Please refer to Georgia School Keys Implementation Resource Guide, Curriculum Standard 1, Performance/Action Goal 3, on page 8 of 267 or page 7 of 266 (different screens show different page numbers). The link is below.
http://www.gadoe.org/DMGetDocument.aspx/IMPLEMENTATION%20RESOURCE%20FINAL%205-29-07.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F6EB643760914BCA5A8A3858B1870DDC35C5F4C5B30A1D34D1&Type=D
MCSD has provided curriculum mapping software as a tool to address Curriculum Standard 1, Performance/Action 3. How are you as an instructional leader utilizing this tool? This blog has been created to share ideas, address concerns and celebrate successes. Please dialogue freely.
http://www.gadoe.org/DMGetDocument.aspx/IMPLEMENTATION%20RESOURCE%20FINAL%205-29-07.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F6EB643760914BCA5A8A3858B1870DDC35C5F4C5B30A1D34D1&Type=D
MCSD has provided curriculum mapping software as a tool to address Curriculum Standard 1, Performance/Action 3. How are you as an instructional leader utilizing this tool? This blog has been created to share ideas, address concerns and celebrate successes. Please dialogue freely.
38 comments:
I am using curriculum mapping to monitor the implementation of standards as well as monitoring the implementation of the WOW framework. I have recently started to map the professional learning plan for Eagle Ridge. It is amazing to see how much we have going on when you see it mapped out!
Currently we are in the beginning stages of Working on the Work. We are documenting and designing the steps as we go in Rubicon. Our vision is for this to become "The MCSD Way" and hope this will provide a resource for people new to Working on the Work. It is a slow, but exciting, process.
Using the software to map a professional learning plan or other administrative projects is helpful. And, yes, it is amazing to see how much everyone is doing.
The Instructional Specialist are planning to use Rubicon Atlas as a professional learning tool. Rubicon Atlas is a wonderful tool in helping to communicate with teachers and help in mentoring new teachers throughout MCSD.
We are presently using curriculum mapping to guide instruction at Muscogee Elementary. This is a guide for us to be more cognizant of where we are and how long it will take us to get there. It is also the tool we will use to begin our common assessment development across grade levels.
The faculty and staff at St. Elmo are working together to continuously monitor student performance and engagement on all levels of instruction. Using the Working on the Work qualities along with gifted goals and the learning activities demonstrated in Best Practice procedures and lessons the teachers are able to create and implement instruction that allows students to use their critical thinking skills and engage in "out of the box" lessons. Using outside of class time to collaborate together and ensure that others have that opportunity is vital to ensuring quality instruction. Accountability is the word that comes to mind with Curriculum Mapping.
The recent administrative training for curriculum mapping helped me better understand the process. I am now going online to check the teacher's units and post notes for them. I have earmarked our staff development budget for time release subs, as the teacher's concerns have been lack of time to enter the units.
We also took the Keys and created keys specific to Edgewood, which are posted in all classrooms.
Rubicon allows us to make sure we are aligned to the Georgia Performance Standards. It helps to be able to leave comments for teachers. We have provided common planning time for teachers to enter their units in Rubicon. There is more collaboration than ever before...
The mapping software does help ensure that the curriculum is aligned to the GPS and helps docuemnt information for District Accredidation.
All of my teachers posted units last year. Now that my teachers are familiar with the process, we are striving to post exemplary math units to address deficiencies in mathematics achievemnet as evidenced by last year's CRCT scores. We will hopefully post units that will not only benefit the students at Johnson, but will in fact be of assistance to other teachers in the county. I will monitor the progress regarding unit design and implementation through the CM software.
Earlier this year, I surveyed my faculty only to learn that a large number were not comfortable with the mapping process in spite of all of the training we have done. Many were very uneasy about developing exemplar units. I made arrangements for Suzanne Evans to conduct some additional training on mapping and the development of exemplar units on November 4th. Over 50% of the faculty will be involved in those workshops. Their interest in taking part in these workshops was very telling.
This year all departments have been provided with time to collaborate and work on their maps. The importance of vertical teaming has been stressed and teachers have taken this to heart. Common finals have been developed and are in place in English, math, science, social studies, foreign language, art, and physical education. Along with common finals, our school has also moved forward with a common writing rubric which is being used across the curriculum.
After November 4th, I will monitor the development of the maps closely. As of today, most of the faculty members have completed 2-3 units. Although the mapping process is tedious, the faculty is sharing ideas related to the curriculum and working as a team.
