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"streamlining curriculum" "modern curriculum" "upgrading curriculum" curriculum "curriculum design" education "curriculum overload" storytelling students tea...

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Founded by Allison Zmuda and Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Curriculum Storyboards are a fresh, visual approach to curriculum design, presenting it as a narrative. Their latest book on the methodology, "Streamlining the Curriculum," is now available at ASCD!

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Book- Streamlining the Curriculum: Using the Storyboard Approach to Frame Compelling Learning Journeys 

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Book- Streamlining the Curriculum: Using the Storyboard Approach to Frame Compelling Learning Journeys 

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Streamlining the Curriculum: Using the Storyboard Approach to Frame Compelling Learning Journeys

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A game-changing resource for educators looking to elevate their unit and lesson plans, increase student engagement, and improve home-school communication. With so many standards to address and templa

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As the school year is winding to a close and everyone is desperate for a break, looking toward the opening of school next year is already causing unease. Throughout the world, educators face a critical challenge: how to design aspirational and future forward (post-pandemic) learning experiences rather than a temporary fix (triage). In our first blogpost in this four part series, we proposed the importance of beginning with input from students, parents, and teachers about what they are experiencing, what lessons they are learning, and what they will need moving into the next school year. We also looked at factors to mull over what will matter most in the planning for the year rather than jumping onto the "let's pick up where we left off" bandwagon.

How can we shape curriculum right now that will best serve our learners for the future?

This blogpost is centered on two key steps to assist decision makers, learners, and families as they make this determination: development of future forward learning goals and using those goals as a north star to examine and clarify curriculum choices. This work can provide a balcony view to clarify broader learning goals that ideally guide day to day learning choices that teachers and students make-goals that take the long view on determining the strength, approaches, life-skills, and aptitudes needed to support our learners.

For teachers in the identification, creation, and/or redesign of compelling problems, questions, and challenges that can give insight into a refreshed curriculum storyline. Otherwise we are more likely to recycle what we have immediately in front of us, to cover old material, and to miss an opportunity.

For students as they are becoming more skillful, sophisticated, and strategic throughout their school years. This is especially helpful now when students may feel increased pressure/anxiety in anticipation of pace of learning to "catch up" for what was missed.

For the school community in reaching consensus on realistic priorities will be central to our efforts. Otherwise, there may be a tendency to go for the granular, memorize some facts, scramble to construct where "we left off." It is critical to reach consensus as a school community on learning goals that will serve as a North Star to decision making.

STEP 1: DEVELOPMENT OF FUTURE FORWARD LEARNING GOALS

What These Meta-Level Learning Goals Are

Future Forward Learning Goals are overarching, and transdisciplinary. We developed key criteria for these learning goals as well as a few illustrative examples.

Reasonable number and scope to capture all aspects of a learner's life. Goals should cover the range of skills, behaviors, and dispositions that we seek in the long run. We have found that limiting to 10 may be a helpful barometer (not a hard fast rule).

Apply to the range of topics and challenges that learners encounter in all corners of school life-curricular, social, and personal investigations. These lend themselves to both transdisciplinary and subject-specific tasks that can honor existing curricular choices as well as open up the design table to more meaningfully include students.

Describe desired complexity and sophistication. These goals can then be broken down in grade level bands for instruction and coaching.

Provide clarity for your target audience(s). We need to pay closer attention to how well we communicate about what we mean when we use broad generalizations. Fuzzy language implies fuzzy thinking.

The following examples that were drafted in partnership with Bena Kallick illustrate each of the key criteria listed above.

Seek to investigate challenging contemporary global and local issues by pursuing questions or a line of thinking.

Use design thinking and other processes to develop solutions, findings, prototypes, performances, and media.

Navigate through diverse sources and perspectives to make discerning and thoughtful judgments.

Generate, enrich, and craft communication through the strategic use of evidence and command of language.

Share stories, ideas, and points of view to engage others to think interdependently and potentially act collectively.

Think flexibly, take responsible risks, and listen with understanding and empathy as they engage with the world.

Establish nomenclature. It may be that your school elects to give these Future Forward Learning Goals a "name" to stake out the ownership and engagement of your community. We encourage you to do so. Whether these are your Meta Level Goals, Essential Learning Goals or North Star Learning Goals, it is important that they belong to your community and will serve as guideposts to make wise decisions moving forward.

Examine Established Learning Goals as a possible starting point. Right now is a rich opportunity to challenge our thinking about what we truly value through the process of crafting of Future Forward Learning Goals. It is not necessary to start from scratch. For example, many school communities and have crafted descriptions of what a Portrait of a Graduate should demonstrate/look like. These descriptions are in the spirit of what McTighe and Wiggins call "transfer goals"-goals that will be important not only within the life of school but also in their lives well beyond school. We know that these goals reflect college and career readiness, part of the driving force for developing these goals. There are clear meta-level learning goals embedded in IB's Approaches to Learning that serve naturally to guide decision making. There is also a rich source for essential goal setting in the introductory statements of purpose focused on life-long goals for learners in most standards whether through a national, state, or provincial organization. If you already are using one of these models reaffirm and reimagine them to reflect the times.

