CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration1 Curriculum Calibration Aligning Curriculum with Grade-Level Standards

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 2 Goals Understand the organization and construction of academic content standards. Understand and apply curriculum calibration as a process: to measure the depth, breadth, and rigor of what students are actually being asked to do in assignments, and to revise assignments to meet grade-level standards. Reflect on standards-based planning and instructional activities.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 3 What is Curriculum Calibration?  A process of examining student work and assignments given: 1)To understand what students are actually being asked to do and what they are given the opportunity to demonstrate that they know. 2)To verify alignment to grade level content standards.  Helps develop a deeper understanding of the standards and how they progress from one grade level to the next.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 4 Curriculum Calibration Process 1) Select an assignment you give to students. 2) Determine what students are being asked to do or demonstrate that they know. 3) Identify skills and topics in the assignment as well as the learning objectives. 4) Using the standards (or a searchable database), locate the actual grade level and standards addressed in the assignment. 5) The standards being taught should be at grade level and explicit or the assignment will need revision!

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 5 Grade K

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 6 2 nd Grade

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8 DataWorks’ Findings Grade 1 st 2 nd 3 rd 4 th 5 th 6 th 7 th 8 th 9 th 10 th 11 th 12 th Assignments The Instructional Gap By 5th grade, students are working on assignments one grade level below. By 7th grade, students are in “intensive intervention” at 2 grade levels below.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 9 Closing “The Achievement Gap”  Actually, it’s an Instructional Gap…  To raise student achievement, you must ensure that the curriculum taught and the assignments given are aligned to grade- level standards.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 10 Research also shows… Talent Maintenance  20% of students will do well regardless of instruction. Talent Development  80% - 100% of students will do well because of the instruction. DataWorks Educational Research

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 11 Moving to a Standards-based Practice  In order to use Curriculum Calibration effectively, however, it’s important to start with: 1) Using Backwards Planning, 2) “Deconstructing” the standards, and 3) Determining which standards are most important for students to master.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 12 1) Backwards Planning Traditional Practice 1. Select a topic. 2. Design instructional activities. 3. Design and give an assessment. 4. Give a grade or feedback. 5. Move on to a new topic. Standards-based Practice 1. Select standards. 2. Locate/design a calibrated assessment aligned to these standards. 3. Plan instructional activities to assure that each student can achieve these standards. 4. Use data from assessment to give feedback, re-teach, or move to next level.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 13 Standards have two parts: SKILL Critical thinking level at which students must perform to be proficient TOPIC Content of the lesson A topic often recurs at many grade levels, but the skill required becomes increasingly more rigorous.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 14 Practice: Skill and Topic Mathematics (2 nd Grade) Measurement and Data 2.MD 8 Solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately. Example: If you have 2 dimes and 3 pennies, how many cents do you have? SKILLTOPIC Solve Use app. symbols …word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies…

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 15 Practice: Skill and Topic English/Language Arts (Grade 2) Speaking and Listening SL 2.5 Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings. SKILLTOPIC Create audio recording … of stories or poems; …to stories …of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Add drawings or other visual displays recounts

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 16 Bloom’s Taxonomy  CA content standards were developed with Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind.  Six levels of thinking, with each level organized by complexity and challenge.  Good tool to determine the skill levels of standards in order to develop lessons and assignments that address the depth and rigor of grade-level standards. Resources pp. 4-7

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 17 Bloom’s Taxonomy Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation Critical thinking level organized by complexity. = name, define, identify, list = restate, explain, rewrite = organize, use, solve = compare, develop = compose, hypothesize = critique, compare, support

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 18 Activity: Skills & Bloom’s Taxonomy With a partner: 1)Using the E/LA grade-level standards and Bloom’s Taxonomy, choose one grade level as your focus. 2)Highlight all the skill words. 3)Then categorize the highlighted skill words by writing each word on the appropriate Bloom’s level. Tally the number of times a skill word is repeated. 4)Discuss your findings and their impact on teaching and learning at that grade level. Resources p.8

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 19 Developing Authentic Questions Checking for Understanding How do you ensure that questions engage students in deeper critical thinking and not merely prompt them to recall information that they’ve read or been told? Bloom’s taxonomy can help students ask and answer their own questions. Goal is for questions to provide students with an opportunity to think and the teacher with an opportunity to check for understanding.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 20 Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Develop Questions Example: 6 th grade class The teacher uses Bloom’s taxonomy with her students to ask and answer their own questions in a daily Jeopardy-type game. 1) Introduce students to a Bloom’s prompt to guide the creation of questions. (See Resource, pp. 4-7) 2) Have groups of students create questions based on the information they are studying that day. The number of points is determined by the level of the question on Bloom’s taxonomy. This process allows the teacher to check for understanding twice – when students create the questions and when they play the game.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 21 Student-Created Questions Using Bloom’s Taxonomy KnowledgeWho was Ra? ComprehensionWhy do some gods and goddesses have animal heads? AnalysisCompare and contrast Isis, Ptah, and Horus in terms of their importance to the Egyptian people. EvaluationHow do you feel about mummification? EvaluationWhat role should gods play in setting rules for people? Example: 6 th grade student-created questions during a unit of study about Egypt:

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 22 Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Organize Questions KnowledgeWhat were the names Tommy used for his grandmother and great-grandmother? ComprehensionHow did Tommy feel when he went to visit them each Sunday? ApplicationWhat would you have said to Tommy’s older brother when he called Nana Upstairs “a witch”? AnalysisHow were Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs alike and different? SynthesisAdd a new last page to the book. What might the two grandmothers say to the adult Tommy when he looks at the stars to remember them? EvaluationDid you like this story? Why or why not? Example: 2 nd grade teacher-prepared questions to be used during her interactive read-aloud of “Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs”:

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 23 Deconstructing the Standards  A single content standard may contain multiple skills and topics.  This means that a single standard may have multiple learning objectives.  So teaching for student mastery of the standards becomes more complex.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 24 Deconstructing the Standards  In order to ensure that instruction is on grade-level and achieves the breadth and rigor of the standards, teachers must address both:  Skill and topic and  Multiple learning objectives.

CCCOE - Curriculum Calibration 25 Activity: Multiple Learning Objectives With a partner or your school team:  Deconstruct a standard on your table by breaking them down into the multiple learning objectives.  How many skills and topics will need to be taught for each standard?