Tim Crosby, Stephen Karandy and Kathryn Williams

Week 3: September 10th Planning doc

Small Group Assignment

● Build a Mission and Vision that guides teaching and learning.

○ Step 1: Consider the lens of the curriculum leader in a school building.
○ Step 2: Using the materials/discussion from earlier learning and the perspective of
your group, develop a mission /vision statement for the role of a curriculum leader in a school
building.
○ Step 3: Agree on the definitions of the identified key terms that will guide your work
as a curriculum leader.
○ Step 4: Propose a plan of action to communicate vision, mission, and key words, with
the goal of encouraging teachers to embrace this phase of your curriculum model.

Step 1 ● A leader looks to unify curriculum language across the district

● A leader analyzes data and looks to find areas to improve upon in order to
exceed district curriculum goals
● A leader considers adopting or adapting research-based curriculum
● Find areas to connect the “micro” to the “macro”
○ What areas of curriculum in the classroom can you build and connect
to the areas of the overall goals of the department (eg. Global I to
Global II to US History to Eco/Part in Gov)

Step 2 ● To provide a curriculum program that is committed to excellence and has

high expectations for all students from kindergarten through grade 12.
Curriculum focuses on a team level collaboration where teachers review,
revise and adopt to meet the new teaching standards and real world
applications.

Step 3 ● Curriculum- The summary of what is taught in a course or grade level,

curriculum is often variable from classroom to classroom but is usually tied
to a state-set standard of learning. Ideally, a curriculum will be closely
connected to a school's vision, mission, and goals.
● Teaching- The art of engaging others in ideas/activities/discussion/etc. in a
way that is designed to impart new information and develop or progress
skills.
● Learning- The act of changing one's level of understanding about a concept
or skill.
 ● Assessment- Measuring the relative success of any data point. Can be both
objective/subjective and qualitative/quantitative. Should be addressed to find
areas of improvement or show strengths.

Step 4 ● A school or district curriculum leader must commit to ensuring the school or
district mission and vision are relevant and fully embedded in the school
culture. To ensure the curriculum is aligned with the district mission and
vision, a curriculum leader could create an ongoing curriculum writing
program in the summer. During this time, teachers would be empowered to
review the curriculum to make revisions and adaptations as needed, keeping
in mind the ideas put forth in the district mission and vision statements.
When there are new standards to adopt, the curriculum team will come to a
consensus where people learn the standards together and then make
adjustments to the curriculum. For example, if we are to adapt a curriculum
resource, like modules which are used in ELA and Math, we would bring a
committee of teachers together who use a rubric to review the curriculum
and make recommendations for which program to adapt. The rubric looks at
rigor, alignment, resources and a set of non-negotiables established by the
teacher committee.
● The most important piece of this plan is to get teachers to buy in and make it
a part of the culture. While some plans look good on paper, we understand
that implementing can be a different and greater challenge. Buying in to the
new curriculum and making the culture of learning embody that curriculum,
it is essential for the teachers who will be teaching this to buy in to the new
model. This can be done through PD, PLCs, and implementation from the
top down.