Common Instructional Expectations

Many teachers have heard me remark that everyone agrees with the idea of instructional alignment... until it means they actually have to change something they're doing in their classroom.  Right? Alignment of curriculum and instruction always sounds good in theory. It strengthens the connections between grade levels and across campuses. It helps to ensure that all students have comparable opportunities to master the TEKS during their school careers. It allows teachers to be able to expect certain competencies and skills of their incoming students each year.  However, aligning expectations isn't quite that simple.  Teachers are historically very fond of autonomy. The culture of teachers entering their classrooms, shutting their doors, and teaching as they wish is widespread. Alignment is sometimes seen as the enemy of autonomy.

I love teachers who have passion about their content. I do not want to homogenize teaching. However, for the sake of students who will progress through a sequence of grades in our PK-12 system, alignment of some aspects of what we do in classrooms is imperative. Failure to do this hurts kids. I hope that by introducing the Common Instructional Expectations (CIE) documents for the 2014-15 school year, GCISD will become a district that educates students in connected ways from grade to grade.  Kindergarteners will all progress to first grade with a clear understanding of the GAPstopper strategy to improve their writing. Third graders will all be able to share conversations about the Cornerstone Tasks they've completed in Social Studies this year. Fifth graders will all leave their Language Arts classrooms competently demonstrating abilities found on the "Writing Skills to Secure" inventory. Eighth graders will all leave their Social Studies classrooms being able to describe a non-fiction narrative book that they've chosen and enjoyed. Tenth grade students will experience the power of using Cornell notes as a process for digesting World History in a more engaging, manageable way. Twelfth graders will graduate with a list of titles they eventually want to read for enjoyment because they've all participated in the 25 Book Challenge and discovered what a viable form of entertainment reading is.

To me, alignment does not mean that we all have to be doing the same thing. Rather, it means that there are some things we all have to be doing. Let me say that one more time. Alignment does not mean that we all have to be doing the same thing. Rather, it means that there are some things we all have to be doing.

I'm looking forward to next year and the conversations that will take place in PLCs around the issue of Common Instructional Expectations.  It is my hope that these documents will be the guide for campuses and grade levels as they map their instructional plans.  The items contained on these documents should serve as the foundation upon which other practices are built and passions are overlayed.  Elementary teachers are having opportunities to learn about the expectations in two offerings of Humanities Common Instructional Expectation Summer Institutes (June 11-12 OR July 28-29). Secondary teachers will spend August 20-21 focused on the documents and the way to implement the practices in classrooms.

Can't wait to work with everyone next year as we strengthen our system together!

What's new in Humanities?

As spring break approaches, our team of Humanities coaches has been reflecting on the key work we've done this year. As we begin using this blog as a more active means of communicating with our teachers, we thought it'd be good to provide everyone with  updates to the work that our department has done...

GCISD Curriculum Website
This year, all district curriculum resources were migrated to the GCISD website for ease of access.  Currently, teachers can access all of the district's scope and sequence documents from this location (found by going to the GCISD web page, Departments and Programs, District Curriculum). As updates are made to curriculum resources, this is where teachers can find the most recent versions.

There are some new features of ELA and SS curriculum that teachers may want to see:
K-5 ELA TEKS Checklists aligned to Scope and Sequence Documents
K-5 SS Cornerstone Tasks (May be accessed in Elem. Curriculum, SS column for each grade)



Humanities Vertical Team
This team, comprised of K-12 ELA and SS representatives, has been working to develop a set of Common Instructional Expectations (CIEs) that will serve as the main expectations in all Humanities courses K-12.  The original drafts of these documents were created in the December meeting of the Vertical Team.  Since then, they've been reviewed/revised by curriculum revision teams and VALOR teachers. On March 3, curriculum review teams and the Vertical Team will receive a link to the most recent version of the drafts and will have the chance to provide feedback.

One accomplishment of the Vertical Team during their December meeting was the creation of a mission statement for our newly formed department:
The mission of GCISD Humanities is to instill a capacity for communication, empathy, and citizenship through critical thinking, reflection, and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
These words should guide our thinking and decision making.

This year's final meeting of the Humanities Vertical Team will be the afternoon of 5/20/14. More information on this will be sent soon.

Benchmarks
This was the first year that GCISD has administered common benchmark assessments at 12 and 24 week intervals.  These assessments were designed using STAAR released items and were correlated to district scope and sequence documents. The data from these benchmarks may be analyzed in DMAC. Teachers are encouraged to evaluate student performance using the "SE Performance" function. Doing this can reveal student performance on various Student Expectations in order to know where weaknesses exist in student performance.