An Assessment of Okemos using MTSS and UDL
Okemos Public Schools is an innovative district that is home to approximately four thousand students. Located in an affluent community near Michigan State University as well as boasting parent-groups associated with each school as well as Okemos Community Foundation. The parent-groups and the foundation work cooperatively with Okemos to promote initiatives, give feedback, and provide funding. Teachers are valued as stakeholders. From the Superintendent, down, the mantra is, “do what’s best for kids”. It infrastructure includes components focused on supporting its achievement.
Multi-Tier Support Systems(MTSS) is the vehicle that Okemos Public Schools utilizes to create and sustain an effective organization.
…show more content…
Curriculum committees are a district staple. They are implemented as District-wide, building-specific, subject, and behavior for evaluation and revision of current curriculum and accompany resources. Feedback is solicited from Parent-groups, maintaining responsiveness to community priorities. Textbooks are adopted as tools to support concept application and generalization. However, they are not considered thee source of knowledge. Instructors are empowered to create and differentiate multi-faceted lessons. Cross-curricular collaboration aids this objective as well as promotes critical-thinking and creativity for students. Joint planning periods as well as on going and embedded profession development are also essential elements. Curriculum development and execution cannot be separated from professional training. They are interlocked facets of …show more content…
When UDL is infused with fidelity, assessment can be instruments for enhancing motivation. Motivation is the product of Exception and Value. Analysis of student skills and interests, equips instructors with students’ zone of proximal development, as well as what they value. Increasing either or both factors corresponds to student engagement. It is not enough to provide information in hopes that learners will attain the objective. They must be engaged in authentic learning experiences. Okemos is responsive to this monumental task. The continuum of service that it provides makes a significant attempt to address the varying needs of the student body. In the middle school, there are co-taught classes, skills labs, standard classrooms, Montessori classrooms, Honors, as well as Special education, in addition to the arts and tactile opportunities. Each student has a school-provided one to one devices. All classrooms are equipped with Neos, Smartboards and microphone-equipped sound systems. Despite these amenities and a host of fantastic personnel, instructional practice that is truly twenty-first century minded and engaging is in progress. Students in Okemos receive an outstanding education, AND it is still
Connecting people to the success of the district is one matter, but asking them to support it financially is another. The district is growing in size and is in need of new facilities and internal academic structures to support the growth. As the district continues to grow she is challenged with ensuring that the schools continue to interact with each other and do not return to the independent silos they were when she arrived. Ms. Hall realizes that she is the internal and external face of the district. She takes that very seriously and therefore, tires to view challenges as opportunities and successes as building blocks and
Thomas Jefferson was a man who believed that all American citizens need to be educated so that they may exercise their rights. He saw public education as essential to a democracy. One proposal he made for public education would guarantee that all children could attend public schools for three years. However, much like other early school reforms, this proposal received much rejection and was never brought into being. Despite this rejection, Jefferson still believed that America needed public education. Eventually, he opened the University of Virginia. Even though his bills and proposals to benefit public education never saw the light of day, he still made many contributions to public education by providing the foundation on how a democracy should handle educating its
Making high schools a “center of excellence” for all students even if that means breaking down extremely large schools through the concept of “schools within schools”;
Achievement First is a charter management organization (CMO) that operates 17 schools from the elementary to the high school level in New York and Connecticut. Achievement First works to close the black-white student achievement gap by providing a high quality education to students in low-performing urban districts, having started initially with Amistad Academy in New Haven and moved into Hartford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, and New York City. Achievement First has been recognized for its impressive results – with two K-8 schools reaching the top four percent among New York City schools on the Department of Education’s Progress Reports in 2008 and with Achievement First’s flagship middle school scoring at the top of the region in reading and writing. They do this by setting high expectations and ambitious goals with a challenging curriculum, developing teachers and school leaders, focusing on data, increasing the length of the school day, and creating a strong school culture. Like other CMOs, a huge challenge for Achievement First is scalability – specifically, recruiting and developing effective leaders and teachers.
Curriculum mapping within a professional learning community is a procedure for collecting and documenting what is taught in the classrooms. The focus on mapping is on units, content, skills, strategies, assessments, and resources that can be used to improve student learning and performance. According to Perkins interview with Jacobs, the key to curriculum mapping is that colleagues can share electronic data immediately so that everyone knows what is being taught in other classrooms today, last year, and in the future (2003). Technology makes mapping easier because educators can share and revise instantly. There are many ways that schools can make and use a curriculum map. Schools within a district can all participate in the creating and using of the curriculum map or one school in a district can write a map and then share it with other schools in the district depending on the size and needs of a district. Technology is helpful in both approaches and allows work to be done without the need for everyone to be in the same location at the same time. The process of curriculum mapping requires collaboration of knowledgeable teachers and administrators and is an ongoing process where all stakeholders reflect and revise constantly. The professional learning community (PLC) is an important part of the process because many can work together to create a better curriculum with a collective set of goals and reflective practice. According to Vdellhofen, reflective practice, collective focus of student learning, collaboration of clear and focused learning goals are all attributes to using PLC’s to map curriculum (2011). Schools are constantly trying to find ways to improve student learning and performance. Vdellhofen states that...
