Curriculum Design and Alignment

Have you ever administered a district-mandated assessment to students and said to yourself (and possibly others), “Who made this and what were they thinking?”  or “My kids weren’t ready for this because I haven’t covered part of the material yet.”  Or how about, “The sequencing is out of order, students can’t possibly pass this without knowing (that)!”  These thoughts are just a few that many educators hear in the teacher’s lounge after administering benchmark assessments.  It is not uncommon to hear these remarks, but what does ring true is that there is some disconnect between curriculum design and alignment and assessment.  C. White, a director for secondary learning with nearly thirty years of experience in education and K. Kelley, a teacher with seven years of classroom experience were interviewed about their perspective on curriculum design and alignment.

How Curriculum Design Decisions are Made

To get a better idea about their perception in regard to how curriculum decisions are made, the following questions were posed: 1) What do you know about the curriculum design process? 2) Is our district-wide curriculum vertically aligned to ensure that standards progress logically from grade to grade?  3) Are teachers well-versed in assessment vocabulary?  4) Can we identify any gaps?

C. White shared the process that the district uses to design curriculum.  The Chief Academic Officer decides on a framework like Understanding By Design (UbD).  Departments are charged with

researching best practices and creating unit maps that follow a natural logistical sequence.  The plan is presented to the deputy superintendent and many discussions ensue about implementation.  Once the final approval has been granted, teachers are then trained during district PLCs. From a teacher’s perspective, K. Kelley’s view is that “the state makes the decision about what will be taught at each grade level.  People in the district who are in charge of certain subjects then make unit maps.  Sometimes they ask us for input, sometimes they don’t (K. Kelley, personal communication, July 22, 2016).”

When both were asked about vertical alignment, C. White shared that “for Common Core Math, all the standards were tied together from grade to grade based on the eight mathematical practices.  Now that North Carolina has reverted back to the five content standards from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) for high school mathematics, it is difficult to vertically align the K-8 math curriculum to high school mathematics.  We are now having to look at Math I because it was highly aligned to eighth grade math (C. White, personal communication, July 26, 2016).”   K. Kelley responded “for English Language Arts (ELA), we have the same focus from kindergarten through high school.  You can see the progression in standards from one grade to the next.  As far as our district curriculum, we have to make sure that we talk with each other because some ELA teachers, like in this building, want to use the novels that other grade levels have reserved and that creates conflict.  The district does not tell us which books to use for each grade level, which is why we run into this problem (K. Kelley, personal communication, July 22, 2016).”

C. White stated, “Teachers are not well versed in assessment vocabulary because there are too many acronyms.  When new people come into our district after working in another school district, they may be familiar with a certain acronym but it means something different (C. White, personal communication, July 25, 2016).”  An example of what C. White is referring to is “AG”.  This currently is used by the testing department and stands for Assessment Guides, but it is also the label given to identify students as Academically Gifted.  K. Kelley noted “any vocabulary related to testing can be confusing unless you examine the context.  If we are talking about universal words that are

common across all assessments, then yes, I believe teachers understand what those words mean.  For example, explain, generate, list…any word associated with Bloom’s Taxonomy.  If you are talking

about academic vocabulary, I think every teacher is well versed in words that are specific to their content area (K. Kelley, personal communication, July 22, 2016).”   Just from these two comments, one can clearly see that there are two different levels of thinking as it relates to assessment vocabulary.  C. White was then asked about how the curriculum development team ensures that academic vocabulary is addressed when designing curricula and when determining standards to be assessed.   Her reply was that “when unit maps are made, content-specific vocabulary is included.  Teachers are expected to use the vocabulary during instruction as well as use literacy strategies to teach vocabulary as necessary (C. White, personal communication, July 25, 2016).”

It seems that it is easier to detect instructional gaps in some content areas than in others.  C. White explains that now that the math standards in North Carolina have changed, “you can see an obvious gap as indicated in the specifications chart.  Students in fifth grade have little exposure to statistics or geometry, then all of a sudden they are exposed to it again in sixth grade (C. White, personal communication, July 25, 2016).”  Only 2-7% of the fifth grade End of Grade (EOG) assessment is geometry, then up to 12% of the sixth grade EOG is comprised of geometry.  This leads up to 25% of the eighth grade EOG assessing students in geometry.  The challenge for school districts across the state is to create district curricula such that elementary students are equipped to handle geometric concepts once they enter middle school.  K. Kelley mentioned, “the absence of teaching specific old fashioned grammar is a serious gap.  One of our content standards is writing.  ELA teachers have to fit grammar in as we teach the writing process.  I feel that if this were addressed before students come to middle school, we would have better writers.  Now that the state doesn’t assess writing until English II, I don’t think some teachers take writing that serious (K. Kelley, personal communication, July 22, 2016).”