Gather insight and information directly from all members of the school community. Focus on student agency-having their voices inform what they learn, where they learn, how they learn, and how they demonstrate learning-have been the heart of global conversation with personalized learning for close to ten years. During the current triage phase of our response to COVID19, parents viewed first hand the impact of remote learning had on their children. Lessons are being learned at home right now that are central to planning ahead. Now is the time to pay close attention to our learners and harvest recommendations. In our previous blogpost, we recommended Virtual School Community Summits to bring the community together. Whether the summit takes place in a virtual town hall format or whether it is organized in smaller "zoom room" discussion groups, the mix of parents, learners, and educators seems critical. Certainly thoughtful surveys that encourage specific and actionable suggestions can prove fruitful. An invitation to articulate essential high priority learning goals can be integrated into discussions and into survey forms. We also recommend following a project called #JustAskUs supported by the National Parents Union, Student Voice -Prichard Committee, High Tech High, AERO, Big Picture Learning that is developing tools and approaches to directly engage learners in contributing their voice and perspective in reimagining education now and into the post-pandemic period. The title is inspired by Heather Wolport-Gawron's book, Just Ask Us: Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement, published by Corwin. If you wish further information contact the project coordinator: Masa Uzicanin

Generate new Learning Goals. Based on our current experience in triage mode, the need for new or refreshed learning goals has gained clarity. While most schools value d the idea of growing self-direction in students with the move to full-time remote learning, the urgency of growing this capacity has become more paramount. We move d to name a specific element of self-direction, self-management as a way to move from the broader, generalized statement which, in turn, generated the following future forward learning goal.
Develop self-management skills by making choices for learning and monitoring thinking.

Take a bigger challenge and break it down into smaller, doable increments.

Set goals and monitor/revise them as needed to optimize clarity, viability, and motivation.

Experiment with time management structures to balance focus on task at hand with brain breaks, meeting deadlines, and staying motivated by my thinking.

Another example that is typically highlighted in many Graduate of a Profile statements is collaboration. To clarify this goal, we suggest bringing community voices to engage in conversation about when and under what conditions they feel they can connect and contribute most effectively.
Engage deliberately and cultivate relationships with all members of the school community to build on, better understand, and be influenced by one another's ideas and perspectives.
Collaboration is a dynamic between the way people interact and the work they need to accomplish. Many schools often focus on the management of a task to achieve a common objective rather than the relationships that invite social construction. We moved to draft a future forward learning goal that values both.

Adapt with increasing skill by communicating with others in a given network to develop more effective thinking by listening and questioning.

Recognize how positive relationships impact motivation, openness to new ideas, and connection to the work.

Adhere to norms and demonstrates respectful behaviors as one engages with others to help maintain a safe environment that invites all to participate.

STEP 2: DETERMINING WHAT TO CUT OUT, WHAT TO CUT BACK, WHAT TO CONSOLIDATE, AND WHAT TO CREATE

Armed with a thoughtful and powerful set of Future Forward Learning Goals, the following is a process for examining existing curriculum to determine what matters most for your learners. While this "weeding" may be painful for some, it is imperative that there is consensus so relieve pressure for coverage and provide more space to generate new ideas with students. We have provided the following graphic organizer to help clarify the process:

Future Forward Curriculum Planning Process

First, examine and clarify your current curriculum narrative.

1. Compile existing units of study from your curriculum. Ideally, this can be done in grade level bands (e.g., K-1, 6-8) to ensure the choices you want to make do not put undue pressure on other grade levels to capture essential content. Working in departments on the high school level is obviously important, but it is also equally important to review across a grade level to see what the challenges will be for learners attempting to juggle multiple demands.

2. Examine each one and tell a brief story (thumbnail synopsis) of that unit. Why does it exist? What is the essential learning students will be able to continue to develop and transfer when that unit is over? What are the most critical standards to be in the foreground?

3. Review the storyline through the scope of the year. Are there connections between the units? What does your curriculum value the most?

Could you cut out unit(s) of study to make room for deeper investigation and development of key concepts and skills?
Second, ask yourselves the following questions:

In any composition there is an editorial review where the question of "cutting" material is central to the whole. What matters most given the time that we have for our specific learners with our specific conditions, we must govern how we decide. The unique situation we are facing, will dictate significantly different learning conditions is a sensible element in our deliberations. (Shortened academic calendar, staggered classroom schedules, alternative attendance on-site if it occurs in your location, increased on-line learning demand).

To be clear, when cutting units it will be critical to examine standards that were emphasized in a unit. Given that standards are cultivated over time, it is likely that the faculty teams can readily identify the most critical standards that have been in the "foreground" in the design of learning experiences. It is always a concern to us when we see a unit of study with 30 standards listed (this is not an exaggeration) since these proficiencies take time to develop. Bundling standards that naturally cluster together in student learning is a natural way to align assessments. A faculty team can look at bundled and individual standards to sort out which are the most essential to their specific learners and those that are not.

Could you cut back each unit of study significantly? It is highly likely that educators have already made key decisions to cut back during this current curricular planning Triage phase of COVID19 as of this writing. Given the abruptness of moving to a total online environment over the past weeks, lesson planning may have been arbitrary and left to each teacher. Curricular decisions may have been orchestrated with others in a school, grade level team, department or the process could have reflected both approaches.

Moving forward we suggest your planning teams review the "thumbnail" story of the curriculum through the year to determine places where they may elect to cut back and distinguish the most essential from the less critical material in their units. The task is to distinguish the most essential elements in the curriculum and place them in the foreground.
Could you create a new unit or module to replace this altogether?

Skills: Given the importance of cognitive and technical skills in the long term growth of learners, teachers will want to elevate critical skills integral in supporting students within a given discipline as well as sub skills tied to Future Forward Learning Goals.

Content cuts: Materials, information, facts, subtopics that are non-essential should be cut given the larger aims and goals of the unit. The tendency to "cover" content needs to be confronted in order to move forward. Distinguishing content that directly supports and is central to the Future Forward Learning Goals and storyline might prove to be a great challenge but also a rewarding one. Of particular value will be to proactively have our learners show the connections between the key content and that storyline as the curriculum develops. In our previous we referenced The Big History Project , which takes a big picture view of key concepts through history where learners construct a narrative based on those key conceptual ideas rather than simply diving into minutiae. The approach exemplifies how your team might step back and layout the conceptual framework that is accessible to learners in any course or learning program. To be clear, the review of these cuts will be ongoing once the new school year commences whether on-site or on-line or both.

