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Learn Sites > Assistant Superintendent's Blog
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Welcome to the Assistant Superintendent's blog. The purpose will be to provide curriculum updates and to share evidence of our work relative to the success of our students. I look forward to updating my blog with developments in the curriculum department throughout the course of the school year. Thank you in advance for your interest in all that we do to serve our students. |
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8/23/2010Please go to my article featured in the September edition of the Key by following this link Curriculum Update4/21/2010The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) have submitted the draft K-12 grade level Common Core State Standards document. These standards (includes ELA and Literacy in History/Social Science, as well as Math) represent a set of expectations for student knowledge that will be adopted, along with 47 other states, by the state of Michigan for implementation in the fall of 2010.
In other words, for the first time ever, almost every state in the union will ultimately have (by grade-level and subject) the same standards for every student. This will provide achievement data that we can compare with the other 47 states to make informed decisions regarding intervention strategies. Ultimately, Common Standards will provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of students. This initiative will also ensure that we maintain America's competitive edge, so that all of our students are well prepared with the skills and knowledge necessary to compete with not only their peers here at home, but with students from around the world.
There is still a lot of work to be done to make the transition to the Common Core Standards. In the long run, though, these standards are a common sense first step toward ensuring our children are getting the best possible education no matter where they live. 1/29/2010The teachers and administrators have been working for the last year and a half on a process for aligning our curriculum kindergarten through 12th grade. The process, called Power Standards, is a three-year endeavor that will result in a number of advantages for our students.
Our work began with the task of sorting through the state standards to identify those in which our students must be proficient; standards we would classify as priority, and this was done in all core and elective classes. From there, teachers dug deeper into each standard to develop them further by capitalizing on opportunities to challenge our students into thinking beyond concrete levels. We then worked on lesson plans that would require students to perform tasks throughout units of instruction that would reveal students' level of comprehension. This year alone we have developed scoring guides, and and we are currently working on common assessments (tests) that will provide the data needed to help us make the decisions needed for appropriate instruction.
Recent state and local budget cuts will require us to pull back some on our process because it does come as a considerable expense to our district. We will continue, however, and the last leg of the process will be professional development around data-driven decision making. In the end, teachers will be better able to make informed decisions reguarding instructional strategies based on the individual needs of our students. Additionally, our curriculum will transition much more smoothly from grade level to grade level. 12/3/2009Thornapple Kellogg students and staff have been using Chicago Math for the better part of the last decade. While our students have been very successful over that period, teachers and administrators have spent the last two years looking for a program that would better meet the needs of our students. Last year, and as a result of our research, two classrooms per grade level piloted a program from Macmillan/McGraw-Hill called Math Connects. The pilot was highly successful, and every classroom K-5 is now fully implementing the program.
Math Connects provides an appropriate balance of conceptual understanding, skill development, and probblem solving. Additionally, teachers are especially pleased with the real-world applications and higher-order thinking types of questions. There is also a strong technology component, and a detailed intervention system that provides students with a variety of tools to utilize in their learning. Parents are reporting that the program is user-friendly, and feedback from teachers and students has been overwhelmingly positive. 11/11/2009For the better part of the last 20 years, students at Page Elementary have been using the same science textbooks without the benefit of any sort of updated version. Teachers have been supplementing the science curriculum with a variety of resources, so last year we formed a committee to review samplings of resources available from a variety of companies.
On October 12th, 2009, the school board was provided information on a proposal for a new textbook. A Closer Look from McGraw-Hill was the selection from the committee, and they have been on display in the High School library for the last 30 days. On November 9th, the board approved the proposal, and the materials have been ordered. We expect our students to have new textbooks sometime within the next several weeks. |
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