Eighteen months ago, K-5 teachers in GCISD began the massive undertaking of crafting a new and improved, integrated Humanities curriculum. Sixty-six teachers worked together during the 2015-16 school year to dissect the TEKS, craft cohesive ELA and SS units around Cornerstone Tasks, and establish some non-negotiable instructional structures for reading and writing instruction (workshop model). As anyone who has worked in a school system knows, change is not an easy, overnight process. During this first year of implementation, teachers are having to reconsider the timing of skill instruction, place emphasis on different social studies concepts and assess them differently, and in many cases, learn a new model for how reading/writing instruction takes place.
During September, the team of GCISD Humanities instructional coaches and I spent time with every grade level team at every elementary campus to discuss implementation of the new curriculum. In these PLCs we fielded many questions about planning structures, resources, and general navigation of the curriculum housed in Google Drive. Overall, around 90% of the feedback on and reaction to the curriculum was positive. As we work with teachers during this year, there will be things that need to be adjusted and professional learning to be offered in support of what the curriculum expects teachers to do. In general, I am now beginning to believe that our goal of having a more aligned horizontal and vertical system of Language Arts and Social Studies instruction is within reach.
During the next several blog posts, I'll be spotlighting the campus visits I'll be making between October and December. I'll be spending a half day at each of our eleven campuses over the next few weeks and can't wait to share some of the creative ways teachers are personalizing and utilizing the new curriculum.
Suzanne
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