We plan to train our Exemplar Units Review Team in mid-November.
We started a Curriculum Design Team to guide the faculty through WOW and curriculum mapping. A Focus group is identified and will be trained on Nov. 4. For some, the content is brand new and for others it will be a refresher/revitalizer. The CDT will monitor the future use through a series of benchmarks and follow up training sessions. The CDT leads the whole faculty through activities at monthly meetings that encourage the collegial conversations that are vital to WOW and effective mapping. We are excited about our plans and progress.
Blackmon Road Middle School is thrilled to be a part of the Working on the Work (WOW) Initiative. We have entered an era when knowledge and technology are developing rapidly, and students must continually expand their skills and conquer new challenges. As educators, it is our job to design meaningful and engaging schoolwork that gives our students a firm grounding of the basics while developing their higher order thinking skills to solve real-world problems. Implementing the WOW framework allows us to automatically implement other district initiatives such as Thinking Maps, Renaissance Learning programs, and curriculum mapping using Rubicon Atlas.
Using our Design Team as our Leadership Team, It is our goal to use curriculum mapping as an instructional tool to effectively examine GPS, perform WOW teacher lesson design protocols, and reflect and improve areas of instruction. A few challenges we must face are to encourage teacher ownership of the initiative and show positive benefits. This has and will continue to be an on-going process.
James Wilson is onto something...I like the concept. We are setting up a team too.
We are trying to ramp up the use of Rubicon and Curriculum Mapping by first mapping out the units though the year--putting in the titles, standards, and approximate weeks. Then they are going back in and developing the units that haven't been entered previously. We wanted them to have a big picture first as they continue to develop their units/maps. We felt that they were apprehensive about taking such big leaps, and we are trying to break it down into smaller steps.
Also the leadership team is doing the development work to post the elements of the school improvement plan/professional development plan. Not sure how this is going to turn out, but we will do more work on it Tuesday.
We are in the beginning stages of using Atlas since we were using the Curriculum on the Wall method for the last 3 years. We haven't found Atlas to be as user friendly with interdisciplinary units as the COWS since we need to have a quick and concise method of connecting for IB. However, Atlas is a great tool for working within the disciplines themselves.
I am working with the Work-based Learning Specialists for the District at this time in order to get them started developing unit maps for the career presentations, work ethic presentations, career fairs, etc. I want them to add lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school counselors and teachers so this information will be readily available. This will also serve as documentation to help us secure our state grants in the future and successfully pass our five-year review coming up in two years.
Next, the CTAE Supervisors and myself will collaborate to establish leadership unit maps in order to provide training for all CTAE teachers. One of the maps will be to map reading strategies across the curriculum for all CTAE teachers. I want to provide reading strategies that our teachers feel comfortable using which will help our CTAE students be more successful.
Matt and/or James:
You both reference a Curriulum Design Team...is that team also responsible for reviewing the exemplar units or does another group have those responsibilities?
Susan B.
At this point we have varying levels of comfort among the faculty with the implementation of the Rubicon Atlas program. Our goal is to make certain that all faculty members are at ease so that they can and will use the software to maximize their potential towards student achievement. We have identified teachers that have a strong knowledge base and comfort level with the program and they are considered our Rubicon Teacher Leaders. During the months of November and December, Fridays have been designated as Rubicon Departmental Training Days. Each department will receive additional hands on training with our school level experts, in an effort to enhance their knowledge with the use of the Rubicon Atlas Software.
~ Sonja Coaxum, Fort Middle School
Sonja,
I like your soft approach to rolling out Rubicon Atlas. I am in the same boat. Our teachers know how to effectively design a lesson, but only a few feel comfortable enough to input data into Rubicon Atlas. We are also implementing faculty training sessions using the train the trainer approach.
We have mapped out our professional development(rigor and relevance, and technology training). Teachers are in the process of working on creating units to post. During grade level planning teachers have been using the rigor and relevance framework to evaluate the higher order thinking skills included in their units that will be posted. As a result of the curriculum mapping process, we are working toward creating common assessments.
Thanks for the comments. We do need to support teachers as they learn to navigate through the curriculum mapping software. Please continue to respond to this site.
I hope that Cornerstone teachers will post a unit from a lesson study.
