Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Sub-Competencies

  1. Implement state academic standards and a coherent system of culturally responsive curriculum, instruction, and assessment that promotes the mission, vision, and core values of the district to embody high expectations for student learning.
  2. Develop, assess, and support teachers' and staff members' professional knowledge, skills, and practice through differentiated opportunities and emerging trends for learning and growth, guided by understanding professional and adult learning and development.
  3. Apply research and best practices on integrating curriculum, technology, and relevant resources to help all learners achieve at high levels.
  4. Understand and assess the implementation of alternative instructional designs, curriculum, positive approaches to behavior management, and assessment accommodations and modifications as appropriate in all programs.
  5. Demonstrate the ability to use data from valid assessments that are consistent with knowledge of child learning and development and technical standards of measurement to monitor student progress.
  6. Lead, support with meaningful and effective feedback, and assess instructional practice that is consistent with knowledge of child learning and development, effective pedagogy, and the needs of each student.
  7. Promote and support instructional practice that is consistent with knowledge of child learning and development, is intellectually challenging, is authentic to student experiences, recognizes student strengths, and is differentiated and personalized.

Reflections and Artifacts

Summary: This artifact shows the agenda from the district curriculum lead summer meeting. This meeting was part of the process of implementing a new curriculum purchasing and review cycle for all teams in the school district

Reflection: A school principal must ensure that the content students interact with daily is up to date, accurate, and relevant to the needs of the community's students. Part of this is designing and implementing a robust evaluation system that gives content experts and classroom teachers the time and resources to have the best materials for students. In this meeting, the school district was readopting a curriculum review and development cycle. We were tasked as a committee with determining the content-area placement within the cycle. Part of this discussion was balancing the costs of certain content-area purchases with keeping other areas as up to date as possible. In this meeting, I also used historical data tied to standards to guide the process toward building the first purchasing year and the cycle from there. Throughout this process, I learned about the importance of collecting relevant data and the importance of removing data collection that does not improve the process.

Summary: This artifact is the agenda for a district advisory committee comprising school administrators, the superintendent, school board members, teachers, and community members. This stakeholder group serves as the advisory committee overseeing the adoption of the school district's curriculum and assessments.

Reflection: As the instructional leader of the building and within the school district, a principal is responsible for communicating curriculum changes to the school district's stakeholders. In this meeting, the current curriculum model was discussed, and its strengths and weaknesses were evaluated. The main consensus was that, with a decentralized curriculum adoption plan, there was much greater flexibility to provide departments with the curriculum they needed. However, this came at the cost of teaching staff in their content teams not knowing which direction to take or what actions to take because there was confusion in the acquisition of curriculum materials. This meeting gave me insights into the importance of maintaining a clearly structured curriculum adoption cycle, which allows teams to be able to have definitive tasks they can complete. This is important because it enables continuous improvement in academic programming.

Summary: This artifact was created to help guide research into various interventions for tier 3 reading support. The main focus of this research was to provide the building principal with insights and evaluations of available curricula and approaches, with the goal of making a recommendation.

Reflection: School leaders are the instructional leaders within their building. They must ensure that the materials students access provide the learning required for student success. In this research activity, I examined different approaches and curricula surrounding tier 3 reading supports. Part of this was ensuring that current resources could be supplemented and improved by adding additional curriculum. In this evaluation process, I learned about many of the hidden costs that come with adopting a new program and the substantial training resources required to supplement the main purchase. When these additional costs are not considered, these programs cannot be implemented with fidelity and ultimately become a waste. As a school principal, it is vital to be aware of all the resources needed to implement the curriculum with fidelity.

Summary: This artifact was the agenda for one of our mentor meetings that took place every other month during the school year. In this meeting, we led the district mentors through the observation process aligned with both the New Teacher Center framework and Danielson’s Domains model, which our school district uses to evaluate instructional staff.

Reflection: School leaders must build and implement systems that allow instruction to thrive within their building. This meeting focused on equipping mentor teachers in the school district to conduct a coaching observation cycle with their mentees. This cycle follows the pre-during-post observation format, allowing staff to discuss the specifics of what they want the coaches to watch for. As a principal, it is important to maintain specifics about what you are observing in classroom instruction. In a school system, aligning what you are looking for with the building and district goals allows the observation cycle to guide instructional staff in meeting their own goals and to drive mentors to continue their growth as instructional leaders within the school district.

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