The Road to Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement vs. School Improvement? Over the last few years, more and more schools are looking at the removing the term school improvement (implying a yearly occurrence) and instead are working on continuous improvement models. We can’t look at a one year focus, we have to make adjustments in what we do in an ongoing process Schools are evaluated on what their process is for improving student achievement.

CIP We are going to have to show what our cycle is to a variety of stakeholders. The different facets of the cycle are all equally important, and all are occurring at the same time.

Continuous Improvement Cycle Curriculum Improved Student Achievement Analysis Instruction Assessment

Curriculum We need to make sure we are able to articulate what we do in the class. It provides us a strong focus for our work. WE DEFINE IT! We have guidelines to follow, but we can (and should) go above and beyond those.

What’s the fuss about? Why do we need a defined curriculum? Marzano ranks a “guaranteed and viable curriculum.” as having the most impact on student achievement. DuFour’s first essential question: What do we want students to know and be able to do? (Sound like an identified curriculum?) So once we know what we want students to know and be able to do, we need to make sure we are reviewing this document frequently to make sure it is accurate

Instruction How does defining our curriculum affect our instruction?

Assessment With a guaranteed and viable curriculum helping inform our instruction, how does this alter our assessments?

Analysis After we know what our curriculum is, use it to help tell us what we need to teach, and then making sure we are assessing our students on what our instruction is, the next step is to actually analyze our data. What does the data say, did they get it? If they did, what do we do? If they didn’t, what do we do? When a majority of our students show they have learned something, what do we do for the students that didn’t? Does analyzing the results of our assessments influence our curriculum?

So what’s the next step? Last year, English, Math, Science, and Social Studies teachers completed a curriculum audit. Those teachers need to revisit their document to verify that we are teaching the state standards at a minimum. If there are parts of the standards we currently aren’t covering, we need to determine who is going to teach it and when. If it is taught for mastery in a previous grade, great that works! We also need to create a list of other topics we teach that are not part of the state standards.

So what’s the next step? Non-core teachers need to align their curriculums with agreed up state or national standards. Also need a list of curricular topics taught that are not part of the standards. Link for some standards below, if you use others, let me know. http://www.lccschool.org/vnews/display.v/ART/5248a60da0c72

Course Descriptions & Textbook Middle & High School: We also need to make sure we have an updated course description and textbook list on our website. Please review those classes that you teach and make sure they are accurate. If you teach a class that isn’t listed, please write one. High School link: http://www.lccschool.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/High%20School|Schedule%20%26%20Course%20Info Middle School link: http://www.lccschool.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/Middle%20School|Course%20Info

What to work on right now: Curriculum alignment documents to state standards. A list of topics taught in your classes that are not included in the state standards. Review Course Descriptions and Textbook list (Middle School & High School) *Work on this until 10:30 when we will begin discussing AdvancEd Standards.