Designing Curriculum and Instruction II Task 4

Designing Curriculum & Instruction II A. Create curriculum implementation plan based on specific curriculum, doing the following: 1. Provide overview of curriculum: My proposal is for a penmanship curriculum for our small private school, we currently use Open Court for our ELA (English Language Arts) curriculum. Open Court does include a small section of what letters to practice each week, but no in detail lessons. I have chosen to use the Understanding by Design (UbD) curriculum model because I know what I want to have achieved with my new curriculum. The first step in this model is to find my wanted outcome, which is that my students will write more fluently with confidence and legibly. The second step in the UbD model is to determine acceptable evidence, the acceptable evidence will be when the student writes fluently and with confidence while producing legible writing. The third and last step in the UbD model is the planning of instruction and learning experiences. I would like to have videos that start with commonly used strokes in penmanship, having a separate video that shows how to correctly write each letter. I chose this model because it is simple and to the point, which is exactly what my proposal for a penmanship curriculum is. This model helps focus on student development and deepening of understanding, the ability to use the content knowledge and skill. I have a goal in mind and need a model that will help me focus on that and UbD is the right one. My curricular goal is Students will be able to write more fluently with more confidence, while producing legible writing, enhancing their reading fluency and comprehension skills. Teaching penmanship is a lot more involved than throwing worksheets at students and telling them to complete them, they need practice and practice is said to make perfect. I will be able to see that students are progressing, or I will have my acceptable evidence when students can go from imitating or reproducing letters to doing this from memory, when students can write on lines paper with correct letter sizing and are not using verbal and/or visual cues to complete penmanship lessons. Lastly is designing the learning opportunities and experiences that will go along with a new penmanship curriculum. We will look for the best instructional aides to benefit explicit learning instruction during penmanship instruction. We will gather materials and make sure that we have everything needed to get the students in the best possible position to become more efficient hand writers. 2. Plan for curriculum implementation: a. Discuss rationale for implementing curriculum: I need to construct a penmanship curriculum that will equip my students with better communication skills, comprehension, fine motor skills and reading fluency. When a student can write he can communicate what he has been taught. Having the fine motor skills to write has been linked to cognitive skills and academic success. (PLD, 2019). When a student learns the alphabet in writing they are connecting to each letter in multiply ways. This knowledge will be engraved and help them preserve the letters and sounds they make, which paves an easier path for learning to read (We Are Teachers, 2015). Good handwriting skills have been proven to produce better outcomes in reading and writing. A student in kindergarten possessing fine motor expertise that from handwriting skills stemming from consistent handwriting instruction habits can surpass those in the 2nd grade in reading and math. (PLD, 2019). b. Discuss expected outcome from implementation of curriculum: There will be several new and expected outcomes from all the stakeholders in the new curriculum. I believe all that are involved in the implementation of the new penmanship curriculum will see a change for the better. Producing students that can write more fluently will trickle over to their reading and comprehension. Some of the struggles had by teachers will be resolved with the penmanship curriculum, it will create a better classroom environment as students are more confident and more willing to work harder. We expect this process to take up to six months, even a year to get implemented and work out any kinks within different classes. We will be able to measure the success of the new curriculum from the penmanship produced daily by our students and then in their gains in confidence in reading. c. Provide timeline with key components for implementing curriculum: We shall start with our planning and a curriculum development committee. Since we are a small private school all the grade level teachers will be included on the committee. We have identified the issue that we wish to resolve about better penmanship for our students and adopting a penmanship curriculum. Our students do not have good penmanship as it is only taught in kindergarten through first grade here. Our students do not write fluently with confidence and legibly and our goal is for them to write more fluently with confidence and produce legible writing. We have been noticing this trend across grades two to five and know we need to tackle it now. This part of the process taking a month at least to coordinate and get started. We have been meeting with each member of our committee to discuss what they would like to see come of the new curriculum. We are trying to develop a penmanship curriculum that incorporated videos, worksheets for consistent practice, binders kept for each student. We will use the binders that are kept with student work to monitor the progress of each individual student, differentiating instruction where we see that it may help a particular student. Taking the writing samples and comparing them from week to week to see the progress is any by students. We will start the new curriculum at once in grades kindergarten to 5th. This part of the curriculum implementation process will run for about 2 months. Evaluations as to implementation will be done every other day for the first few weeks to make sure the process is running smoothly. We will have monthly meetings with all committee members for update or thoughts on the process. We plan to have a successful penmanship curriculum fully implemented within a six-month period from the start of implementation. d. Discuss key roles and responsibilities in implementing curriculum: I am employed at a small private school, and we do not have board members or district officials, the key roles played in implementing the penmanship curriculum will be with the teachers. Teachers are the coordinators in students learning in a way that helps guide and support students to show knowledge. Besides their instructional representations as co-workers or developer's teachers are learners, counselors, managers, assessors, and innovators in this process of implementation (Mvorganizing.org, 2021).The other pivotal park or key role in curriculum development are the students. They play as important a role as the teachers do in this process. We have them at the center of the curriculum development and implementation process. e. Discuss resource(s) and technology necessary for implementation of curriculum: Technology necessary for implementing a new penmanship curriculum would be that each class has access to a smart board or projector for the videos that will be included in the new curriculum. Binders for each student that will include all print outs for the penmanship basic strokes, letters and sentences and extra practice. These will be kept in class for quick use and referral for the teachers to look at the students' progress when needed. For those students that may need differentiation a few slant boards need to be placed in each class. f. Stakeholders discuss separate strategies for collaborating with each other: Strategies for collaborating with students: depending on how old and the grade level you would approach each other differently. Different age groups need various levels of teacher attention. For students you need to gauge what a student needs from each individual child. In collaboration with parents for the new curriculum, keeping the parents up to date daily, they are the ones that influence the child more. They can read the child better in many situations and can help you with behaviors and focus on class. Parents want their students to be successful in all aspects of their education so we need to keep them as close as we can and happy with the process. 3. Plan for supporting teachers through curriculum implementation process by doing the following: As will all new material training will be offered to each different grade level for the new curriculum. Feedback is especially important from the teachers on how they are using the new curriculum to support their classes. Provided multiple examples and distinct experience with activities to promote successful implementation. Overall supplying developmentally proper training and daily check-in for feedback from our staff to make sure they are getting all the support they need during this new transition. a. Discuss goal for supporting teachers through curriculum implementation process: The goals for supporting teachers will be to first put them through rigorous training and professional development opportunities both entry level and accelerated levels will be offered. Be available to hear the teachers if they are having trouble or need more supplies to get the curriculum started in their class. b. Create professional development plan supporting teachers: Our goal for supporting our teacher is to improve student learning by expanding knowledge of instructional strategies related to learning in the curriculum area, especially involving writing skills. Again, we are a small school so we will have someone come to us to teach us the new curriculum. When getting together a professional development (PD) we will make sure that it is collaborative. Making sure that the teachers are not place with all the responsibility but a joint effort from all in our school. We will customize the PD to focus on our new penmanship curriculum and that only. We will tailor it to meet the needs of the new penmanship curriculum will a lot of information. Goals will be limited to a few so they we do now overwhelm all involved in the new process. A more effective plan will only have 2 or so goals that will be tackled. The goals and timelines for the new curriculum will need to be realistic also the difficulty of the new program. Time and cost will also be factored into professional development as well. c. Discuss two strategies to support teachers’ implementation of curriculum: First, we will listen to all concerns that the teachers in our school may have about the new curriculum. Then fixing anything that may need to be done for the teachers to continue implementing the new curriculum. The second strategy we will us for support will be to offer and highly encourage PLC’s (Professional Learning Communities). Since we are a small school, we may only have two teacher teams, but each can offer a fresh look into what we are implementing and might have different questions or concerns to bring to the table. Listening to the teachers, giving immediate feedback, and offering PLCs for support during this new transition will be great for our teams. d. Two strategies support teachers’ ongoing use of curriculum: Strategies to help ongoing use of our penmanship curriculum would be communicate clearly and decisively. Making sure teachers know what is expected of them for ongoing use of the curriculum. If they are left to wonder what is to be expected of them it becomes a burden on them and they can lose focus. Lead strong while supplying all materials, this prepares them for a better lesson, so they do not have to stop what they are doing and make sure they have all materials. Uninterrupted lessons go better when the teacher must stop to make more copies, or find a projector that works etc. 4. Plan for monitoring curriculum implementation by doing the following: a. Discuss goal for monitoring implementation plan: As I had said before the goal for monitoring implantation will be to give all the support we possibly can. We do not want our teachers to be bogged down with a curriculum that there is yet still a lot of guess work to be done on their end. We want to present them with a well-planned out curriculum that they can just jump right into and teacher without faulter. We will go to classes and observe the teacher in action and will make suggestions where needed. We will also take their questions or concerns into consideration as well. The goals for supporting teachers will be to first put them through rigorous training and professional development opportunities both entry level and accelerated levels will be offered. Be available to hear the teachers if they are having trouble or need more supplies to get the curriculum started in their class. We will monitor student proficiency by looking at the binders that will be kept in the classroom for all to look at. b. Two strategies for monitoring implementation plan: Our first strategies in monitoring implementation of our new penmanship curriculum will be to conduct frequent check-in sessions with our teachers, we already have all our staff on board for this new curriculum and all are eager to get the ball rolling. We will have had professional development on how to implement and the teachers will be adequately trained but checking in with them to make sure all is going well. That they have all the material they need, all the students are responding to new material in a positive manner, and to see if they have had to differentiate any material for specific students.