Hopefully, there will be some units posted after the MCSD WOW Conference on Monday, Nov. 17, and the CALI training on Nov. 17 and 18. PHC
We have really been emphasizing the importance of teachers working and planing units/lessons together and the value of designing and utilizing common assessments to adjust instruction. Many of our teachers are already doing so and doing an excellent job of collaborating and planning lessons for their students. Rubicon provides an excellent tool that allows teachers to do even more collaborating and sharing when time is so limited. One of our math teachers was hesitant at first, but in helping build some of the units for Math I over the summer became really excited about the program. She provided a training session for all of our teachers earlier this year and we are anxiously awaiting for it to take off with the rest of our staff.
At Georgetown, we have been immersed in the development of units. Our goalis to work to ensure that each of them are exemplary. Our units will be used to guide instruction via the GPS as well as complement the Cornerstone Literacy Initiative.
Our teachers are working to get completed units posted and revised as needed. Our ITS has provided additional training opportunities for those needing help in navigating the site. We are working towards more vertical conversation which should lead in effective teacher developement and increased student achievement. The tool has been a helpful visual for keeping us focused on initiatives for this year.
We are working on putting our Cornerstone Professional Development Plan on Rubicon. We are beginning to talk with teachers about their units and how they can be exemplary.
Currently we are mapping our use of standards in the classrooms. We are using the WOW framework as we map these standards as well as our Rubicon lessons. Teachers are also using the framesworks found on gastandards.org.
VMMS is using curriculum mapping to aid in the implementation of WOW. It is very helpful in planning processional development.
At Arnold, teachers are becoming more comfortable with the creation of units in Atlas. One of my teachers holds training sessions on Tuesday afternoons for those who are learning Atlas and she will teach a staff development class on Atlas beginning in January. I wrote a staff development course for Arnold faculty and I am in the process of mapping the course in Atlas.
Now that Rubicon has the new IB planners, we will be placing our units on the system. Having the IB planners on rubicon will make it easier to add information and document IB standards, GPS, and WOW. It will make planning across grade level more convenient.
I agree with Joanna. Since we are preparing for our GAPSS Review, we have all become educated to how much we are already doing, and how our units and lessons fit into so many of the system wide initiatives.
At Rothschild, we are also in the beginning stages of Working on the Work and utlizing the Rubicon mapping tool. It has been a growing process ,and we have experienced the typical struggles associated with new initiatives. However, this process has helped us tremendously in terms of continuing to foster and develop a professional learning community and to enhance collaboration.
"The Muscogee Way" is the leading way and the future of significant progress for student learning but more importantly adult learning. As our learning community matures this newly created knowledge will be the highway to success for all learners. I am very proud of our leaders and it has been my professional and personal pleasure to see such thoughtful, creative and collaborative refection on the work that we do and provide for our learners.
ASC's faculty is using the same approach as Double Churches Middle School by creating the "big picture" first. They have found this to be the easiest way to adapt current unit plans to Rubicon's design. One teacher is currently enrolled in the course designed by MCSD's Professional Development Department and has found this to be an excellant way to get past the initial fears of Rubicon. She is encouraging others to sign up for future course offerings.
Like Marietta, two of my faculty members said the training was very good--better than the average course they have taken other times and places. I hope it catches on with more teachers. Many of them still see it as an "add-on" to their current responsibilities.
I have found that asking teachers to complete the Rubicon unit instead of lesson plans on occasion to be helpful. I get a better sense of what they are trying to teach overall, but I don't get a very good at-a-glance at the activities until I go on and poke around on Rubicon. As long as the teachers have described and paperclipped the activities in Rubicon, it works out, especially if it is a longer unit and it outlines several weeks.
I'm looking for more ways for Rubicon to be helpful to the teachers so that they rely on it more, any ideas? Also, any thoughts on integrating the use of Rubicon with the frameworks on the DOE website?
I am using the curriculum mapping to monitor the implementation of standards as well. I am also using Rubicon as a method to monitor our school improvement plan. The teachers also post there lesson plans weekly in Rubicon.
We are using curriculum mapping to implement learning at strategic times through the maps developed for the year. All teachers have developed a number of units to include several E units. We spent last Friday afternoon reading each others' units to determine E unit status. Six units were selected to apply for E unit status. This enabled teachers school wide to see what their peers are producing as well as determine rigor and relevance of the units. I was very pleased with the enthusiasm shown throughout this activity. It certainly added for the staff the relationship piece.
They have become accustomed to receiving notes and comments regarding their posted units.
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