Outcomes

Assessment

 2002-2003

Summer of 2003

*  Curriculum in major departments has been reconstructed to reflect backwards planning

*  Using essential questions to guide study

*  Posted standards to set expectations for students

*  Clear assessments that reflect the standards to be assessed

*  Scaffolded lessons leading to desired outcomes

*  All staff able to use backward planning to construct new units of study, since curriculum development is an ongoing process

*  Learning standards are posted in each classroom

*  Students can articulate the standards and why this is important to know and be able to do

*  New members of a department are handed curriculum materials that will guide their work

*  Essential questions are visible and guide work in all classrooms

*  Exemplars in departmental

    notebooks as evidence that is

    shared with other teachers.

* Evidence of the scaffolding

   necessary as well.

* Sharing summer curriculum work to find the essential elements and connections across curriculum and to the real world

* Departments reach agreement on what they want students to know and be able to do

* Beginning work on backwards planning in departments, using curriculum days to do this work.  Work specifically on units of study.

* Sharing student work and teacher work coming out of curriculum planning in departments and on teams and in a timely fashion linking this to exhibition.

*  Include in this the sharing of

    instructional strategies

* First exhibitions on all teams using backward planning to imbed what we want students to know and be able to do into the work

* Leadership and full faculty discussion on the use of essential questions to integrate curriculum across disciplines.  Beginning to come to some agreement here.

*  Departments come to final agreement on standards which will help us develop cohesive curriculum. What we will teach.  This curriculum will be guided by essential questions.

*  Design protocols for summer curricular work will be in place.

*  Departments will continue planning units of study using backwards design

*  Teams meet during the summer to improve exhibitions started in the 2002/2003 school year.

2003-2004

Summer of 2004

2004-2005

*  Subject area teachers will use the work that has been designed in departmental meetings

*  Continuing work on curriculum units not completed

*  Through curriculum leaders, Leadership Council and full faculty we will work on and finalize the essential questions that will guide our integration of curriculum

*  Second exhibitions across all teams, showing growth from the first year.  Improved essential question, timetable, rubric, etc.

*  Continuous sharing of student and teacher work in our collaborative groups:  teams, departments and at full faculty meetings

*  Standards used to guide departmental supervision and evaluation

* Curriculum leaders will bring the work of departments together to develop an explicit structure for the integration of curriculum, using the essential questions agreed upon by the faculty.

* We will write standards in forms to be published, for ourselves and for our students, explicitly linking these standards to the essential questions that will guide study at ARMS

* Integrated studies teachers will meet with curriculum leaders to plan for the integration of their subjects fully into the academic curriculum

* Our first time to immerse ourselves in teaching from explicitly expressed standards and essential questions.  This will be universal, across teams and departments.

* Third and greatly improved exhibitions across teams.  Exhibitions to be explicit in addressing standards, using essential questions to integrate curriculum