Instructional Tools

Introduction

Goal & Strategies*

Standards, curricula, and assessments focus on both academic and social-emotional skills, and are aligned to create instructional coherence, PreK-3rd grade.

Standards

Standards

Meaningful, rigorous, and aligned standards are used to articulate what children are expected to learn.

Example Implementation Indicators

Superintendents, Principals, Teachers, Community-based Partners

• Demonstrate a developmentally informed understanding of what young children, PreK-3rd, need to know and be able to do.
• Use federal- and state-level (and other) alignment rubrics to inform their work.
• Develop learning progressions that support children’s continuous progress from year to year.
• Regularly use standards and learning progressions in professional development and family conferences.

Families

• Know that standards exist across PreK-3rd and understand how they are used in schools and early childhood programs.
• Demonstrate understanding of how standards support their children’s learning and educational success.

Curricula

Curricula

Curricula that are balanced, intentional, relevant, and developmental are selected and implemented.

Example Implementation Indicators

District Administrators/Community Leaders

• Require and support the use of common curricula and assessments across PreK-3rd grade.
• Engage teachers in selecting common curricula and assessments and in developing a cohesive curricular framework.

Principals/Site Administrators

• Provide professional development for school- and community-based teachers around curricula, assessments, and their integration with classroom practices.

Teachers

• Participate in selecting common curricula and assessments that address both academic skills and social-emotional well-being.
• Engage in professional learning communities that address effective instruction and the linkages among curricular goals, content, and teaching strategies.
• Use consistent instructional strategies across classrooms.

Assessments

Assessments

A comprehensive assessment system that includes diagnostic, formative, and summative tools is used to understand students’ progress.

Example Implementation Indicators

District Administrators/Community Leaders

• Establish and regularly update district-level inventories of appropriate assessment tools and data markers.
• Implement a common data system that measures academic progress; social, emotional, and physical development; and other markers of child learning and development.
• Provide data to schools and early learning programs in a timely manner so that data can be used to inform instruction and make site-level decisions.

Principals/Site Administrators

• Use assessment data to monitor and improve individual student, school-wide learning, and teaching practices.
• Build assessment loops in which data are shared between early learning programs and schools.

Teachers

• Use common and consistent diagnostic and screening assessments, across age/grade levels, to identify children who need extra help and connect them with support services and supplemental instruction.
• Use common and consistent formative and summative child assessments to reflect on and improve their teaching practices.

Families

• Participate in assessment efforts by both providing and receiving honest, accurate, and regular information about their child’s progress across multiple domains of learning.

Resources

Continuing Education

Laws, Regulations, Statutes

Links

Links

Aligning Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment to Implement College- and Career-Ready Standards
Click Here for the SEDL website or http://www.sedl.org/expertise/curriculum_instruction_assessment.html

Criteria for High-Quality Assessment
Click Here, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education

Minnesota Department of Education - Curriculum and Instruction
Click Here or http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/EdExc/StanCurri/Curri/

P-3 Content Standards and Assessments
Click Here, Education Commission of the States

Position statements on Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Evaluation
Click Here for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) website.

Literature

Literature

Aligning Preschool through High School Social and Emotional Learning Standards: A Critical and Doable Next Step
Click Here, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, November 2013

Articulating Assessments Across Childhood: The Cross-Age Validity of the Desired Results Developmental Profile–Revised
Click Here for Article
T. M. Karelitz, D. Parrish, H. Yamada and M. Wilson, Educational Assessment, 15:1–26, 2010
Identifying and validating an alignment structure between instruments is an essential component of the assessment development process.We present the methodology for establishing cross-age validity using the Desired Results Developmental Profile–Revised (DRDP–R). The DRDP–R assessment consists of a set of instruments designed to track children’s socio-emotional, cognitive, physical, and behavioral development across three age groups from kindergarten through 12 years old.

Criteria for High-Quality Assessment
Click Here, Darling-Hammond, L., Herman, J., Pellegrino, J., et al. (2013). Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Coherence: Key to Next Generation Assessment Success (AACC Report).
Click Here, Herman, J. L. (2010). Los Angeles, CA: University of California.

English Language Arts Grades PreK–2: Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards
Click Here National Council of Teachers of English

FirstSchool Framework for Curriculum and Instruction, A
Click Here Issues in PreK–3rd Education

P21 Common Core Toolkit: A Guide to Aligning the Common Core State Standards with the Framework for 21st Century Skills
Click Here for Document Also available at: www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21CommonCoreToolkit.pdf‎

Rethinking Program Assessment through the Use of Program Alignment Mapping Technique
Click Here Communication Teacher, 24 (4), October 2010, pp. 238-246

Texas’ Early Learning Pathways: An alignment of the Texas Infant, Toddler, and Three-Year-Old Early Learning Guidelines and the Texas Pre-kindergarten Guidelines
Click Here, Texas Early Learning Council, 2013, www.earlylearningtexas.org

Using Standards to Integrate the Curriculum (Chapter 4) from Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum by Susan M. Drake and Rebecca C. Burns
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/103011/chapters/Using-Standards-to-Integrate-the-Curriculum.aspx

Why should assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies be aligned?
http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/ Eberly Center, Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Minnesota Examples

Minnesota Examples

Alignment of Minnesota K-12 Kindergarten Academic Standards with the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress (ECIPs)
Click Here

Presentations

Presentations

Curriculum and Alignment
Click here for file, Arizona Department of Education School Improvement and Intervention

Linking Preschool Curriculum, Instruction and Child Assessment
Click Here for file, Dr. Linda Warren, Early Childhood Associates, Inc.

Making PreK-3rd Grade Assessments Matter
Click Here
by Dr. Thomas Schultz, Council of Chief State School Officers/Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes
NAESP 2015 Lunch and Learn, June 30, 2015

Research

Research

Go to Research & Studies

Tools

Tools

Webinars & Videos

Webinars & Videos

Curricula: What, How and Why
Click Here, The PreK-3rd Grade National Work Group

Gillian McNamee on PreK-3rd and Common Core Curriculum
Click Here, Erikson Institute, Gillian Dowley McNamee, Professor and Director of Teacher Education at Erikson Institute

John Price on PreK-3rd and the Common Core Curriculum
Click Here, Erikson Institute, "How Can We Avoid Placing the Burden on Young Children?" by John Price, Deputy Chief, Ravenswood-Ridge Network, Chicago Public Schools.

Not So Simple: Standards and Their Implementation
Click Here, The PreK-3rd Grade National Work Group

Stephen Zrike on Common Core and Quality PreK-3rd
Click Here, Erikson Institute, Stephen Zrike, Chief of Elementary Schools, Pilsen-Little Village Network, Chicago Public Schools

Using Data to Inform and Improve Instruction: Child Assessment
Click Here, The PreK-3rd Grade National Work Group

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* Kauerz, K. & Coffman, J. (2013). Framework for Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating PreK-3rd Grade Approaches. Seattle, WA: College of Education, University of Washington.