Hello Evalia,
I need to answer half of your question I think. You are getting several responses about an articulated curriculum. I'd also suggest that you do some additional reading about curriculum mapping if you haven't done much. The advantage of that is getting active engagement and input from all teachers. That might bring seasoned teachers as well as others on board and use everyone's expertise. What I'd rather respond to at this time is your answer within an answer. I think your question was: How do we best, as a school, increase student learning in language arts? The first part of your answer was to articulate a basic aligned curriculum, both for standards and for genre. However, it seems as though you added in an additional answer when you specified the timing. Additionally, there were two elements--curricula itself and genre. There are significant advantages for student learning to being able to use inquiry cycles and the dynamic studies of a classroom to determine timing of instruction. (However, from your description, I'm not sure that's what's going on here.) I personally believe there has to be a solid reason to override the classroom teacher's decision-making as to timing. However, that does not mean the curriculum can't be articulated and aligned. I think you need to try to determine why you believe all standards should be taught by all teachers concurrently. You'll need to be able to make that case in your conversations and meetings. A help there might be Lucy Calkins' statements about teaching order for units of study. Without specific justification, you'll have a hard time convincing teachers to give up the instructional decision-making which aids best practice. There may be reasons, maybe some temporary, just to get started, but you'll need to be able to state them. If the initial problem is some teachers being unfamiliar with some standards (or just ignoring some standards), perhaps in service directed toward that standard that period would be a justification to teach concurrently. You touched on collaboration; that might be a reason. You may have more. But, without legitimate, vital reasons to control timing, your argument just can't outweigh the necessary decision-making of the teacher and students in a particular classroom. All that will need to be clear in your mind before your meeting. Now, my opinion (which you didn't ask for): Your impetus for change is to increase student learning by ensuring all teachers teach an aligned curriculum. I'm not sure you need to mandate timing in order to reach your goal. You'll need to think about your reasoning and be able to persuade others. I think you may be able to make a case for standards. However, try as I might, I can think of no reason to mandate all teaching the same genre at the same time. I can think of several reasons not to, one of which is straining your library's resources for no good purpose. For instance, take biography. If there are 400 students in your school, there are probably not enough trade books to allow adequate choices at all levels for students. Other genres lend themselves to particular author's studies, which again would strain resources. There are other reasons not to, but the real problem I have is that I can't figure out what the benefit of doing so would be, especially to the level to override the disadvantages. Perhaps other members of your team would be more likely to accept the standardization of timing of standards teaching if you reconsidered genre. Just my own personal reaction. If I were to give you advice, I would say: reflect on reasoning, explore curriculum mapping in order to get all teachers involved, and look at the great resources on the web. Good luck. — Sent from Mailbox for iPad On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, evelia cadet <cadeteve...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I am in serious need of your input and expertise about reading curriculum > alignment. This year I am part of the instructional leadership team at my > school. We know we need to change, but need a clear direction. Allow me to > share some background information. I know is a lot, but I would truly > appreciate if you read it. > - This is how reading instruction looks like in my school: teachers teach any > standard they want. We don't know what is going on in other classrooms. We > don't collaborate and there is animosity and competition among the grade > levels over test scores. > - We have a new principal who would like to see instructional alignment, but > is not being specific with how that alignment looks like in practice. > - I am not an expert on alignment, but I came up with a plan that specify the > genres and standards ALL reading teachers will focus on every grading period. > Teachers are welcome to teach more standards if they want, as long as they > take care of those few standards. Before and during this period teachers will > collaborate and help each other. > - The principal liked the plan, BUT, an influential teacher, who is also part > of the leadership team, thinks the plan is a hindrance to teachers' autonomy. > In her mind, our alignment should be: get familiar with the standards and > make sure you teach them all before the end of the year. > -We are meeting next week to have a discussion about it. PLEASE enlighten me > about how effective instructional alignment looks like in practice. We have > been operating in autonomy mode and the school hasn't moved forward. Our test > results are sad. > Thank you. > Evelia > Sent from my iPhone > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