Assessment cuts: Evidence of learning is bedrock to the design of learning experiences. Coupled with meaningful feedback, our learners can progress in their development. Considerations and decisions about what formative and summative assessments will be the most revealing and helpful demonstrations of learning should be determined as a faculty both across grade levels and vertically. Certainly the impact of state or provincial requirements for public educators and education organization policies (i.e. College Board, IB) is a major factor in decision making. Bottom line, if there are cuts in the curriculum then there will be corresponding cuts in the assessments.

Could you consolidate based on units of study and personal learning progress during the remote learning time?
Have a curriculum that has been consistent for at least 2 years? You could start here.

Given the nature of your course or grade level subject area layout, if there are related and clear connections between units then combining them is possible. To consolidate means an existing unit as a teacher reviews and revises elements and activities based on past experience. Certainly to combine elements to make a more effective coherent whole. On a practical review of the scope and sequence of a year's units, we can step back and not only determine what we might cut and where we might cut back, but where we can merge units of study. Consolidation can certainly occur

It may be that a geology course in a high school begins with a look at the formation of the earth as a planet for the first unit and in the second examines oceans and the third unit looks at land. It seems that these three could be combined to shorten the time and be reframed to look at the early story of planet earth: beginnings and elements.

On the elementary level, a fourth grade ELA curriculum might have a sequence that moves from a unit on historical fiction focused on a chapter book perhaps Number the Stars by Lois Lowry , to a unit on persuasive writing on an issue. It seems plausible to combine those two and consider having students take a stand on a critical issue raised in Lowry's classic work.

interdisciplinary units of study can be a fruitful design consideration when consolidating.
Have a standards-based report card? You could start here.

Generating new curriculum units responsive to the learners and to the zeitgeist is an option that seems particularly relevant. Certainly new units could be interdisciplinary derived from a reconsideration of your existing layout for the school year. A deliberate lens from multiple subject areas on common topics, problems, issues, and themes could provide a fresh perspective for learners. We strongly recommend the development of phenomena-based learning supporting inquiry into emergent problems and issues in a students life. These might be framed on a personal, local, or global level but what is key is there is an immediacy to the situation. (NOTE: Interdisciplinary units emerge from the natural connections we see "between disciplines", that is between the subjects. Phenomona-based is not anchored in our traditional school day but transcends the notion. We are not suggesting one is "better than the other", rather we hope to provide a menu of options as units are generated) .
A key organizing focus could be phenomena-based given the emergent issues regarding the pandemic. Whether an individual unit or a series of units, learners could examine the impact personally, locally, or globally. Certainly developmental considerations need to be primary here. Here are some examples:

On all levels, learners can document and share their experience both from the onset of the restrictions and the closing of on-site school to the present in their transition to school (whatever form that might take). The unit could be COVID19: My Story, Your Story, Our Stories

Secondary students can dive into an examination of the pandemic and/or consider specific angles. For example, as contemporary historians they might develop an annotated timeline since the first reports in November 2019 from China to the present. As journalists they could "cover" certain angles on the pandemic in a series of articles: the point of view of essential workers, impact on a range of families in the community or, the challenge to local government and decision making. Clearly, an area of fascination for all of us is the scientific research and scramble to develop treatments and a vaccine and certainly for our learners that could be covered in an empirical style.

Elementary students might engage and develop service based learning projects to thank local health care and essential service providers. Whether in the form of written communication or in a short video message, gratitude is appreciated and it is important to display. What is more, it may be possible to actually provide concrete support to members of the local community as the adaptation and easing into functional society occurs.

Leading Future Forward Curriculum Analysis, Revision, and Reimagining

This process needs to be implemented with all deliberate speed to develop a solid draft that functions as a rudder to help steer turbulent waters of where, when, and how learning happens in 2020-21. In teaming configurations whether grade level, grade level clusters (i.e.-K-2, 3-5, 9-10), department, or interdisciplinary teams, teachers can meet to review their upcoming plans. Likely to be virtual in nature, these formal reviews will be focused on making collective proposals on what to cut out, cut back, consolidate, and create informed by the Future Learning Goals. Using a collaborative decision making model, leadership in a school or district can coordinate these efforts, document them and share them. Transparency is critical.

Here are two possible starting points to begin the review process:

If your school utilizes curriculum mapping on a software platform, your teams can make a deliberate and formal walkthrough of your units and scope and sequence to make determinations about what to cut out, cut back, consolidate, and create.

Examine curriculum vertically to identify primary areas of fluency that are vital when students engage in more ambiguous and complex problems. For example, in math: Performs multiplication with multi-digit whole numbers.

Teams may want to utilize standards to inform grade level decisions and coordinate vertical choices. What is in the foreground of our subjects given the need to prioritize without putting undue pressures on other grade levels.

Pay particular attention to growing skill development either within a subject or transdisciplinary. For example, here is a sample from a Grade 1 Writing Report Card. The same focus areas are repeated on the report card through Grade 6.

Writing is focused; purpose is clear.

Writing includes details and descriptive words.

Writing is organized.

Writing demonstrates basic sentence structure.

Writing uses grade-level conventions of standard English.

Consider how these focus areas support one to draft a Future Forward Learning Goal in formal communication. For example: Crafts a purposeful and polished text in a given genre for a target audience.

