Using Power Standards to Build an Aligned Curriculum


Book Description

Award-winning educator Joe Crawford describes how to use Power Standards to build an effective standards-based curriculum and integrate them into instruction to achieve student success.




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.




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.




Aligning Your Curriculum to the Common Core State Standards


Book Description

Avoid "analysis paralysis" and just get started! Now that most states have adopted the new Common Core State Standards, the next major challenge is to simplify and implement them by 2014. That is why it is important to begin this work now. Joe Crawford, Milken Award-winning educator and author of Using Power Standards to Build an Aligned Curriculum, shares his proven process for building a viable local curriculum based on the CCSS. Readers will find: A system for creating local standards from the CCSS Methods for connecting the common, formative assessments to quarterly instructional objectives Ways to scaffold learning expectations Examples taken from districts where CCSS is currently implemented Included are helpful charts and graphs plus access to Internet-based software for mapping the CCSS to curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Schools cannot continue to do what they have always done and expect a different result. This book explains how to facilitate learning for all students while taking advantage of the new culture, technology, and norms of today′s learning environment.




Power Standards


Book Description

Prioritize the state standards on the basis of need.




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.




Educating One and All


Book Description

In the movement toward standards-based education, an important question stands out: How will this reform affect the 10% of school-aged children who have disabilities and thus qualify for special education? In Educating One and All, an expert committee addresses how to reconcile common learning for all students with individualized education for "one"â€"the unique student. The book makes recommendations to states and communities that have adopted standards-based reform and that seek policies and practices to make reform consistent with the requirements of special education. The committee explores the ideas, implementation issues, and legislative initiatives behind the tradition of special education for people with disabilities. It investigates the policy and practice implications of the current reform movement toward high educational standards for all students. Educating One and All examines the curricula and expected outcomes of standards-based education and the educational experience of students with disabilitiesâ€"and identifies points of alignment between the two areas. The volume documents the diverse population of students with disabilities and their school experiences. Because approaches to assessment and accountability are key to standards-based reforms, the committee analyzes how assessment systems currently address students with disabilities, including testing accommodations. The book addresses legal and resource implications, as well as parental participation in children's education.




Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs


Book Description

With the publication of the National Science Education Standards and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, a clear set of goals and guidelines for achieving literacy in mathematics and science was established. Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs has been developed to help state- and district-level education leaders create coherent, multi-year curriculum programs that provide students with opportunities to learn both mathematics and science in a connected and cumulative way throughout their schooling. Researchers have confirmed that as U.S. students move through the grade levels, they slip further and further behind students of other nations in mathematics and science achievement. Experts now believe that U.S. student performance is hindered by the lack of coherence in the mathematics and science curricula in many American schools. By structuring curriculum programs that capitalize on what students have already learned, the new concepts and processes that they can learn will be richer, more complex, and at a higher level. Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs outlines: Components of effective mathematics and science programs. Criteria by which these components can be judged. A process for developing curriculum that is structured, focused, and coherent. Perhaps most important, this book emphasizes the need for designing curricula across the entire 13-year span that our children spend in elementary and secondary school as a way to improve the quality of education. Ultimately, it will help state and district educators use national and state standards to design or re-build mathematics and science curriculum programs that develop new ideas and skills based on earlier onesâ€"from lesson to lesson, unit to unit, year to year. Anyone responsible for designing or influencing mathematics or science curriculum programs will find this guide valuable.




Prioritizing the Common Core


Book Description

The consensus among educators nationwide is that in-depth instruction paired with focused assessment of essential concepts and skills are far more effective than superficially covering every concept and skill in the standards. Educators are faced with the task of teaching all standards while meeting the extraordinary range of student learning needs. Prioritizing the Common Core offers common sense solutions to the dilemmas teachers face today in implementing the new, more rigorous national standards. Chapters present a rationale for prioritizing the Common Core, a step-by-step process for prioritizing standards in language arts and mathematics, strategies for soliciting feedback and input from everyone in the district or school prior to the final determination of the Priority Standards, and detailed summaries of the process schools in six different districts used to identify their Priority Standards, with accompanying commentary by those who directed the work.




Culturally Relevant Pedagogy


Book Description

For the first time, this volume provides a definitive collection of Gloria Ladson-Billings’ groundbreaking concept of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP). After repeatedly confronting deficit perspectives that asked, “What’s wrong with ‘those’ kids?”, Ladson-Billings decided to ask a different question, one that fundamentally shifted the way we think about teaching and learning. Noting that “those kids” usually meant Black students, she posed a new question: “What is right with Black students and what happens in classrooms where teachers, parents, and students get it right?” This compilation of Ladson-Billings’ published work on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy examines the theory, how it works in specific subject areas, and its role in teacher education. The final section looks toward the future, including what it means to re-mix CRP with youth culture such as hip hop. This one-of-a-kind collection can be used as an introduction to CRP and as a summary of the idea as it evolved over time, helping a new generation to see the possibilities that exist in teaching and learning for all students. Featured Essays: Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant PedagogyBut That’s Just Good Teaching: The Case for Culturally Relevant PedagogyLiberatory Consequences of LiteracyIt Doesn’t Add Up: African American Students and Mathematics AchievementCrafting a Culturally Relevant Social Studies ApproachFighting for Our Lives: Preparing Teachers to Teach African American StudentsWhat’s the Matter With the Team? Diversity in Teacher EducationIt’s Not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture: The Problem With Teacher EducationCulturally Relevant Teaching 2.0, a.k.a. the Remix Beyond Beats, Rhymes, and Beyoncé: Hip-Hop Education and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy