K-6 Curriculum Update
March 2019
Textbook Adoption Update
When viewing these two options through this lens it became quickly apparent that adopting a core resource that would cause us to redo our maps and common assessments, perhaps even completely change the way mastery learning works in reading, didn't seem like a great idea. It also helped that we were impressed by the Goalbook presentation and felt hopeful that it would help our teachers be much more effective and efficient when planning standards-based lessons. We also had the good fortune to be able to conduct a pilot of Goalbook (which many of you are taking advantage of) at a very low cost to see if it was well-liked as a supplement.
I have one more pitch planned for the textbook adoption team - Fountas and Pinnell Classroom. This is a new core program that uses Fountas and Pinnell's expertise and framework to create a core resource.
If the decision is ultimately made to adopt Goalbook there would perhaps be enough wiggle room in the textbook rental space to allow us to consider additional resources to support our strategic plan goals.
1:1 Updates
- What's the expectation for using Unified Classroom? Answer: Delivering digital content in grades K-2 will use SeeSaw. Delivering digital content in grades 3-6 will use Unified Classroom. Our plan is to have our common assessments in grades 2-6 in UC as well. However, there is no expectation that all lessons are delivered using UC. We understand people will be at various degrees of comfort utilizing UC and as such realize it is unrealistic to expect everyone to be an expert at the beginning. You are encouraged to push yourself, ask questions, experiment, and take risks. Ultimately, my care is that you are utilizing the best instructional techniques to promote the most learning growth. If that is digital then use digital and if it's analog then adjust accordingly. If you are delivering content digitally we would expect that you use UC, however, there is no expectation that all content is delivered digitally.
- Will we have a practice eLearning day like secondary did this year? Yes, we will schedule a practice eLearning day in which students come to school but all content is delivered digitally. The purpose of a day like this is to work to ensure established systems for content delivery, assessment, collaboration, and communication function and all users understand how to utilize them. There will likely also be planned eLearning days (K-12) that occur before an inclement weather eLearning day would take place. On these days students will stay home, teachers will report to school (likely for PD) and will prepare eLearning lessons. On these days we will carve out time of our PD schedules to allow for teachers to have "office hours" when they can respond to student and parent questions regarding eLearning.
Updated NWEA Window
Camp Concord
I am excited to share with you that Camp Concord will be operating in a slightly different format this summer. Instead of meeting twice a week for several weeks throughout the summer, this year we will run eight days of Camp Concord the weeks of July 29 and August 5th. Camp Concord will run four days each of those weeks Monday thru Thursday. In addition, we will be running Camp Concord at two different sites: West Side and CIS. West Side will service students entering grades 1-4 while CIS will service students entering grades 5-6.
Our first order of business is to find two teacher leaders who would like to fill the role of Instructional Leader for each Camp Concord site. Each site will have one teacher leader who will serve as the person in charge during Camp Concord. Each of the building's administrative team is also on site and can be consulted if necessary. If you are interested in being one of these site leaders please complete this Google Form before next Friday. Interviews, if necessary, would be conducted the week after Spring Break and then the process of posting and hiring the remaining positions would begin.
Study Dog - Webinar
K-1 Literacy Framework
April 15th
April 29th
May 21st
Each of these are at the Education Center beginning at 4:15. I will send calendar invites to curriculum team members.