Then, grade level or vertical department teams can make informed choices as to what genres to pay attention to both timeless and familiar ones (e.g., poetry, fairy tales, informational statements) as well as contemporary ones (e.g., interviews, emails, virtual chats).
Part 2: Part 3 (COMING SOON): Assessment and the Return to School: Engaging Student Voice, Self-monitoring, Meaningful Demonstrations, and Feedback Part 4 (COMING SOON): Responsive Return Strategies: Crafting Fresh Approaches to Schedules, Grouping of students and teachers and Shaping both physical and virtual learning spaces Building the Future Now: Deciding What to Cut, What to Keep and What to Create
Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead

Decisions on curriculum matters have never been easy. Educators know that there are certain units of study and learning experiences that are particularly satisfying to teach and are hard to let go. There can be sharp differences of opinion on what matters most for learners between members of a grade level team or department. Conversely, there are great opportunities for collaboration and responsiveness to the needs, especially now, as we work through these decisions. Perhaps there is guidance in looking to the Latin root word for curriculum, which means a path to run in small steps. The familiarity with this path creates ruts that become deeper and make it more difficult to see with fresh eyes. As school faculties lay out a reimagined path in partnership with their learners and families, the opportunity it to leverage specific expertise in service to common and aspirational learning goals. Moving forward into the months ahead, future forward learning goals and a collaborative planning process will inform our choices on what to cut, what to keep, what to create in the curriculum.

In our next blogpost, Part 3 in our series*, we will consider the most meaningful demonstrations of learning to consider as students return to school in light of our future forward learning goals. How might we meet the challenge of determining their readiness to return both academically and emotionally? What types of feedback and grading makes sense as we review student formative and summative assessment? How will we develop self-navigating and self-monitoring skills that have already proven to be critical in remote learning?

*NOTE: We will explore the range of options and key considerations that school leaders, learners, and families might examine as they move forward in our four-part blog series on the Transition.

Part 1: How Will We Return to School? Curriculum Choices in the Face of COVID19.

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Building the Future Now: Deciding What to Cut, What to Keep and What to Create - Learning Personalized

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As the school year is winding to a close and everyone is desperate for a break, looking toward the opening of school next year is already causing unease. Throughout the world, educators face a critical challenge: how to design aspirational and future forward (post-pandemic) learning experiences rather than a temporary fix (triage).

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Less Is More: Trimming the Overstuffed Curriculum
Through a science curriculum "diet," districts discover that less topics could fatten students' understanding
By Lisa Fratt
The scenario in a typical district goes something like this: Dinosaurs, plants and other popular topics are taught year after year in the elementary science curriculum. Teachers who branch out to introduce other topics are usually responsible for gathering materials for experiments and demonstrations themselves. By fourth or fifth grade, science becomes an exercise in memorizing technical terms and getting through the textbook, which may cover dozens of topics. Heavy on vocabulary and light on actual science, this approach continues through high school.

Not surprisingly, these methods have failed to produce science literacy. The Nation's Report Card: Science 2000 shows that the average scores of fourth and eighth graders failed to improve between 1996 and 2000, and scores for 12th graders fell significantly. The report also reveals that male students outperform females and whites outperform blacks and Hispanics.

Overstuffed and undernourishing is the way many experts describe the science curriculum. The Third International Math and Science Study characterizes U.S. math and science curricula as "a mile wide and an inch deep." Instead of forcing students to digest more and more content and vocabulary as science continues to advance, experts recommend a science curriculum "diet" to help take a bite out of the nation's current science achievement woes.

Yes, that's right. Less is more. This unburdening of the science curriculum is already occurring as individual teachers eliminate topics in their overloaded textbooks. But there is a better, less haphazard, approach.

Although there's no simple formula for boosting scientific understanding and achievement, Designs for Science Literacy, a report from Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recommends that schools create more time for in-depth study. Reducing the number of major topics taught, pruning unnecessary details or subtopics, de-emphasizing technical vocabulary and eliminating repetition are the goals.

Science Diet Essentials
While implementing a "science diet" can seem daunting, a handful of districts and several states are meeting the challenge. The first step, says Arthur Camins, elementary math and science director for Hudson (Mass.) Public Schools, is to take a look at how students learn science. Recommended reading? The National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks for Science Literacy, published by AAAS, which contains statements of what all students should know and be able to do in science, mathematics and technology at the end of grades two, five, eight and 12.

When Hudson revamped its science curriculum, teachers and administrators reviewed the national and Massachusetts standards and compared them to what teachers actually taught in the classroom. "We found there was no consistency. Some topics were taught twice; others not at all," says Camins. Repeating topics without developing a broader understanding is a hallmark of the overstuffed curriculum. Instead, districts should aim to revisit and expand on topics introduced at earlier grade levels.

Christina Hilton, curriculum program coordinator for the Indiana Department of Education, suggests that districts "go through the state standards, find where they meet the standards, fill in the gaps and trim away the extras." This may mean losing favorite topics for some teachers.

Still, compromise is possible. One Indiana seventh grade teacher had developed a popular unit on forces and motions that included rockets and roller coasters. Unfortunately, it wasn't aligned with the state's new, lean K-8 standards, which could serve as a less-is-more model. Hilton recommended the teacher scale back to one activity rather than spend months on each topic. Of course, relying on state standards works best when the state has already adopted the less-is-more thinking.

Based on input from teacher-administrator teams in six districts, Benchmarks gives a true taste of what this means. If a topic was not deemed essential for science literacy or if its importance was out of proportion to the amount of time needed for students to understand the concept, it was eliminated.

The result? Dozens of traditional topics-including acids and bases, simple machines, stellar evolution and branches of biology-don't make the final list of must-do topics. Designs for Science Literacy includes a CD-ROM with a sample table of contents that lets administrators and teachers simulate the process of paring the curriculum.

When a district is ready to review the nuts-and-bolts of its curriculum, Designs outlines a process to trim topics, sub-topics and vocabulary. Because it's a gradual approach and teachers are involved in the decision-making, the change process is manageable. Here's a summary of the steps:

1. List topics in the current curriculum or textbook.

2. Compare the list with learning goals in Benchmarks.

3. Create a second list of possible topics for elimination-those that aren't linked to a specific learning goal.

4. Ask science teachers to drop one topic at a time and invest additional time in a core topic.

5. Evaluate the effects of the change.

Then repeat the five steps, involving more topics.

Using this process, the report concludes, might mean eliminating main topics, such as gas laws, simple machines and optics. For topics that districts decide to keep, Designs recommends that subtopics be considered, as well. For example, you might want to eliminate sea and land breezes or trade winds from a unit on climate.

Camins recommends that districts review National Science Foundation-supported programs based on the less-is-more philosophy. Kit-based programs include Science and Technology for Children, Full Option Science System and InSights. With the option system, for example, the fifth grade curriculum can be scaled back to four modules: food and nutrition, levers and pulleys, solar energy and models and designs.

Most state standards incorporate the national standards and Benchmarks, says George Nelson, director of science, math and technology education at Western Washington University and former Project 2061 director. States tend to fall short, however, in covering historical perspectives on science, common themes that pervade science, math and technology, and scientific habits of mind. While individual districts can still include these subjects, the need to add makes the need to cut ever more important.

A Balanced Diet for Reform
Organizing a K-12 educators' dialogue is often helpful in jumpstarting the curriculum trimming process and other science reform. When Ashland (Wis.) School District was aligning its K-12 science curriculum to state standards, science teachers from every grade level were brought together. Anni Schneider, physical science teacher at Ashland High School, says, "That's when we said, 'We can't all do dinosaurs.' "

Trimming the science curriculum and aligning it to national and state standards is part of the reform process. Another critical piece is selecting the right type of curricular materials. After all, it is possible to cut the science curriculum in half and be left with a poor program. Nelson says, "Science educators and cognitive scientists have found that telling kids lots of stuff doesn't result in a lot of learning."

A quality science curriculum pares down the content. But it also engages students in science and the real world and provides time for students to communicate their thoughts and understanding.

Here's an example of new vs. old ways of thinking about science: In a typical high school biology class, students might mistakenly believe plants get their food from the soil. The teacher assigns a paper chromatography experiment and has students memorize a definition for photosynthesis. A more effective method would be for students to discuss their understanding of photosynthesis, complete relevant lab investigations and compare their thoughts to what they learned in the lab. Students could then explain photosynthesis in their own words, demonstrating their understanding of the concept, not just the technical terminology.

The new process takes time, but it has a much better chance of resulting in mastery of the subject. Indeed, de-emphasizing technical vocabulary is key to a successful science diet.

Districts working on trimming the science curriculum should also determine the most appropriate grade level for topics. Elementary teachers can spend a fair amount of time teaching about the solar system, for example, but research shows that at this age level children can't easily comprehend the science of the solar system. So a science unit on the solar system is watered down to memorizing planet names. On the other hand, if the unit is introduced at the middle school level, students can begin to develop an understanding of how the solar system functions.

Hudson considered grade levels when overhauling its science curriculum. "If you take topics accessible to students' level of cognitive development, the curriculum becomes much more efficient," Camins says.

Nelson cautions that science reform can't be purchased as a particular curriculum. For example, teachers in Rockford (Ill.) Public Schools have a textbook for each course, but they are encouraged to use a variety of resources. The district provides teachers with binders filled with objectives, activities and assessments. The point is not to 'do' or 'cover' the entire textbook or binder, but to give teachers an array of tools to help students learn.

Even with the right curriculum and resource materials for teachers, some districts have difficulty completing the task of trimming the science curriculum. Meaningful and continued professional development for teachers that reinforces science concepts and the underlying pedagogy is critical.

Sticking to the Diet
It may take two or three years just to think through what to leave in the curriculum and what to throw out, Nelson says. "Any time you take anything out of the curriculum, you're opening yourself up to charges that you're dumbing things down," he says. The process should include a substantial professional development program, and it may also involve partnerships with outside organizations and a community education effort. Bringing the community along gives administrators and teachers the chance share research with them.

It's also important to remember that the national standards and Benchmarks are intended to describe the bare core of what students should know about science. Certainly some high school students are ready to digest more sophisticated science topics. Those topics, Nelson explains, can be addressed in advanced science courses.

Like any diet, trimming the curriculum can be painful. Nelson warns that teachers will have to leave out some of their favorite topics and activities as they cut the curriculum. But the results are well worth the effort. Since Hudson initiated its new science program, Camins has heard from almost every teacher how much kids are enjoying science. He says, "If you want to do anything meaningful and worthwhile, it takes time."

Lisa Fratt, lfratt@cheqnet.net, is a freelance writer based in Ashland, Wis.

Fratt, L. 2002. Less Is More: Trimming the Overstuffed Curriculum. District Administrator, 38 (3).

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Through a science curriculum "diet," districts discover that less topics could fatten students' understanding By Lisa Fratt The scenario in a typical district goes something like this: Dinosaurs, plants and other popular topics are taught year after year in the elementary science curriculum.

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Article - Ed Leadership:  Storyboarding Your Curriculum 

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Article - Ed Leadership:  Storyboarding Your Curriculum 

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When curriculum is laid out like a journey, students become curious and engaged.

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Article- Thinking Like an Editor About Curriculum Design (Edutopia) 

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Article- Thinking Like an Editor About Curriculum Design (Edutopia) 

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Effective curriculum design can follow a compelling narrative by streamlining content, resources, and standards.

Given that curriculum literally means "a path to run in small steps," it's important to engage learners in seeing the narrative arc in their learning experiences. For example, the "story" of math must address the following questions: How do all the concepts, standards, and proficiencies we are learning this year connect with one another? How do they connect to the math concepts, standards, and proficiencies we learned last year, learned in the years prior, and will learn through senior year? If these connections aren't clear to the teacher, then finding them will be even more daunting for learners. Algebra students should be able to tell the "story" of how to imagine, model, and represent problems in different but equivalent ways; those who cannot provide that narrative flow will likely be adrift when encountering geometry.

An Editor's Stance

As curriculum designers, teachers may play varied and interconnected roles-as researchers to explore and identify problems, challenges, and resources; as developers to identify or generate assignments; or as initial users to test out unit prototypes. But too often the role of editor is relegated to more trivial matters, such as making sure all the boxes are filled in correctly. According to one definition, "An editor's role is the art, technique, and practice of assembling individual moments into a coherent sequence." For example, "a film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively 're-imagine' and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole."

A fundamental part of the editor's role is using a wide-angle lens to look for a narrative arc that reveals a storyline. When we tell stories, we make sense of our lives to communicate what we experience, see, and learn. Here, we show how to make that curriculum narrative possible by streamlining content, resources, and standards.

How to Streamline

What to cut out. Teachers can make proactive and deliberate choices to remove whole topics, units, novels, or projects. Eliminate the unnecessary by considering what matters most for students when they encounter a curriculum. By reviewing the work at previous grade levels, teachers can better determine which material might be redundant.

What to cut back. Teachers can cut back on interesting but unnecessary tangents, topics that subsequent grade levels will more meaningfully address, and redundant resources and assignments.

What to consolidate. Teachers can identify connections among units and then combine those units. The point is integration. As teachers consider the layout of the academic year, they can look for intersections where concepts overlap. Interdisciplinary possibilities often emerge when consolidating.

What to create. Teachers can develop new topics to support the curriculum narrative. They can include diverse perspectives that honor the lived experiences of their communities. They can offer space for learners to more deeply investigate, create, and revise, as well as space for teachers to provide just-in-time teaching, regular feedback, and personalized tasks.

Making informed choices in this area requires an editorial eye both at the system and classroom levels.

Although most teachers would agree that their current curriculum is overrun with too many activities, resources, and topics, "what to cut back" may cause them some concern. Who gives them "permission" to cut out or cut back material? How might that affect their colleagues, whether in their grade level, course, or vertically, in making sure students are prepared for more challenging topics?

Snipping Away at the Standards

Cutting back or cutting out standards is an immediate concern, especially if you were to do it haphazardly or unintentionally. We suggest examining standards documents to identify core categories or bundles. When laying them out in what our colleague Marie Alcock calls a yearlong context, you can bundle the standards across the year as a narrative. They are the story of the year in standards that will naturally interface with the planned unit of study.

Here's an example. As a 3rd grade teacher lays out her units of study in language arts across the academic year, she might start with a four-week unit on What Makes a Good Story, bundling targeted Common Core standards from RL (reading literature), W (writing standards related to responding to stories), and SL (speaking and listening that focus on narrative). That unit would be followed by a five-week unit on Investigating Topics, in which the teacher bundles standards from RI (reading informational text), standards in writing (W) focused on gathering and analyzing information, and corresponding SL (speaking and listening) standards.

Working with bundled standards saves teachers hours of planning and crosschecking long lists of categories. But what's even more powerful is translating these bundles into student-facing learning targets-that is, into "I can" statements. Take a look at how the 3rd grade teacher might translate one of her reading standards into two accessible parts, both of which could be the basis for lessons and engagement assessments.

RL.3.3: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

Learning Targets: "I can describe the traits of the characters" and "I can explain how the character affected what happened in the story."

If teachers received easy-to-use bundled standards that were converted into learning targets, they could get straight to the work of planning rather than spending hours translating the work into practice.

Unearthing possible storylines will clarify what is still vital in the curriculum and what is no longer necessary. But take note: cutting back or cutting out may also threaten learning designs that teachers have perfected over the years. This gut-wrenching weeding of what is familiar, what a teacher may take tremendous pride in even though it may no longer have value, may generate resentment or grief.

As we begin to take an editorial stance, it's helpful to illustrate how other schools have done it.

Editing the Curriculum: A Discipline-Based Example

Is the concept directly aligned to priority standards?

Does it offer students authentic opportunities to do or experience something?

Does it reveal the power of this discipline-for example, math (or poetry or music) as a powerful and elegant language to describe the world?

Does it connect to the broader aspirations we have for our students?

Will the concept energize our students to immerse themselves more deeply in the course content?

Cutting out, cutting back, and consolidating may feel impossible to do-especially if you start with the first unit in a course at the beginning of the year and attempt to make modest modifications throughout. The trick is to examine the standards to unearth concepts that are worthy of being the basis for a curriculum narrative. And it helps to be clear about what worthy means. You want to be able to answer "yes" to the following questions:

As an example, 9th grade social studies teachers could step back and identify key learner roles they want to develop: modern-day historians, investigative researchers, and media makers. They could then identify a narrative approach that is a connective thread as they explore the world rather than an eclectic and disconnected journey.

