Colloquium
SUHSD Curriculum, Instruction & Professional Development
May 2015
Needs assessment generates input from nearly 700 teachers!
- When thinking about next year, what kinds of support do you envision needing at the DISTRICT level?
- When thinking about next year, what kinds of support do you envision needing at the SITE level?
- When thinking about next year, what kinds of support do you envision needing at the PLC level?
- When thinking about next year, what kinds of support do you envision needing at the CLASSROOM level?
Curriculum & Professional Development Goals for 2015-16
Define and document SUHSD commitment to equity reflecting a negotiated balance between centralized and localized decision-making about expectations for all students.
Site-level:
Empower functional Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to serve as the locus of control for site decision-making regarding curriculum, instruction & assessment while holding teachers accountable for student learning.
Classroom-level:
Purposefully align written, taught and tested elements of curriculum via implementation of District Language (Structured Social Interaction, Daily Learning Targets, Academic Language Development, Checking for Understanding).
Professional Development Calendar for 2015-16
SUHSD Curriculum Policy/Guides
Please see links below to access recent SUHSD Curriculum documents/guidelines
District-level Professional Development Through Summer, 2015
While the last Cohort and zone workshops for 2014-15 ended last quarter, planning for a variety of district-level professional development is under way.
- Computer Science Principles (CSP) and Exploring Computer Science (ECS) - June/July 2015
- Literacy TA (for ELA Site Specialists and ELA PLC Leaders) - May 11, 2015
- Reading Apprenticeship for Selected Science Teachers - May 12-14, 2015
- College-Preparatory Math (CPM) Workshops - May 4-7 or May 11-14; June 8-11, 2015
- C-STEM Integrated Math with Computing/Robotics - June 29-July 3, 2015
- AP Statistics - May 18, AP Calculus - May 22, AP Economics - May 21, AP US History - May 22
- Positive Prevention Training for GS1 Teachers - May 7, 2015
- World Geography Training - May 19-20, 2015
- SDCOE Social Science Leadership Conference - May 26, 2015
- SPARK Summer Institute for PE Teachers - July 2015
- SDCOE Common Core Training for PE Teachers - July 2015
- Content-area Workshops for Teachers of Fundamentals Classes: ELA - 5/5; math - 5/7; H/SS - 5/11; science - 5/18, 2015
- Spanish for Spanish Speakers Workshop - May 14, 2015
- Spanish Language Curriculum Planning Day - May 19, 2015
- Mariachi Workshop - June, 2015
- Site Curriculum Specialists Leadership Workshop - July 17, 2015
Professional Development Essential Questions:
1. What role does the teacher play in implementing the Common Core Standards?
- Teachers must make informed decisions that are responsive to demonstrated student needs. They are empowered to creatively select and use resources they need to help students succeed.
- Teachers are collaborators: with peers, administrators and content experts. Cohort, zone and PLC experiences are based on this principle.
- Academic literacy and productive collaboration are fundamental considerations when planning instruction. Site PD plans focus on these goals.
2. How do challenging tasks affect teacher expectations, practice and student learning?
- SUHSD Internal Assessments (final exams and performance tasks) and PLC common formative assessments require students to demonstrate mastery of complex skills.
- Tasks are embedded in ongoing instruction and inform teacher decision-making by generating a variety of formative data.
- Teachers are transforming existing tasks to better align with CCSS and NGSS.
3. How is subject matter embedded in a larger context? How can we explore complexity and depth of understanding?
- Application of knowledge across content areas supports content integration.
- Complex skills (labs, writing, inquiry, research) are valued by colleges and employers. Instructional guides emphasize these outcomes.
- Relationships among SUHSD teachers, administrators and regional experts (UCSD, SDCOE, feeder school districts, Qualcomm, others) support collaborative planning.
Tested Curriculum:
Performance Tasks Anchor Papers Now Posted to Canvas R&E Course!
Plan now to maximize the value of Semester One Performance Tasks!
Teachers should meet in course-alike teams to study and respond to student work. See this recent history/social science application of Steps for Calibrated Scoring.
See this nine-minute video to learn about steps to calibrated scoring:
Calibration Steps for District Performance Tasks
- District Curriculum Specialists review student work in partnership with site colleagues and select "anchor papers" representing each score point on the rubric.
