discussion board of my class.  I can see why teachers, students and parents get overwhelmed by the standards.

Even through my school district has worked on writing learning targets for our students for several years, while working on my learning targets for my Curriculum Design class I noticed that I had to really think through the standards I was addressing and break them down into learning targets that would answer “the following questions from a students point of view: What will I be able to do when I’ve finished the lesson? What idea, topic, or subject is important to me to learn and understand so that I can do this?
How will I show that I can do this, and how well will I have to do it?”

as Moss, Brookhart and Long (2011) suggested.  As I did this I was reminded that it is important to  take the time to think these through since you need clear learning targets that will be guiding your teaching as well as students learning.

In addition, when we were asked to create assessments for our learning targets, I found myself leaning toward product assessments since in this unit students will be producing a product.  I had to really work on creating assessments that were recall and process. I also had to really think about the difference between product and demonstration as I was writing them -- a product assessment is where students create a tangible product while demonstration assessments “require students to do something” (Lalor, pg. 68).   Some examples are small group discussions, class debates, and presentations.

Lastly, I struggled with how to differentiate once I have the data from the formative assessments so I appreciated having to learn more about this and being asked to insert it into my lesson plans.   I realized that one way that could do this is by including time limits. If students don’t complete it by a given time, they need to finish it either after school or during STRETCH on Thursdays (we give this day for students to catch up on academics and get help from teachers as needed).  The other way I can differentiate is by pairing up students to help each other as well as to have my students give each other feedback. By reading the article in Edutopia about strategies for differentiated learning I felt better about what I already do and got some new ideas that I can incorporate into my lesson plans to meet the needs of my students.

How Evaluation and Use of Effective Curriculum Design are Supported by Research

As I said earlier, in my school district we have been working on creating learning targets, success criteria and formative assessments which align with our standards.  Much of this work has been around Hattie’s research that looked at what we as teachers can do to help our students. Making our learning targets clear and visual was one of those simple changes we could make that would have a great impact, so we started working on communicating our learning targets to our students.  Then our next step was the addition of success criteria which clarify what the learning target is and how we will get there. For example, I may have a different idea of what I think “doing the dishes” are than another family member, so I need to be more specific if I want it to be done the way I expect it to be done.  Lastly, we added the use of formative assessments. These help students as well as teachers know if they have meet the learning goal and if not what do we do so we can meet the goal. All of these things need to align with our standards in order for our students to meet standards they are tested upon and if we do them, not only will we see a years growth, but most likely more than a year’s growth.

Additionally, I read an article while in my Standards-Based Assessment class by Fisher (2018) that compared learning targets, success criteria and formative assessments to the GPS on our phone or in our car. which I thought gave a nice visual of why we include
this in our lesson plans.  The learning target is like the destination while the formative assessments are the individual turns that let us know if we need to re-adjust or not to get our final point. If we do well following the individual turns then our GPS advises us of our next turn or step and if we miss a turn it will re-adjust in order to get us to the given destination.

Lastly,  in the article “Examples of Engaging Instruction to Increase Equity in Education” we are given multiple sources of research that supports these elements helping not just some, but all students in our classroom.to be academically successful in the classroom.    The first being that we need to use explicit instruction (clear learning target). Then we need to build and prime their background knowledge. We also need to provide students with equitable learning opportunities that have a high-degree of student engagement and give them time to practice the skills required of them.  Lastly, we need to provide performance feedback (formative assessments) so they know if they met the learning
target or not. And, if not, what could they do differently to meet it.

Overall Impact

Overall, I have realized how important it is to evaluate current curriculums and use effective curriculum design when creating frameworks, pacing guides and lesson plans as I am creating and/or revising curriculum to meet the needs of our students and our district in my new position.   As I develop these sessions/lessons I will be incorporating the ideas that I learned about clear learning targets and success criteria, assessments, engaging activities and differentiation. Also, in my new position as Future Ready Librarian I have the opportunity to with teachers to improve their instructional practices.   For example, next I hope to provide optional professional learning sessions to focus on the instructional practices and this class has provided me additional resources to help me do this.

References

Chaparro, E. A., Nese, R. N. T., & McIntosh, K. (2015).  Examples of engaging instruction to increase equity in education.  OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.  www.pbls.org

Edutopia Follow. (2015, June 04). Teacher Tested Strategies for Differentiated Instruction.

Retrieved August 11,    2018, from https://www.slideshare.net/edutopia/teacher-tested- strategies-for-differentiated-instruction

Hattie, J. (2017). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. London: Routledge.

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2018). A map for meaningful learning: Kids need a clear destination, success criteria, and frequent feedback. Educational Leadership, 75(5), 82-83.

Lalor, A. D. (2017). Ensuring high-quality curriculum: How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Moss, C. M., Brookhart, S. B., & Long, B. A. (2011, March). Knowing your learning target. Educational Leadership, 66(6), 66-69.

Spielvogel, J. J. (2016). Discovering our past: a history of the world. Columbus, OH: McGraw-Hill Education