Editing the Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary Example

Our second example comes from Connecticut's New Haven Public School Magnet Division, where Heidi has had the opportunity to work for more than five years. Under the auspices of a federal grant, identified schools each take on a theme to use as a "North Star." The theme chosen was "Community Connectors: East Rock, New Haven, and the World." Each grade-level team from kindergarten through 8th grade developed three rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum experiences around three topics, issues, or problems that link back to the theme; in the units that resulted, students developed projects, connected directly with the community, and used their creativity.

From Streamlining the Curriculum: Using the Storyboard Approach to Frame Compelling Learning Journeys (pp. 38-42) by H. H. Jacobs and A. Zmuda, 2023, ASCD. Copyright 2023 by ASCD. Reprinted with permission.

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Thinking Like an Editor About Curriculum Design

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Teachers can use curriculum storyboarding to create a compelling narrative by streamlining content, resources, and standards.

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Video:  Does your curriculum tell a story? 

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School Leaders Project | Moving from Curriculum Maps to Curriculum Storyboards

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 Curriculum Storyboard Workbook - H.H. Jacobs and A.G. Zmuda

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Podcast: Streamlining and Storyboarding the Curriculum

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Podcast: Streamlining and Storyboarding the Curriculum

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S3E17: Streamlining Curriculum w/ the Storyboard Approach w/ Allison Zmuda & Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs

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A Giant List of Really Good Essential Questions

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A Giant List of Really Good Essential Questions

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A Giant List Of Really Good Essential Questions

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Essential questions are ‘essential’ in the sense of signaling genuine, important and necessarily-ongoing inquiries.

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Designing Authentic Assessments: U. of Chicago

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Designing Authentic Assessments: U. of Chicago

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Authentic assessments involve the application of knowledge and skills in real-world situations, scenarios, or problems. Authentic assessments create a student-centered learning experience by providing students opportunities to problem-solve, inquire, and create new knowledge and meaning.

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Elements of Authentic Assessments

There are several elements to consider that make an assessment more "authentic" (Ashford-Rowe, 2014; Grant, 2021; Wilson-Mah, 2019;), including:

Accuracy and validity - The accuracy of the assessment refers to how closely it resembles a real-world situation, problem, disciplinary norm, or field of study. The assessment validity refers to the alignment of grading criteria to the learning objectives, transferable skills (e.g., communication, critical thinking, etc.), workforce readiness skills, and disciplinary norms and practices.

Demonstration of learning - The outcomes of an assessment should allow students to demonstrate learning in ways that reflect their field of study, for example, a performance or a product that is authentic to their future career. Or the assessment should allow for student choice based on interests and skills; for example, one group of students decides to create a podcast to demonstrate their learning in general education coursework.

Transfer of knowledge - The assessment should provide the transfer of knowledge from theory to practice and from one task or experience to another. For example, students writing a blog post about a scientific principle that was demonstrated in current events replacing a traditional essay or paper on the scientific principle.

Metacognition - The process of reflecting on learning should be purposefully planned for students to make connections to prior knowledge, experiences, and different subject areas. For example, metacognition can be encouraged in authentic assessments by asking students to evaluate their progress, self-assess their product or performance, and reflect on their thought processes and learning experiences during the authentic assessment.

Collaboration - The assessments should provide opportunities for interaction that are aligned to the real-world situation. For example, if the task is typically completed by a team in the field, then the assessment should be completed collaboratively by a group.

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Flexibility - The assessment should provide flexibility in the timeline and due dates for meeting project benchmarks and deliverables to align with real-world tasks. For example, if the task would take a few weeks to complete while working full time then the timeline in the course should reflect this timing to ensure authenticity and manageability.

Environment and tools - The environment and tools used to provide the assessment should be like the environments and tools in the students' field of study or aligned with a real-world situation. For example, students taking a graphic design course utilizing software that is used in their field to create typography, logos, etc., or medical students practicing authentic tasks in a simulation room to mirror a hospital room.

Authentic assessments can also be referred to as alternative assessments or performance-based assessments. All of these assessments are considered "alternatives" to traditional high-stakes tests or research papers, and are based on the constructivist theory where students actively construct new meaning and knowledge.

Also, it is important to understand that authentic assessments can be used to assess students both formatively (during instruction) and summatively (when the instruction is over). Want to learn more about formative assessments or summative assessments? Please visit the Assessment & Grading Practices teaching guides in the Resources section of the CATE website.

Authentic assessments can be designed using different teaching methods like inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, problem-based learning, scenario-based learning, or design-based learning. Select each of the headings below to learn about how these teaching methods can support your design of authentic assessments.

Inquiry-based Learning

Problem-based Learning

Scenario-based Learning

Project-based Learning

Design-based Learning

Impact of Authentic Assessments
Authentic assessments have the potential to improve student self-efficacy (belief in own capacity), performance, and learning.

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Self-efficacy and confidence - in a review of research completed on fifteen studies of project-based learning, 90% of the students reported improved confidence and were optimistic that they could implement project-based learning in future careers (Indrawn, 2019).

Higher grades - In a general education writing course, students who participated in scenario-based learning showed consistently higher averages (one to two letter grades higher) than students who did not receive scenario-based learning (Golden, 2018).

Engagement and retention - authentic assessments have shown improved student engagement and learner retention through participation in authentic assessments.

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Direct evidence - authentic assessments provide direct evidence of students' learning and skills for instructors and students to better understand the learning taking place and plan the next steps for instruction and learning.

Student diversity - authentic assessments allow students to demonstrate their unique abilities, lived experiences, interests, and social identities.

Real-world artifacts - authentic assessments provide students with authentic tasks that can be utilized in professional portfolios, resumes, or interviews.

