Instructional Planning Model Development and Implementation Plan

Instructional Planning Steering Committee

• MCPS students who are successfully prepared to meet or exceed standards on required assessments
• Students, teachers, and parents who are knowledgeable about the essential knowledge and skills that students must know and be able to do by the end of each grade level
• The effective communication of information to students, teachers, principals, central office staff, Board of Education, and community regarding the revised curriculum and opportunities to participate in curriculum review

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Curriculum Team: The Written Curriculum

Purpose

The curriculum framework in each discipline sets expectations for essential skills and knowledge for each grade level and course.

Products

• Backmapped Maryland Content Standards (Council for Basic Education, OCIP, and input from teachers and principals)
• Curriculum Frameworks developed by subject area (OCIP and stakeholder groups)
  • Purpose
  • Vision of curriculum, instruction, and assessment
  • Rationale and research base
  • Scope and sequence of standards and performance indicators for essential skills and knowledge at each grade level or course
  • Glossary of terms
• Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction (CAI) Blueprint
  • Enduring understandings
  • Essential questions
  • Assessment ideas
  • Instructional ideas
  • Differentiation of instruction
  • Links to existing curriculum materials

Implementation

• Bring curriculum frameworks to Board of Education for approval (OCIP)
• Present CAI Blueprint as an aid to curriculum planning to principals, professional staff, students, parents, and community
• Provide training on use of curriculum framework and CAI Blueprint to plan instruction and assessment

Instruction Team: The Taught Curriculum

Purpose

To develop resources, including a scope and sequence of units and courses and curriculum guides, that will provide teachers with the resources and materials they need to deliver effective instruction. The curriculum guides map a logical sequence of instruction and contain the appropriate process and content required to prepare students for assessments. They provide an instructional model that includes strategies to address differentiated instruction in order to meet the needs of all students. The curriculum guides also identify other instructional materials and resources for implementing the written curriculum. Unit structure and curriculum guides will be closely tied to the curriculum framework and to assessment measures – both formative and summative.

Products

• Scope and sequence of units and courses
• Development of instructional guides for each grade level and course that will:
  • Be aligned with the written and assessed curriculum
  • Provide teachers with a model for instruction
  • Link outcomes with standards and indicators
  • Provide strategies for differentiation in instructional methodologies, pacing, and resources for special populations
  • Integrate technology into all content areas
• Development of criteria for the selection of instructional materials and texts to support revised curriculum
• List of resources keyed to specific outcomes and indicators
• Resources: print and nonprint to support the curriculum guides
• Web-enabled curriculum materials

Implementation

• Delivery
  • Seek approval of the Board of Education for the scope and sequence of units and courses
  • Develop instructional guides based on the scope and sequence of units
  • Key existing guides and resources to curriculum framework
  • Review and select new resources
  • Print and distribute materials
• Professional Development: Work collaboratively with the DSD to establish a plan to provide staff development opportunities in:
  • Content knowledge for teachers
  • Content and format of units and courses
  • Organization of instruction keyed to curriculum framework and assessment measures
  • Best practices and strategies for instruction that increase academic achievement of all students
  • Parent training in organization and content

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ASSESSMENT Team: The Learned Curriculum

Purpose

To develop classroom assessment measures that provide the means by which teachers and students can determine a student’s attainment of knowledge and mastery of skills. These assessments will be used to make instructional decisions. Formative and summative assessments will become an integral component of the instructional program. Formative assessment measures guide teachers to modify and improve instruction. Classroom formative assessment measures will include a variety of assessment approaches to determine the effectiveness of the written and taught curriculum. Summative assessments will, as much as possible, utilize the same language and expectations of the major test measures from Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS), High School Assessment (HSA), and SAT in order to prepare students to respond well on those instruments. In addition, the formative and summative assessments will be available for teacher use as data to support the teacher’s Professional Development Plan (PDP) in relation to the teacher evaluation system. Assessments must be available in a variety of formats to allow for student learning styles and format test expectations; and rubrics/scoring tools must be available, as well, to ensure consistency of student understanding.

Products

• Preassessment measures developed to provide teachers with the tools to ensure that students are working at or above grade level
• Formative assessment measures in units and courses to guide teachers to modify and improve instruction in each subject area
  • Developed concurrently with instructional guides
  • Connected to lessons
  • Positioned at strategic points in the course or unit
• Summative assessment measures to assess student mastery of indicators related to knowledge and skills for each subject area
  • Quarterly
  • Semiannual
  • End-of-unit or end-of-course
• Periodic assessments that are different from unit tests, and preassessments that are aligned with topics/units in each subject area
• Test item bank of assessments that teachers can use to measure student understanding of content/skills with rubric tools to assure item reliability

Implementation

• Staff development for teachers in the use of formative assessments in instruction
• Teachers develop assessment measures that determine mastery of skills and knowledge and that utilize the language, format, and expectations of state/national assessment measures
• Staff development for teachers to score formative assessments based on established proficiency levels
• Staff development for teachers to teach students to assess their own and others’ products based on established proficiency levels
• Staff development for teachers to use assessment results to inform instructional choices
• Staff development for principals to monitor formative/summative assessments for student progress and mastery of skills and knowledge
• Staff development for teachers to use preassessment results to group students for instruction
• Staff development for teachers to use scoring tools and rubrics

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Instructional Management System Team: Monitoring the Curriculum

Purpose

Standardized assessment measures are currently spaced too far apart and the results often returned to schools too late for the results to be used to adjust instruction. In order for teachers, principals, parents, and central office staff to better monitor student progress toward mastery of skills and knowledge prescribed by the curriculum framework, it is essential to have a monitoring system that provides immediate and ongoing feedback. This monitoring system must be tied to formative as well as formal assessment measures and should be accessible at different levels by all stakeholders. It should provide reports at various levels: student achievement at the levels of individual, class, school, cluster, and district.

Products

• Record-keeping system keyed to curriculum standards and indicators and formative and summative assessment measures in which teachers can record student mastery of skills and knowledge at various proficiency levels
• Record-keeping system showing proficiency levels with data for any subject area retrievable in multiple ways
• Data retrieval system to organize information for individual reports and group reports
• Ability to group students by data and data summation
• Record retrieval and printout by individual student with graphing capability to show grouping and longitudinal growth
• Record retrieval by class, school, cluster, and district with graphing capability to show grouping by achievement and longitudinal growth

Implementation

• Teachers to use data entry in the record-keeping system
• Teachers to use data retrieval, organization, and analysis features to monitor students and guide instructional decisions
• Principals to use data retrieval, organization, and analysis features to monitor school performance and guide instructional program
• Central office staff to use data retrieval, organization, and analysis features to monitor schools and guide instructional programs
• Parents to retrieve data on individual student to monitor progress and facilitate discussions with teacher(s)
• Students to monitor their own progress toward curriculum goals

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