In Teachers' Hands: Curriculum Alignment in Ipswich Public Schools

When educators talk about “alignment,” they mean how curriculum flows from class to class, and year to year so that the curriculum lays out a path scaffolding what students will know and be able to do.

So, how is curriculum aligned?

There are many ways to align curriculum -- from relying on textbooks and other pre-written materials to bringing in “experts” who have already researched and written curriculum. While methods of alignment such as textbooks and pre-written materials are useful and important tools, I argue that one way to align curriculum is to support teachers in diving into the Massachusetts State Standards. These Standards are basically a map for writing the curriculum that meets the needs of students sitting (and standing, and swaying, and smiling) in front of our teachers every day. The Standards already have a progression of what students should know and be able to do mapped out for us. Our job, then, becomes writing and aligning curriculum that best matches the unique qualities and characters of our students, as is guided by the Standards.

And Standards aren’t just about “content” (facts, figures and the like) anymore. Instead, Standards are increasing about “practices” and skills -- skills that are a match to Ipswich Public School’s focus on Successful Habits of Mind and Powerful Learning. This, then, means a change in the way curriculum is aligned. For example, how does curriculum support a student in deepening her critical thinking skills across the grades? How does curriculum foster students who interact with the world as scientists do?

Lastly, writing curriculum can’t be done with teachers working in isolation -- especially if that curriculum is meant to meet the needs of our 21st Century learners. It follows, then, that if teachers are writing their own curriculum there needs to be an alignment plan in place. This plan needs to regularly bring groups of teachers together to give feedback to each other.

This year, Ipswich Public Schools has adopted “Learning Cycles” this path for teachers to write curriculum and give feedback to each other. Sometimes called “Validations,” Learning Cycles support teachers in writing the best possible curriculum for their students. Over time, Learning Cycles will result in teaching and learning that is aligned across content, grades and schools. This is because teachers will be in the know about what is happening in the courses coming before and after theirs. Here in Ipswich Public Schools, we are already seeing this alignment starting to happen! Next year, this will grow even more...

So, what exactly are “Learning Cycles?”

In the Cycles, teachers meet in small groups throughout the school year to share curriculum with each other, and give each other feedback. This curriculum is written in a common Ipswich Public Schools district “Understanding by Design”-style template, so that we’re all speaking a common academic language and writing curriculum with a common flow. In a Learning Cycle Round, teachers might bring “units” (a series of connected lessons carefully designed to support students in achieving a set of rigorous learning objectives) or “tasks” (student performance piece) or “student work” (writing or worksheets or projects or journals...anything students have created). Teachers in the Learning Cycles groups then use a protocol to guide them through a conversation in which all participants have the spotlight to give feedback to their colleague’s curriculum.  

Compass (curriculum) Leaders help facilitate, refine and support this Learning Cycle work, along with the facilitation support of the PLC (Professional Learning Community) teacher leaders. The Director of Teaching and Learning helps to align the work across schools, and gathers feedback from all involved throughout the process.

The Learning Cycle process looks like this:

Sometimes teachers meet in small groups from their own schools that are cross-content and grade (say, an 8th grade Science teacher, 6th grade English teacher and a Music teacher) and sometimes teachers meet in groups that are departmental (for example, all Social Studies teachers). Elementary teachers meet in groups either at their individual schools or in cross-school groups within the district. We even recently held a Curriculum Celebration Round where middle and high school teachers met in small groups together!

There are lots of levels of feedback happening, all at once...

A critical part of a district’s use of Learning Cycles is knowing that the Cycles themselves may change to best meet the needs of teachers, students and the district. Therefore, it’s important that lots of feedback at various levels is consistently being collected, analyzed and used. Compass (curriculum) teachers, in particular, play a key role in this! For example, Compass teachers help revise -- and even write -- the different protocol choices that are used in the Rounds. Compass members work with their principals and colleagues to support this aligned method of curriculum writing in their schools.

Learning Cycles are a way to align curriculum across grades, schools and content areas, and are a forum for teachers to share best practices across the entire Ipswich Public Schools district. Learning Cycles put curriculum writing where it belongs: in the hands of teachers.

Want more information? Contact Tracy Wagner, IPS Director of Teaching and Learning: twagner@ipsk12.net.

Ipswich Public Schools: Full STEAM Ahead!

Whether you’re reading about education today, watching School Committee meetings on ICAM, or talking with Ipswich Public School faculty, parents or students, I’m sure you’ve been hearing the buzz about “STEAM.”

So, just what is “STEAM” in Ipswich Public Schools?

Our district’s definition of this work is:

"STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, 

Arts and Math) education engages students 

with a sense of wonder about our ever-changing world  through questioning, collaboration and innovative problem-solving."

STEAM work is creative and important, and it involves all our students PreK-12. STEAM “looks like” Doyon students figuring out how to build a zipline across a ravine, Winthrop students contemplating how to make a “kid” out of wires and rocks and batteries, middle schoolers designing water filtration systems and high schoolers grappling with solar panels. STEAM is truly 21st Century work and it is funded through the Override provided by this generous Ipswich community.

STEAM uses principles of “design thinking” to support students in identifying a problem, brainstorming possible solutions, and using Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math content areas and skills to create tangible, hands-on solutions to these real-world problems. In STEAM work, the district’s Successful Habits of Mind are front and center. Students must think critically and creatively and learn from their mistakes.

How did this work begin?

