Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum


Book Description

We know that curriculum is the core of the classroom experience, but what makes a quality curriculum? How can educators be sure that what they teach is strongly aligned to the specific standards that their district or school has adopted? What kinds of lessons, learning experiences, and assessments are most effective, and how should they be embedded within the curriculum? You'll find the answers to these and many other questions in this definitive, step-by-step guide to curriculum design and evaluation. Drawing from her work with teachers and administrators to facilitate curriculum development, Angela Di Michele Lalor offers targeted advice and real-life examples from elementary and secondary units of study across a variety of content areas and standards, as well as field-tested rubrics, protocols, and other tools. She provides criteria for evaluating each component of a curriculum and end-of-chapter checklists to help you ensure that the criteria are met. Relevant to anyone who is creating or revising curriculum, or evaluating options among published alternatives, Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum is a comprehensive and accessible roadmap to developing a solid foundation for teaching and learning--and better results in the classroom.




Making Curriculum Matter


Book Description

At the heart of education are two fundamental questions: What should we teach? and How should we teach it? Educators striving to design and deliver the best-possible learning experiences can feel overwhelmed by the possibilities. To help them make these critical decisions, Angela Di Michele Lalor identifies five key priorities of a curriculum that matters—practices, deep thinking, social and emotional learning, civic engagement and discourse, and equity. Emphasizing the importance of schools' determining their own path forward, Lalor provides a framework for action by * Describing how each element contributes to a rigorous, meaningful curriculum, * Providing strategies for incorporating each element into daily instruction and assessment, and * Offering reflection activities to identify strengths, needs, and possible next steps. With insightful observations, research-based background information, and real-world examples from a variety of schools and districts, Making Curriculum Matter presents teachers and administrators with a path for reaching their most important overall goal: to provide comprehensive, meaningful learning to all students.




Rigorous Curriculum Design


Book Description

The need for a cohesive and comprehensive curriculum that intentionally connects standards, instruction, and assessment has never been more pressing. For educators to meet the challenging learning needs of students they must have a clear road map to follow throughout the school year. Rigorous Curriculum Design presents a carefully sequenced, hands-on model that curriculum designers and educators in every school system can follow to create a progression of units of study that keeps all areas tightly focused and connected.




Course Design


Book Description




Understanding by Design


Book Description

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.




The Success Criteria Playbook


Book Description

Provide students a clear view of what success looks like for any process, task, or product. What does success look like for your students? How will they know if they have learned? This essential component of teaching and learning can be difficult to articulate but is vital to achievement for both teachers and students. The Success Criteria Playbook catapults teachers beyond learning intentions to define clearly what success looks like for every student—whether face-to-face or in a remote learning environment. Designed to be used collaboratively in grade-level, subject area teams—or even on your own—the step-by-step playbook expands teacher understanding of how success criteria can be utilized to maximize student learning and better engage learners in monitoring and evaluating their own progress. Each module is designed to support the creation and immediate implementation of high-quality, high impact success criteria and includes: • Templates that allow for guided and independent study for teachers. • Extensive STEM-focused examples from across the K-12 STEM curriculum to guide teacher learning and practice. • Examples of success criteria applied across learning domains and grades, including high school content, skills, practices, dispositions, and understandings. Ensure equity of access to learning and opportunity for all students by designing and employing high-quality, high-impact success criteria that connect learners to a shared understanding of what success looks like for any given learning intention.




What Works in Schools


Book Description

Schools can and do affect student achievement, and this book recommends specific-and attainable-action steps to implement successful strategies culled from the wealth of research data.




A Guide to Curriculum Mapping


Book Description

"With imagination and serious reflection, the author has generated a detailed resource with exercises, worksheets, staff development activities, and sample maps to assist any staff developer or curriculum designer. This book particularly connects to those who are at the beginning levels of their mapping journey." —From the Foreword by Heidi Hayes Jacobs A step-by-step guide to successful curriculum mapping initiatives! While curriculum mapping is recognized as a highly effective method for serving students′ ongoing instructional needs and creating systemic change, the means for putting this data-based decision-making process into practice may not always be clearly understood. This in-depth resource speaks to teachers and administrators with varying levels of curriculum-mapping experience and describes how teacher groups drive the process by engaging in collaborative inquiry as they review one another′s curriculums for gaps, redundancies, and new learning. The collected data assist in designing month-to-month instructional plans for all grade levels and subjects, resulting in a curriculum that is coherent, consistent, and aligned with standards. Drawing on her experience in working with thousands of educators across the country, Janet A. Hale offers specific steps for coordinating and sustaining strong mapping efforts that become embedded in school culture. The author explores the stages of contemplating, planning, and implementing a curriculum mapping initiative and helps the reader examine critical components that affect a learning organization′s progress through each phase. The book presents powerful tools and features that significantly enhance curriculum mapping efforts: Samples of four types of curriculum maps—Diary, Projected, Consensus, and Essential Guidelines for deciding what type of map to use to begin the process Assistance for selecting a Web-based mapping system Reflective questions at the end of each chapter A complete glossary of terms A Guide to Curriculum Mapping includes extended coverage of the challenges of curriculum mapping, offers encouragement and advice from educators who have successfully implemented a mapping initiative, and provides the necessary clarity to put curriculum mapping into action.




Common Formative Assessment


Book Description

Teams that engage in designing, using, and responding to common formative assessments are more knowledgeable about their own standards, more assessment literate, and able to develop more strategies for helping all students learn. In this conversational guide, the authors offer tools, templates, and protocols to incorporate common formative assessments into the practices of a PLC to monitor and enhance student learning




Assessing Student Learning by Design


Book Description

"How might we might help teachers use classroom assessments to gather appropriate evidence for all valued learning goals? How might our classroom assessments serve to promote learning, not just measure it? This book addresses these questions by offering a practical and proven Assessment Planning Framework. The Framework examines four different types of learning goals, considers various purposes and audiences for assessment, reviews five categories of assessment methods, and presents options for communicating results. This updated edition addresses the assessment of academic standards as well as transdisciplinary outcomes (e.g., 21st century skills), and describes the principles and practices underlying standards-based grading"--