Prerequisite Concepts and Skills in English Language Arts and Mathematics

Prerequisite Concepts and Skills in English Language Arts and Mathematics

https://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/instructionalunits/conceptsandskills/

“In planning curriculum, instruction, and assessment for the 2020-2021 school year, a key focus for districts should be on building capacity of their staff to deliver highly effective instruction in hybrid environments as well as preparing them to address any learning gaps that might prevent students from meeting grade-level New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS).

In The Road Back: Restart and Recovery Plan for Education (pp. 77-8), the NJDOE provided the following guidance noted in the TNTP Learning Acceleration Guide:

1. Prioritize the most critical prerequisite skills and knowledge for each subject area and grade level now.

2. Train your teachers and leaders to evaluate students’ unfinished learning and provide acceleration support.

3. Plan your approach to diagnosing students’ unfinished learning in that prerequisite content knowledge and those prerequisite skills. Keep in mind that during virtual instruction, the type of learning experiences that are appropriate will vary based on grade band and content area.

4. Adapt the curricular scope and sequence/pacing for each subject area and grade level to accommodate where teachers might need to provide acceleration support.

5. Monitor your students’ progress on grade-appropriate assignments and adjust your supports for teachers and leaders based on student results.

To support districts in this work, the NJDOE collaborated with New Jersey educators to identify the prerequisite concepts and skills associated with each of the English Language Arts and Mathematics Instructional Units. The purpose of the prerequisite concepts and skills documents is to determine the type of individualized instruction and supports that might be needed at the start of a unit to meet students where they are.

The prerequisite concepts and skills documents reflect the order and arrangement of the instructional units. There will be four documents per grade/course and local districts have the flexibility to modify them to fit the needs of their student population. For example, though all student learning objectives (SLOs) appear only once, a district could modify the units to repeat the inclusion of one or more SLOs to ensure mastery.”