- PLC Leader/Site Curriculum Specialist selects "blind papers"
- PLC Leader/Site Curriculum Specialist assembles reference packets including prompt, rubric, anchor and blind papers.
- PLC meets to review prompt and rubric. Content group facilitator walks teachers through directions and clarifies understanding of key vocabulary and terms.
- PLC reviews each anchor paper, justifying score with language from the rubric.
- Pairs of teachers review each blind paper and assign score. For each paper, content groups reach consensus on score, justifying with language from the rubric.
- Content groups discuss issues and realizations. Facilitator works to build consensus.
- Teachers exchange papers with each other.
- Teachers review and score each paper for each criterion on the rubric. They also assign a holistic score to each paper and attach the completed rubric to the student response.
- Teachers return papers to colleagues.
- Each teacher submits her/his score recording sheet to the content group facilitator and enters them into Data Director.
- Content group facilitator assembles all score recording sheets into Excel spreadsheet, calculates average scores by criterion and overall, and generates descriptive charts to describe relative student strengths and weaknesses. Facilitator leads a dialogue based on quantitative data and qualitative comments from colleagues. Participants discuss next steps as they relate to instruction.
Updated May 2015 by K. Czajkowski
SUHSD Final Exam window opens earlier this year.
Learn more about the relationship between internal and external assessments ("tested curriculum") here.
Written Curriculum
SUHSD Summer School 2015-16
Regular Credit Recovery Summer School will take place at CPH, ELH, MOH and SUHi.
One engineering-focused "New Works" (enrichment, for-credit) Integrated Math Course 1 class will be offered at SUHi for incoming ninth-graders. Targeted students are being personally invited to attend; final roster should be available by 5/20. Contact K. Czajkowski for more information.
2015 SUHSD credit recovery courses listed below
Semester 2 Instructional Guides drive planning by PLCs
Taught Curriculum
Qualcomm's Thinkabit Lab Welcomes SUHSD Middle Schoolers!
Learn more about Thinkabit here.
Voice Your Language: A Public Forum on Multilingual Education in California
Dr. Antonia Darder is professor and Leavey Presidential Chair at Loyola Maramount University. She has published extensively in the areas of critical pedagogy and democratic education. Her publications include: Freire and Education (2014), Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader (with Rodolfo D. Torres, 2013), Culture and Power in the Classroom: Educational Foundations for the Schooling of Bicultural Students (2012), A Dissident Voice: Essays on Culture, Pedagogy, and Power (2011), The Critical Pedagogy Reader: Second Edition (2008), and Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love (2002).
SDSU's Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education (DLE) prepares bilingual educators to meet the needs of bilingual learners in diverse school settings. DLE's credential, certificate, and Master of Arts programs prepare students to be reflective and transformational practitioners, who work effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse learners, as well as their families and communities. Learn more here.
Dr. Donaldo Macedo is professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has published extensively in the areas of critical literacy, bilingual and multicultural education and the politics of language. His publications include: Pedagogy of Solidarity (with Paulo Freire, Ana Maria Araujo Freire, and Walter F. de Oliveira, 2014), Literacies of Power: What Americans are not Allowed to Know (2006), The Hegemony of English (with Bessie Dendrinos, Panayota Gounari, 2003), Ideology Matters (with Paulo Freire, 2002), Dancing with Bigotry (with Lilia Bartolome, 1999), and Literacy: Reading the Word and the World (with Paulo Freire, 1987).
See previous issues of Colloquium below.
Administrators and Teachers
District and Site Curriculum Specialists
Core Content Colleagues across Sites
Explore Content-area Monthly Newsletters!
SUHSD Office of Curriculum, Instruction & Professional Development
Roman Del Rosario, Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction
Katrine Czajkowski, Lead Curriculum Specialist
Daniel Cohen & Mimi Williams, Math Curriculum Specialists
Gina Vattuone & Rhea Faeldonea-Walker, ELA Curriculum Specialists
Ana Garcia & Melanie Brown, Science Curriculum Specialists
Kelly Leon & Olga Loya-Estrada, History/Social Science Curriculum Specialists
Email: katrine.czajkowski@sweetwaterschools.org
Website: www.sweetwaterschools.org
Location: 1130 Fifth Ave Chula Vista CA 91911
Phone: 619-691-5586