D11 Curriculum Alignment Guides

D11 Curriculum Alignment Guides and Pacing Guides

The D11 Curriculum Alignment Guides and Pacing Guides Have Been Combined
This was done during the summer of 2007 to provide a viable and guaranteed curriculum. While the Curriculum Alignment Guides provide a broad structure to our curriculum, they do not give a clear sense of emphasis or pace to cover the content and develop necessary skills. In fact, many teachers – elementary through high – stated that the Curriculum Alignment Guides were not focused enough, and they didn’t know “where to begin” to cover so much material. The Pacing Guide brings a sharper focus to the key elements of the Curriculum Alignment Guide: Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, specific power standards, and it provides an instructional calendar for an effective pace.
Pacing Guides Identify Scheduled Key Areas of Emphasis
As Mike Schmoker says in Results Now, “It doesn’t matter what we call this work or its final product – a ‘curriculum map’ or a ‘pacing guide.’ But it must reflect serious attention (not lockstep conformity) to the best state-assessed standards and to intellectual engagement – to the power standards at the upper end of Bloom’s taxonomy” (p. 129). The Pacing Guides narrow the focus to key standards essential to the student’s learning.
Pacing Guides Allow for Teacher Autonomy
Mike Schmoker cites Robert Marzano’s meta-analysis of in-school factors influencing student achievement. If we provide a “set of standards and [a] guarantee… that these standards actually get taught, we can raise levels of achievement immensely” (p. 36). He continues to say that “teachers need and deserve some flexibility; we need to allow for personal and creative variation” (39).
Pacing Guides Provide Opportunities for Cross-District Collaboration
Marzano's meta-analysis also states, "The next step, then, will be to “build up a rich, adaptable, repertoire of effective lessons and assessments, which could in turn be shared and showcased” (p. 113). Now that District 11 curriculum has evolved from a static, paper format to a dynamic, web-based format, curriculum documents can easily and quickly be updated based on user response and evaluation. As teachers complete training in Understanding by Design, they will be developing District11 Diamond Lessons that include research-based strategies, short cycle assessments for formative feedback, integration with, and support for reinforcing major math and reading standards in other content areas, technology integration activities, differentiation strategies, and tiered instruction for Response to Intervention.

Concepts from Understanding by Design form the foundation of District 11 curriculum documents. The authors, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, propose a backward design process whereby standards are identified, then assessments are developed, then curriculum developers find appropriate strategies and performance tasks to align with the varied assessments. This differs from the typical approach used by many teachers today where standards are identified, then resources, strategies, and activities are implemented, THEN assessments are developed. Beginning with the assessment targets allows curriculum developers to eliminate activities that are ineffective in supporting the desired outcome: mastery of the standard. Using the Understanding by Design framework ensures that the units and lessons District 11 teachers create are of highest quality and can benefit students across the district. For quality control purposes, each unit is peer reviewed and reviewed by the Content Area Coordinator before it is posted.
Textbooks/Reading Series Support the Curriculum
The textbook, however, is not the curriculum. Some teachers are heavily dependent on the reading series in their buildings to deliver a standards-based curriculum. However, textbooks were not developed to directly address Colorado State Standards. Textbook publishers have a much broader market focus. The District 11 Pacing Guide allows us to clearly align appropriate materials to a Colorado standards-based curriculum. This is particularly important from a district perspective, especially since many of our schools have high mobility rates. Schools using Open Court, for instance, need to be working toward the same learning targets, and at the same pace as schools using McMillan McGraw Hill or Pearson. Schools need to be working at the same pace and same level of rigorous expectations regarding student writing.
Your Input is Necessary
The District 11 Department of Curriculum and Instruction is confident in the quality of the first draft of the Pacing Guides since they rely on our own District materials (common word lists, writing rubrics, E-skills) and they reinforce the skills in the CBLA Proficiencies]. However, we know that this is a dynamic, changing process, and we will never actually be finished aligning our curriculum. Responses from teachers will be crucial to our success as they progress through the Guide in their classrooms. We will certainly put this process – and the Pacing Guide product – through a PDSA and review process. Again, as Schmoker says (citing DuFour), I invite others to help “achieve clarity or solutions” (p. 134) and to certainly make suggestions that improve the quality of instruction in District 11.