East Memorial is an elementary school consisting of grades K through fifth. The school is a part of Weld County School District Six (WCSD 6). The following information will identify how WCSD 6 and East Memorial Elementary School (EMES) build and keep stakeholders loyalty. This is an important part of any school organization. According to Baldrige, one organizational goal should be “…achieving such a degree of loyalty that the student or stakeholder will advocate for your organization and your programs and services” (2012, p.39).
E.D. Hirsch and John Dewey present two defined approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. In this essay, I will critically compare these two educational approaches by examining the strengths and weaknesses of Dewey’s applied learning curriculum and Hirsh’s core knowledge curriculum. I will also evaluate Hirsh’s more traditional, teacher-centred pedagogy in relation to Dewey’s more hands on approach to education. It will be shown that Dewey’s ideas are more educationally and socially valuable because they aim to enable collaboration, communal inquiry and coordination of interests. I will begin by explaining and critically evaluating Hirsch’s ideas, before explaining and defending Dewey’s alternative ideas.
Regardless of how the curriculum is organized, administrators must assure there is a balance of content areas addressed in the curriculum so that children develop a broad foundation of skills and knowledge that will prepare them for success in kindergarten and beyond (Gadzikowski 2013). Everyone has a role to play and giving children the opportunity to learn is the main reason why the education field has set standards and guides to help plan a high-quality program and effective curriculum. Make decisions based on the learning and developmental needs of children, focus on their cognitive, affective and physical domains, use classroom management techniques and daily schedules to enhance their experience and pay attention to your programs philosophies,
At Eastampton Community School, our assistant principal is also the director of curriculum. Working along the superintendent/principal, she is taking on his philosophy of seeking teachers input on new curriculum implementations. Each year, I meet with the curriculum director to discuss my goals for the upcoming year, how I am going to obtain them, discuss curriculum changes and ordering. This is also the time to review students’ data and any new programs or state mandates. By having the teachers put their import, they are more inclined to put forth more effort when implementing change since they have more ownership in the
Moreover, instructional and learning experience subsystem would have a positive effect once the proposed plans take into effect. The instructional subsystem are the teachers along with the administrators that gather their input and lead the students. The learning experience subsystem are the learners that process the information that the other 2 subsystem give out (Reighluth, 1995). There are a total of 4 subsystems, however the governance is like the head leaders of everything. The administrative subsystem is the most important one that needs the change, this division is like an engine to a vehicle. The stakeholders are responsible for are 4 subsystems, and changes also applies to them as
Often time’s curriculum is thought of as a set of rules and standards given to teachers to follow. However, more goes into a curriculum than just what meets perceived. Teachers are not just the vehicles from which a curriculum flows but in a sense, they embody it. There are four main different avenues in which curriculum is constructed. It’s constructed through government agencies, publishers, school systems, and teachers. It can be defined as “content, a set of specific educational plans, a changing series of planned learning experiences, or as everything that learners experience in school” (Van Brummelen, 20). A curriculum is strongly built behind a worldview. “A worldview is a comprehensive framework of basic convictions about life. Worldviews
One of my most influential experiences took place with my very first class, ED 523 taught by Dr. Howe. In this course, I learned about the Understanding by Design (UbD) Framework created by Wiggins and McTighe. This framework focuses on a backward design approach that uses big ideas, essential questions, and authentic assessments to create and guide curriculum (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005). The design encourages educators to “start with the end in mind.” Along with UbD, I also learned about a calendar-based curriculum mapping process created by Heidi Hayes Jacobs. The curriculum map allows for educators to examine curriculum both horizontally in a course and also vertically over the student’s K-12 academic career (Jacobs, 1997).
Going to school and getting a great education is important for a successful future in today’s world. Years ago, many children did not go to school and many young adults opted to work instead of attending college. In today’s society, gaining a high level of education is almost always mandatory for many jobs. There are many changes being done to the education system along with new items and ways of teaching in the classroom. There is a growing amount of changes in the classroom such as technology, teaching time, teaching styles, and freedom of space.
Since then, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction has been a standard reference for anyone working with curriculum development. Although not a strict how-to guide, the book shows how educators can critically approach curriculum planning, studying progress and retooling when needed. Its four sections focus on setting objectives, selecting learning experiences, organizing instruction, and evaluating progress. Readers will come away with a firm understanding of how to formulate educational objectives and how to analyze and adjust their plans so that students meet the objectives. Tyler also explains that curriculum planning is a continuous, cyclical process, an instrument of education that needs to be fine-tuned.
The need to evaluate curriculum arises because it is necessary for both teachers and students to determine the extent to which their current curricular program and its implementation have produced positive and curricularly suitable outcomes for students. To evaluate curricular effectiveness we must identify and describe the curriculum and its objectives first and then check its contents for accuracy, comprehensiveness, depth, timeliness, depth and quality.