Ipswich Public Schools completed a comprehensive review of STEAM work being done in all our schools in the 2014-2015 school year. To do this, an educational consultancy visited 27 classrooms across the district to measure Rigor, Relevance and Learner Engagement in regard to STEAM work. The resulting analysis was the STEAM-Focused Needs Assessment Report and Strategic Plan by the International Center for Leadership in Education.

The document gives a “Needs Analysis” of ten recommendations for moving IPS forward in STEAM work. Alongside this work, a dedicated Ipswich Public Schools STEAM Team of teachers, administrators, students and community members worked tirelessly on developing a working draft of a district STEAM vision statement and bringing an aligned approach to STEAM work to IPS. Much thanks to this inaugural STEAM Team for their hard work!

What’s happening with STEAM this year?

Thanks to the generous Override, IPS principals started this school year with budgeted funding for STEAM work and the district moved forward to assemble this school year’s STEAM Team. This year’s STEAM Team is comprised of 5 community and business members (including New England BioLabs, SanTron and Change is Simple folks), 3 administrators, 7 teachers, 1 School Committee member and 2 students. Together, we continue to meet throughout the school year in order to move the STEAM work started last year forward. New England BioLabs generously volunteered to host two of our work-intensive days.

This year's STEAM Team's work is guided by the “Needs Analysis” from last year. As such, we have dedicated our time this year to moving forward in three areas, including (1) continuing a STEAM action plan, (2) organizing and setting the stage for STEAM professional development, and (3) establishing school events around STEAM challenges. The STEAM Team continues to meet to work on developing resources and events around these three areas.

All community members are invited to see STEAM in action at the Feoffee Showcase, 5-7 PM on Thursday, April 14th at the PAC. Visit the Ensemble Room to see a video of STEAM work and add your voice to the “STEAM Board.” Visit the wooden gym to see robotics and student-built cars. Along the way, you’ll see examples of all the innovative work being done, as funded by the Feoffee Grants. Come see us here and say hello!

What can I look forward to next year?

Whether it be Makerspaces (places with all the gadgets and gizmos and resources students need to tinker and create), professional development, Pathways, resources or collaboration opportunities, STEAM work is undeniably written all across our school district’s 2016-2017 budget for the coming school year. Compass (curriculum), PLC (facilitation) and Technology (technology as a teaching and learning tool) teacher leadership opportunities, also funded in this budget, further support and inform this alignment work. In this, we keep the promises of the Override, funding STEAM in all our schools. 

Look forward to hearing and seeing more, whether it be in as “big” a venue as a district-wide STEAM Fair or as “small” a venue as your kitchen table. Throughout, we will continue to work with the community partners that are vital to helping students make necessary school and career connections. Through this, Ipswich Public School students will continue to become the innovators and artists, great thinkers and problem-solvers our 21st Century world needs.

Hello from the Ipswich, Massachusetts Public Schools Office of Teaching and Learning!

I'm happy to share this blog with you as a place to learn more about Teaching and Learning in IPS. As the year continues, I’ll post updates for the Ipswich community as to both my work in IPS and the Teaching and Learning work to come.

Just what does a "Director of Teaching and Learning" do, you ask? In a broad sense, this role is all about supporting and aligning 21st Century teaching and learning in our district. In my six months here, I have worked to support amazing IPS teachers -- both in their teacher leader roles and in their classrooms -- to collaborate together in curriculum writing, problem solving and teaching. IPS isn’t a place where teachers are simply handed textbooks or pre-written curriculum and expected to follow along. It’s a place where teachers are supported in writing the curriculum that students need and deserve to be the thoughtful, hard-working, outside-the-box thinkers that this world demands.

This school year's focus is on the Successful Habit of Mind (or "Habit") "critical thinking," so much of my work so far has been to bring resources for teaching critical thinking to IPS. Through this, I've worked with teachers and the district's Leadership Team to begin to put systems in place for teachers to write rigorous curriculum to ensure learning that will last a lifetime.

Why teach critical thinking?

Students’ ability to master and learn from curriculum’s objectives depends, of course, upon these students’ ability to think. However, are our students doing more than just “entry-level” thinking? Are they memorizing, or are they synthesizing? Restating or predicting? In short, do the problem-solvers of tomorrow need to be able to recognize and label a problem, or do we need them to be able to hypothesize and analyze it?

This school year, the entire district is using the same core resource to align teaching and learning around critical thinking. It’s called Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding and Independence for All Learners by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison.

This text is about how critical thinking is necessitated on students being able to practice metacognition -- that is, the practice of “thinking about thinking.” In Making Thinking Visible, the authors give concrete examples and practices called “thinking routines” for teachers to use in the classroom for students to practice thinking about their thinking. Children do this when you, say, ask them to explain how they arrived at a particular solution to a word problem or, as another example, when they read a book and stop to jot notes about connections they are making to the text.

Through critical thinking we reason

abstractly,

concretely,

quantitatively

and resourcefully

for a purpose.

These “thinking routines” are being used throughout Ipswich Public Schools, supporting students in the kinds of critical thinking they’ll need in this 21st Century world. Together with our Compass team members (teachers who facilitate and encourage continued curriculum design), Professional Learning Community -- or “PLC” -- team leaders (teachers who facilitate teams of colleagues as communities of learners), STEAM Team members (teachers working on an integrated approach to the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) and more, Ipswich Public Schools is a place where students think critically and for a purpose. It is a district where students are being prepared to make a difference in the world.