Formative and Summative Assessments and Alignment

To help teachers connect assessments to what is actually being taught, “teachers work in PLCs to work on learning the standards and the alignment with the curriculum.  This helps teachers to clearly understand the connection between formative assessments and curriculum standards and between summative assessments and curriculum.  Teachers learn how to use the strategies from the unit maps to provide instruction and to correct instruction.  Curriculum coaches may work 1-1 with specific teachers at different schools and also work with groups of teachers during academies.  When teachers are included in the curriculum vetting process, this allows them to learn strategies to formatively assess students (C. White, personal communication, July 25, 2016).”   “I think most teachers know the difference between formative and summative assessments, but not all of those who are new [to teaching] understand the importance of formative assessments. You have to be able to check what students know along the way so that you can help students understand before the summative assessment.  It doesn’t have to be a quiz all the time.  Just something as simple as an exit ticket or thumbs up, thumbs down can be a formative assessment.  Formative assessments help to check for understanding and help teachers know how to remediate.  This is why I do project-based learning. Summative is final (K. Kelley, personal communication, July 22, 2016).”  A key understanding that was missing from this interview is the fact that the district for which C. White and K. Kelley work provides unit assessments and benchmark tests as formative assessments.  These assessments are meant to provide critical data for intervention and instructional improvement.  Some principals are given discretion as to whether these assessments should be administered.  One argument in support of the use of formative assessments is related to teacher experience and/or EVAAS effectiveness.  For a school with mostly inexperienced teachers, the formative assessments provided by the district allow teachers and school officials to closely monitor student progress as compared to other schools in the district.  District level leaders can also target schools that may need additional support or even review unit maps to make adjustments in the instructional sequence.    

To ensure that what teachers are teaching is truly aligned with content standards, “lots of information and work goes into the unit maps.  We make sure that unit maps are accessible and help teachers unpack the standards.  We make every effort to make sure that we communicate clearly what the resources are and what teachers need in order to teach (C. White, personal communication, July 25, 2016).”  “We have conversations in our district meetings about the standards and how we plan to teach them.  The administrators and members of the leadership team are constantly reminding us about formatively assessing students.  We get feedback on our walkthroughs about any formative assessment tools or techniques they observed. I make suggestions to my colleagues about things they can try.  Some teachers that need more help have the support of the instructional facilitator and the curriculum specialists (K. Kelley, personal communication, July 22, 2016).”   C. White argues, “Teachers do not understand all the methods to do formative assessments.  They fail to ask how they can measure student understanding each day.  Some neglect the importance of essential questions.  It’s like having a car in neutral and trying to move forward and catch up with the others at the same time (C. White, personal communication, July 25, 2016).” 

Oversight at the District Level

District leaders who are responsible for each content area are charged with making sure that quality unit maps are in place to guide instruction at the school level.  Specialists within content-specific departments assist with the development of the unit maps including the selection of resources to assist teachers with implementing the curriculum. Through the vetting process, district teams utilize feedback from teachers to make decisions about the scope and sequencing of the curriculum.  The executive leadership team regularly reviews data and meets with principals especially when data indicates that there may be a significant instructional problem.  Oftentimes, the directors for certain content areas meet with principals and provide support by observing instruction, talking with teachers, and providing feedback.  The ELA and math departments in the district where the two interviewees work are receptive to feedback from teachers and use that input to make curricular adjustments. 

Final Thoughts

Having worked with district leaders in designing a literacy unit for mathematics, I see the process of designing curriculum and aligning it to formative and summative assessments as the vehicle to ensuring student success.  However, school and district leaders must distinguish between requiring benchmarks for schools and for teachers.  Currently, top-performing schools do not have to administer unit assessments, whereas schools that are not low performing but have inexperienced staff are given an option to give district-designed formative assessments.  Unfortunately, some of these same schools are seeing a decline in student achievement.  In my opinion, if we are not using these resources, we may be setting ourselves up for failure.  I think that principals should further differentiate for their schools by having teachers to decide which unit assessments they will give or even by requiring struggling teachers to administer unit assessments.  It is better to be preventative and make adjustments than to get summative data back that shows further decline.  Then it will be too late to ask, “Where was the breakdown?”  By ensuring that teachers are all in one accord with curriculum, instruction, and assessments, districts can close the school performance gap that pits school against school.  Would it not be great to have a district where all the schools were high performing?

References

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Armstrong, P. (n.d.). Bloom's Taxonomy. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

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Krajcik, Joseph S.; and Blumenfeld, Phyllis C.. Project-Based Learning. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Cambridge Books Online. Cambridge University Press.http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816833.020

McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. P. (2013). Essential questions: Opening doors to student understanding.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (c2016). Retrieved July 26, 2016, from http://www.nctm.org/uploadedFiles/Standards_and_Positions/PSSM_ExecutiveSummary.pdf

North Carolina Testing Program: Technical Information 2013-14 and Beyond. (2016, March). Retrieved July 26, 2016, from http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/testing/technicalnotes

Standards for Mathematical Practice. (c2016). Retrieved July 26, 2016, from http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice/

Wiggins, G. P., McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. P. (2012). The Understanding by design guide to advanced concepts in creating and reviewing units. Alexandria, Va: ASCD.