Matthew I. Doran
Office of Teaching & Learning
Curriculum Division
Southland Center
African American Studies and Psychology/Sociology Textbook Adoption
On May 16, 2023 the Columbus Board of Education approved the adoption of new textbooks for African American Studies, Psychology, and Sociology. Based on the recommendations of the committees, these new adopted textbooks are:
- HMH African American History;
- HMH Psychology; and
- HMH Sociology.
African American History includes a consumable student textbook along with an interactive student platform. Teachers will also have a teachers' edition and ancillary materials in the digital platform. This adoption also includes the Confronting Racism digital platform.
Psychology and Sociology includes hard copy textbooks along with an interactive student platform. Teachers will also have a teachers' edition and ancillary materials in the digital platform.
Both adoptions include teacher and student access to the HMH
Writable® platform. Writable® features a writing-feedback loop that works—helping teachers motivate students to become proficient writers through personalized feedback and revision.
Additional information about access and training for these new resources will be sent via CCS email in June.
TCI End-of-Year Wrap-up and Summer Procedures
Teachers and students will continue to have access to this year's TCI programs and classes through June 2. Teachers will have access to student data in TCI until June 30. Teachers can download data by using the "Export to CSV" in the upper-right corner of the gradebook.
The TCI sync with Clever will be paused for the summer. During the summer, teachers may also add additional programs to their account in order to prepare for next year's courses. However, teachers will not have the permissions to create rostered classes for 2023-2024—those classes will autoroster from Clever when the new school-year begins.
Grade Level/Course Programs:
- Social Studies 6 - History Alive! 6th Grade (CCS Edition) - This text includes both the Geography Alive and History Alive content for Grade 6 in one custom book. Teachers do not need to add the separate Geography Alive program.
- Social Studies 7 - History Alive! 7th Grade (OH Edition) - This text includes both the Ancient World and Medieval World texts in one custom book.
- Social Studies 8 - History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism
- Modern World History 9 - History Alive! World Connections
- American History 10 - History Alive! Pursuing American Ideals
- American Government - Government Alive! Power, Politics, and You
- Global Issues - Global Issues Alive! (CCS Edition)
American History and American Government State Test Results
Preliminary results for the Spring 2023 Ohio's State Tests are now available. Teachers may access individual student results in the Assessment tab on Infinite Campus.
A brief summary of District results is found below.
American History
- Highest Performance by Reporting Category: Skills and Documents
- Lowest Performance by Reporting Category: 1945-Present
American Government
- Highest Performance by Reporting Category: Founding Documents (Content Statements 6, 9, 10, 11, and 16)
- Lowest Performance by Reporting Category: Ohio/Policy/Economy (Content Statements 17-21)
A portion of the test items will be released later this summer. More details and school and district performance will be available in the fall.
Social Studies Mastery Connect Projects
This summer, we will be working on a few projects to make Mastery Connect a more useful tool for CCS Social Studies teachers.
Performance Tasks
- Creation of Performance Task assessments, organized by units and quarters. Performance tasks consist of evidence-based sets (primary and secondary source excerpts) and open-ended questions (short answer and extended response). They are designed to measure knowledge, skills, and reasoning at DOK levels 2 and 3. See the sample Performance Task on American imperialism here.
Item Bank Review and Reserve
- Mastery Connect contains two pre-loaded banks, the Mastery Bank and OH AIR Item Bank. These items will be reviewed for alignment with current standards. Items deemed not aligned will be reserved, making them unavailable for use in teacher-created assessments. This vetting process makes it easier for teachers to filter the item banks to ensure alignment of classroom assessments.
Skills Assessments
- Vertically-aligned skills assessments allow teachers to diagnose students' strengths and weaknesses along the continuum of social studies skills. This resource will assist with Tier 2 intervention in the MTSS framework. CCS social studies uses seven skill topics across four domains. Download the Social Studies Skills as a Continuum of Learning guide to learn more about these skills.
Summer PD Opportunities Newsletter
This will be a dynamic page with new opportunities added as they are made known to us. Currently, the following PD events are highlighted.
In-person:
- Teaching about the Holocaust for Ohio Educators (June 6 & 7)
- Ohio Teacher Leadership Summit (June 14)
- FinCamp: Ohio (June 14-15)
- Teaching Black History Conference (Buffalo, July 21-22)
Virtual:
- Council for Economic Education 2023 Summer Institute (July 17-19)
- TCI's 2023 Back to School Summit (July 27)
- Teaching for Equity and Justice Summer Institute (June 27-29)
- Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior (July 17-20)
- US History: A New Approach to Teaching the Reconstruction Era (July 25-27)
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2023 Arthur and Rochelle Belfer National Conference for Educators (June 26-28)
- 2023 Global Teacher Seminar Summer: Global Movement of Goods and People (July 17-21)
- Foundational Seminar: Crossroads of East Asia, STEAM, and SEL (July 10-21)
- American Battlefield Trust 2023 Virtual Teacher Institute (July 24-26)
- OER Project Conference for Social Studies (August 3)