Vertical alignment

1. Vertical alignment Lincoln Parish Secondary Schools English, Math, Science, and Social Studies CCR Symposium December 8, 2011 Kyle Falting, Britton Kilpatrick, Julie Stephenson

2. Why We Needed Alignment • To address skill gaps in upper-level courses • To establish consistency in assessment and evaluation • To establish a common core subjects vocabulary • To address the upcoming potential CCSS implementation gap • To create collegial relationships

3. The Purpose of Vertical Alignment A Vertical Team is a group of educators from all grade levels who teach a common subject and work together to plan and implement an aligned curriculum. The GOALS • Address individual student’s interests, strengths, experiences, and needs. • Select and adapt curricula from a wide variety of sources • Focus on student understanding and use of knowledge, ideas, and inquiry. • Continuously assess student understanding. • Increase student responsibility for learning. • Support a classroom community with cooperation, shared responsibility, and respect. • Work cooperatively with other teachers across grade levels and schools.

4. The Purpose of Vertical Alignment • Course Planners • Each course offered in the Lincoln Parish curriculum will create a course planner that clearly articulates the following: • Sequenced units • Time frames • Enabling knowledge • Declarative knowledge (Concepts, Facts, Details) • Procedural knowledge (Skills, Processes) • Assessments

5. The Purpose of Vertical Alignment • Those course planners will be used to create an assessment program that will generate informative data to drive instructional practices and curriculum design. • The assessments will be written by a team of Lincoln Parish teacher-volunteers during assessment writing workshops this summer. • Each course will administer the following: • A diagnostic assessment • Three formative assessments • A summative assessment

6. Year One Goals • Crosswalking the New Standards • Unpacking the New Standards • Declarative and Procedural Knowledge • Enduring Understandings • Core Concepts and Essential Questions • Course Planner Creation • Completed by May • Assessment Writing • Teacher team in summer

7. Year Two Goals • Common Core Standards Integration • Reading and Writing in the Content Areas Inservice (Science and Social Studies) • Quarterly Assessment Administration • Course Planner Revisions • Laying the Foundation teacher training • English, Math, and Science

8. Year Three-Four Goals • Consistent unit design based on Understanding by Design principles • Laying the Foundation teacher training • English, Math, and Science • K-12 Alignment

9. Introductions & Thoughts • Small Group Talk Share with your group members your responses to the following questions: • Define your students’ attitudes towards social studies. • Identify the gaps in learning that present themselves in your classes. • How does this affect your curricular decisions: reteaching, sequencing, pacing? • Large Group Share

10. Concept v. SkillWhat's the difference? Subject matter can be organized into five broad categories; those categories can be classified into two types. From Classroom Instruction That Works Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock

11. Lincoln Parish Vertical Teams Wiki

12. Conclusion • Questions? • Kyle Falting kfalting@lincolnschools.org • Britton Kilpatrick brittonkilpatrick@lincolnschools.org • Julie Stephenson jstephenson@lincolnschools.org