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"...standards establish expectations for all students to demonstrate learning through the acquisition of content knowledge and skills...”
- Karen Hess
Description
Description
Curriculum is the outline of concepts to be taught to students to help them meet the content standards and competencies in a given course or subject. These standards and competencies should serve as the basis for development of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Rationale
Rationale
The research that John Hattie reviewed revealed that the curriculum should be well-structured and systematically sequenced. Karen Hess notes in a book published by ASCD, Rigor by Design, Not Chance (2023), “College and career readiness standards establish expectations for all students to demonstrate learning through the acquisition of content knowledge and skills and to be able to transfer that learning to new and more complex tasks over time.”
Subcomponents
Subcomponents
Grade Level Overview: Description of specific content and themes for each grade level and/or high school course (also termed Overarching Expectations or Conceptual Understandings)
Essential Standards: Learning standards that are most important because they possess qualities of endurance, leverage, and readiness for success at the next level (also termed Power, Anchor, or Priority Standards)
Academic Standards: Determined expectations for student learning in a particular discipline; in South Carolina, standards are provided for each grade from kindergarten through grade eight, high school required courses, and selected electives
Spiraled Standards: Standards that are taught across several different points in the year, over multiple years, or across courses (also termed Recurring Standards)
Competencies: Statements of the core ideas for which students should demonstrate an understanding; some grade level topics include more than one conceptual understanding with each building upon the intent of the standard (also termed: Strands, Key Concepts, Understandings, or Performance Goals)
Indicators: Statements that break down what students can do to demonstrate knowledge of the conceptual understanding in order for them to meet the particular academic standard and/or competency (also termed Performance Indicators or Learner Benchmarks)
Learning Targets: Sub-statements for indicators broken down into specific learning skills students can do to demonstrate knowledge of a standard and/or competencies
Learning Progressions: Statements that describe how specific skills might be demonstrated, both in their early forms and in increasingly advanced forms; learning progressions provide descriptors of how skills progress over time and across grade levels (also termed Vertical Progressions or Grade Band Articulation)
Instructional Pacing: Rate at which teachers move through lesson plans, both on a daily basis and in the long-term; the optimal end result of instructional pacing is that instruction is provided on all essential standards to promote a high level of student mastery
Academic Rigor: Instructional delivery that requires a high level of cognitive demand to promote student thinking and demonstration of knowledge as outlined in state standards and competencies
Teacher Practices
Teacher Practices
Explicitly communicate all learning objectives and state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets
Consistently display and reference state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets throughout daily lessons
Create an instructional plan that includes:
Measurable and explicit goals aligned to state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets
Activities, materials, and assessments that are consistently aligned to state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets
Evidence that the plan provides regular opportunities to accommodate individual student needs to mastery of learning objectives connected to state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets
Develop a deep understanding of the current state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets by engaging in professional development and/or coaching cycles
Classroom Look-Fors
Classroom Look-Fors
Learning objectives and state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets are explicitly communicated to students
Students are instructed in a learning environment where state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets are displayed and continuously being referenced
Through differentiated instruction, students engage in learning activities and are evaluated through assessments that are aligned to state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets
Students receive instruction from an educator that has developed a deep understanding of the current state standards, competencies, and/or learning targets (an expert in their field)
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