Leader

Leading Through Curriculum Writing

Before beginning my program at UNK for Instructional Technology, I worked during the summers in EL curriculum writing in my district. During the summer of 2020, I was part of a team of two to rewrite pacing guides and create lessons for the district’s switch to the 3/2 family model. Our only requirement was the pacing guides, but my partner, Laura Chambers, and I wanted to provide more, especially thinking of new teachers in the fall. We were able to create a full unit of lessons, rubrics, and technology resources the teachers who have this course would need. We provided examples and models in using new technology we encouraged our teachers to use them. We also filmed five instructional videos on the different pieces we provided and how to use them. We presented this unit and year plans on the first curriculum day in the year and our feedback was positive. Most were appreciative of the level of detail we provided. We also reordered the units and skills to better align with the state and ELPA21 standards, following the district’s best practices with research-based strategies.In the following year, I worked in conjunction with the OPS Science Department to adjust the 8th-grade science curriculum for beginning-level EL students. The curriculum's projects had previously integrated some technology and in-class projects, to help students develop concepts through inquiry. My partner, Tatum Bowling, and I worked to provide language supports for the activities. The goal was not to lose the rigor but to allow students to demonstrate their learning through a variety of means as many times students have proficient knowledge but lack the language necessary. The artifact below features my modifications to the curriculum. Again the curriculum's goal was to provide pacing guides but to help colleagues and give examples for science teachers that have not taught many EL students before, providing further instructional materials was essential.

Leader

Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning. Educators:

2.2.a

Shape, advance and accelerate a shared vision for empowered learning with technology by engaging with education stakeholders.

2.2.b

Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.

2.2.c

Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning.

*ISTE Standards

Previous standard: Learner

ISTE Proficiences

Next Standard: Citizen

ISTE Standards for Students featured through lesson plans:

1.1 Empowered Learner

1.3 Knowledge Constructor

1.6 Creative Communicator

1.7 Global Collaborator

https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-students

Artifact 1: Curriculum Writing Unit ESL 3/4 (June-July 2020)

The following artifact entails the complete work of my colleague, Laura Chambers, and my summer of curriculum planning which we presented to our ELL peers this past fall. As expressed above our goals in the creation of the pieces were to realign the current curriculum to better address the standards ELL students are evaluated in the state assessment test, the ELPA21; implement several types of applications and uses of technology to address the hybrid learning model adopted by our district; increase the rigor appropriately within the course, accounting for the diverse levels within the program; and providing a complete unit as a model to our colleagues utilizing technology. For the example unit lessons, we thought through how to plan for dynamic units that held to standards and incorporated the technology. Each time we proposed a new application, we created materials and linked it directly in the lesson plan for ease of use. The lesson plans in essence became a tutorial on how to seamlessly switch between the content, comprehension checks, and output from students. Knowing our time in our district presentation was limited and knowing that often in all-day trainings instructions and examples can be forgotten quickly, we recorded detailed videos instructing the viewer on how to use the documents in our curriculum bundle. Even in the presentation of this material we strove to model the type of teaching we had written into our examples.

ISTE Standards for Students featured through lesson plans:

1.1 Empowered Learner
1.3 Knowledge Constructor
1.4 Innovative Designer
1.5 Computational Thinker

https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-students

Artifact 2 : Curriculum Writing Unit ESL Science Foundations 3-4 (June/July 2021)

The artifact is the modified lessons and materials I created during the summer of 2021. They incorporate inquiry-based projects, that match many of the goals in computational thinking. They also allow non-linguistic representation in assessments to provide more equity in the presentation of knowledge. These are the models that teachers can use for this course. Again the goal for the curriculum writing was to update the pacing guides and to provide modeling for primarily science teachers to teach a sheltered EL course with students that have a low level of English language knowledge.

Previous standard: Learner

ISTE Proficiences

Next Standard: Citizen

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