Curriculum Design

Clusters summarize groups of related standards. Note that standards from different clusters may sometimes be closely related, for example in mathematics

Curriculum maps generally show a specific content area or a series of standards vertically from kindergarten through grade twelve.

Domains are larger groups of related standards. Standards from different domains may sometimes be closely related.

Prioritized or priority standard(s) are the 5 to 8 standards that have been identified as most essential to a particular grade level, content area, or course. The below terms are all connected to the concept of priority standards.

Learning targets are statements of the knowledge and skills students need to demonstrate mastery of a standard. Note that one standard may have several learning targets. These are derived directly from state or national academic standards and identify what students should know and be able to do by the end of a grade or course. Think of them as I CAN statements phrased in student accessible language.

Proficiency scales articulate learning progressions for each prioritized standard. Note that simpler knowledge and skills at the 2.0 level often involve understanding vocabulary related to the target goal, explaining knowledge that is foundational to the target goal, or performing parts of processes that are necessary to achieve the target goal.

A micro-progression is a finite skill that becomes more sophisticated with each level, moving scholars between benchmark proficiencies. In the image below, micro-progressions would specify the discrete skills to move from one proficiency level to the next.

Professional learning communities, or PLCs, are a group of educators that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students. Collaborative teams are smaller functioning groups of a PLC

Four Questions of a PLC:

What do we expect our students to learn?

How will we know they are learning?

How will we respond when they don't learn?

How will we respond if they already know it?

Progress Monitoring: Regular use of student achievement information to track students’ progress toward a goal, or a school’s or district’s progress toward a goal for increased student achievement.

Scope and sequence documents show prioritized standards, learning targets and progressions across one grade level. Typically a scope and sequence is associated with unit progressions, months or dates, and an order of instruction.

Standards-based grading is a system of assessing and reporting that describes student progress in relation to standards. In a standards-based system, a student can demonstrate mastery of a set of standards and move immediately to a more challenging set of standards.

Universal skills are the commonly identified, most essential skills that students need to progress through their learning. These skills are based on proficiency scales, prioritized standards, and research based practices.

It has been established that teaching ALL of the standards out there is impossible. By prioritizing standards we identify the most important elements of learning for our scholars. This is the best way to ensure a guaranteed and viable curriculum for our learners, educators, and school communities. By identifying prioritized standards educators are also prioritizing the learning process. Decisions about which standards are prioritized are made collaboratively by teacher teams at both the school and district level.

In order to identify prioritized standards we measure them against five measures:

Endurance: Knowledge and skills that will last beyond a class period or course

Leverage: Knowledge and skills that cross over into many domains of learning

Readiness: Knowledge and skills important to subsequent content or courses

Teacher Judgment: Knowledge of content area and ability to identify more-and less-important content

Assessment: Student opportunity to learn content that will be assessed

Learning targets live in our proficiency scales and can be viewed as “I can” statements where student knowledge and skills are articulated

MRPS utilizes a structure known as Reporting Measures to identify groups of prioritized standards into a smaller unit for concise and efficient feedback of learning. For example a reporting measure on a report card might be “Decoding” and within that reporting measure are multiple prioritized standards summarized in the detailed proficiency scale.

Proficiency scales articulate learning progressions for our identified reporting measures (and prioritized standards). Scales are used to provide scholars, families, and educators feedback on how learning is going and where the journey is heading next. Proficiency scales are a key component of our curricular design in MRPS.

As a curricular system it is important to function with cycles of focus as professionals. This is particularly true for our elementary educators who are multidisciplinary in their practice. MRPS has created a curriculum study cycle map that helps us determine our collective focus and efforts in each content area from year to year allowing us to focus resources, time, energy, and funds effectively.