Professional Development Catalog
The one day survey sessions are designed to provide educators with a general overview of specific areas relating to curriculum mapping and/or standards-based grading. The sessions are intended to build a solid foundation. Additional sessions can be designed to meet the unique needs and requirements of schools or districts.
Essential questions help to frame student inquiry and promote critical thinking as well as promote open-ended inquiry. This session will define essential questions, describe how they can be used as a dynamic way to drive the curriculum, and distinguish the difference between over-arching and topical essential questions. During the day, teachers will learn the basic criteria for developing essential questions and construct essential questions matched to specific curricular goals.
Standards are complex and, sometimes, overwhelming for teachers. This session will focus on extracting data from state standards, extracting specific content and skills within the standards, identify overlapping areas, and constructing learning objectives which focus attention on critical concepts and skills. Participants will work with their standards to develop specific statements, in both teacher and student-friendly language, which can be used to guide instruction.
Mapping is a process for documenting the operational curriculum (what was actually taught), conducting focused discussions within and across grade levels and subject areas, and refining the curriculum to improve student achievement. This session will provide a global perspective of the four key elements of the curriculum mapping process. Participants will look at the major components of curriculum mapping; what mapping is, and is not; the key benefits; and the ways in which mapping can improve professional dialog and refine the curriculum.
Professional judgment is the foundation for all grading. Throughout the day, low and high stakes issues related to grading will be presented and discussed. Participants will study examples and learn how grading practices can have dramatic, long term, affects on students. Participants will look at various tools for assessing student performance, communication, and the difference between accurate grading and fair grading: equity vs. equality. Included in the discussion will be: missing assignments, assessment vs. evaluation, points vs. percentages, weighted grades, grading polices, and accuracy vs. fairness.
Focused work sessions are designed for educators who are in the process of planning, designing, and/or implementing curriculum mapping and/or standards-based grading/assessment in their school or district. Professional Learning Associates has the ability to design additional sessions to meet the unique needs and requirements of schools or districts.
The Curriculum Mapping Process
This session, built specifically for key decision makers, asks the question: How successful do you want to be? Throughout the day, the critical issues and major questions which must be addressed and answered before curriculum mapping is initiated will be addressed. The 9 Questions for Success will be discussed with specific criteria for answering these questions. Other areas for discussion include: the reasons for implementing the curriculum mapping process, the specific benefits, matching school Improvement goals to curriculum mapping outcomes; managing and supporting change; the role of administrators in building success and sustainability. This session is the one identified by many current schools involved in curriculum mapping as the one session they wish they had scheduled.
This targeted session introduces teachers and administrators to the process of writing curriculum maps which are clear, concise, and useable by all those involved in the curriculum mapping process. Throughout the day, participants will work on developing content statements that identify the essential elements of what teachers have taught, skill statements that document what students were expected to know or be able to do, and assessment statements that record the student products or performances used to determine the level of learning.
This session develops a strong understanding of the fundamental features of the software that are necessary to begin documenting the operational curriculum. The maps created during the previous work session will be used in learning the software, placing the information within the context of the mapping process to avoid the common “point-and-click” workshop. Participants will spend time learning the components of the Curriculum Mapper, independently using the software, and discussing the maps to ensure consistency and clarity.
The Calibration Process is an on-going practice to regulate and align specific aspects of maps to ensure all curriculum maps are useful, useable, and consistent. In this session, participants will learn and begin to apply the Read-Through Protocol, which is the formal process for providing constructive feedback. Participants will be guided in how to determine a focus and plan for future calibrations.
Participants will be introduced to the process of curriculum refinement. This critical component of the mapping process leads participants to determine a focus for curriculum investigation, review and decisions. Local and/or state data will be correlated with map data. Participants will investigate, share and collaborate through individual, horizontal and/or vertical review. Participants will be guided in how to determine a focus and plan for future investigations.
These are multiple sessions tailored to meet the specific needs of schools. Because the process of refining the curriculum is massive, it is necessary to focus on one area, analyze it in-depth, make strategic decisions about improvement, and manage those changes. These sessions are practical, specific, and targeted. Each session is designed to attack one aspect of the curriculum, using Curriculum Mapper as a tool to assist in analyzing the curriculum data.
Standards-Based Assessment/Grading
This session provides teachers and administrators with a broad outline of the key issues involved in implementing Standards-based Assessment. Each of the critical components involved in implementing a standards-based process will be discussed. Examples of how each plays a significant role in promoting or stifling Standards-based assessment will be presented. The key topics covered will be: the role of summative vs. formative assessments, grading scales, average vs. trend, the power of Zero, learning vs. behavior, and rubric, points, and percentages.
Participants will take a look and define what effective communication looks like in a standards-based environment. The report card, ongoing communication with parents, student feedback, progress reports, and teacher-administrator reports are all a part of a well-designed communication system. Discussions throughout the day will look at how StandardsScore™ is an integral part of the process. Participants will spend time working with the Reports, WebNotes and the Family account to improve feedback and build a more effective communication system. The role of the report card will also be discussed as well as design options for creating a report card that is a part of a communication system, not the only method of disseminating student achievement.
Feedback is one of the cornerstones of good communication. Good and effective feedback is the key to creating safe and productive professional dialogue. This session begins by looking at data through five different lenses - instructional focus, lesson study, policy change, student and parent focus. As the day progresses, participants will examine their data from StandardsScore™ and learn how to create and save reports. A key element of this session is to better understand the reports generated from StandardsScore™ and how to use them to communicate more effectively about student progress/performance with colleagues.
Working with standards can be a difficult assignment. Using SAMS to help align standard targets to the district’s reporting system makes this daunting task more efficient and effective. This session will build the capacity to create and edit local standards as well as correlate local standards (core standards, power standards) to state standards.