Workforce Readiness and Graduate Attributes

Authentic assessments' impact has also been viewed through the lens of workforce readiness and graduate attributes. For example, in a project-based learning experience, 78% of students reported that the experience prepared them to be workforce ready because of the real-world practice they received through the authentic assessment (Indrawn, 2019).

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Several graduate attributes have been identified as outcomes of authentic assessment participation (Foss, 2021; Indrawn, 2019; Karunanayaka, 2021; Elliott-Kingston, 2018; Murphy, 2017; Rowan, 2012), including:

Open-mindedness - students who participate in authentic assessments learn to be receptive to the diversity of ideas and multiple perspectives.

Comfort with ambiguity - students who participate in authentic assessments learn to live with uncomfortableness as they construct new knowledge and meaning.

Ability to engage in an iterative process - authentic assessments provide students with opportunities to ideate, evaluate, and reflect on ideas and learning. Students develop effective problem-solving skills through this iterative process that includes idea incubation.

Creativity - authentic assessments positively reinforce students' creativity through the inquiry process.

Learn to fail - authentic assessments provide formative feedback to help students build resiliency and strengthen their self-efficacy even when faced with failure.

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Take risks - authentic assessments encourage student risk-taking, and the instructor provides a safe and supportive learning environment for taking risks.

Search for multiple answers - students learn how to brainstorm ideas and develop numerous solutions to address problems.

Internally motivated - authentic assessments support students' internal motivation by providing opportunities for student choice based on their interests and future careers. Students develop metacognition and self-regulation skills as they reflect on their motivations, interests, and learning.

Take ownership of their learning - authentic assessments foster student ownership and autonomy. Students develop scholarship and a commitment to life-long learning through participation in authentic assessments.

Leadership - authentic assessments foster leadership, professionalism, and decision-making skills as students self-direct their learning and performance.

Citizenship and empathy - in many cases, authentic assessments ask students to reflect on an audience, end-user, or global community when solving a problem or designing a product. These experiences help to foster citizenship and empathy.

Considerations for Authentic Assessments
There are several variables that you should consider as you begin to design an authentic assessment:

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The education and experience level of students - consider how you will support students who may not have the professional skills yet to complete the authentic tasks (see the Student Success during Authentic Assessments in the HOW section of this guide).

The subjectivity of authenticity - consider how you will ensure that the designed assessment is authentic to the students. Please note that authenticity is subjective in nature; this means that what one person views as authentic might not be regarded the same by another (see the Elements of Authentic Assessments in the WHAT section of this guide for ways to make your assessment more authentic). Will you provide students with an opportunity to give you feedback to improve authenticity? Will you engage with practitioners in the field to ensure the authenticity of scenarios, problems, or prompts?

Complexity - consider how you will ensure that the assessment's level of complexity is aligned to the learning objectives, course outcomes, and real-world situation, problem, or field of study.

Instructor's role - consider how you will interact with students during the authentic assessment (see the Student Success during Authentic Assessments in the HOW section of this guide). How will you ensure that your role supports the education and experience level of your students? Will you provide guidance, facilitation, or direct instruction during the authentic assessment?

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Student ownership and choice - consider what level of student responsibility and choice that will be present in the authentic assessment. Will students have minimal responsibility if you are using direct instruction, or will the students have higher levels of responsibility if you are guiding student-directed inquiry? Will students have the opportunity to choose how they will demonstrate their learning with a final product or performance?

Formative feedback - consider how students will receive formative feedback during the authentic assessment. Who will provide the formative feedback (instructor, TA, peers, or self)?

Manageability - consider the manageability of the authentic assessment regarding class size and course modality.

In large class sizes consider incorporating authentic assessments through partner or group work to reduce grading and feedback time as well as encourage communication and collaboration skills of students.

In online courses consider incorporating asynchronous peer review to provide opportunities for student interaction and feedback.

Alignment of assessments and instruction - consider how you will utilize authentic learning instruction to support student achievement in authentic assessments. For example, if using design-based learning during a group assignment then consider utilizing design thinking during your lectures and activities.

There are numerous types of products and performances to choose from when designing an authentic assessment. This is not an all-encompassing list of authentic products or performances, but more of a starting point for ideas. Instructors should also consider allowing students or groups to brainstorm ideas for products or performances and self-select a format.

Writing for an Actual Audience

Performances

Design of Products

Creation of Products

Other Types

A well-planned and communicated authentic assessment will help improve student performance and student satisfaction during the authentic assessment.

Communication of Authentic Assessments

Expectations and Grading for Authentic Assessments

Facilitation and Guidance during Authentic Assessments

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Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence

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Authentic assessments involve the application of knowledge and skills in real-world situations, scenarios, or problems. Authentic assessments create a student-centered learning experience by providing students opportunities to problem-solve, inquire, and create new knowledge and meaning.

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This post is authored by Allison Zmuda, Marie Alcock and Michael Fisher and was first published on the Solution Tree Blog.

Based on The Quest For Learning: How To Maximize Student Engagement

In many classrooms, assessment is still an event. It might be an end-of-unit event, a benchmark event, or a “because it’s Friday” event. Whatever the assessment reason, inviting a more formative approach gives opportunities for frequent feedback in a couple of different ways.

1. It shows the learner how well they are progressing toward a particular target, skill, or standard.

2. It shows the learner which strategies work best for the learner to reach their targets.

In The Quest For Learning: How To Maximize Student Engagement (2017), we propose a simplified descriptive rubric to help teachers manage formative feedback, both at the beginning of a learning scenario and throughout it.

At Target | Approaching Target | Notes
| |
| |

Formative Assessment Rubric from The Quest For Learning: How To Maximize Student Engagement. Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this rubric. (2017)

This version of rubric-making cuts out all of the levels and the potential subjectivity that goes with leveling out a rubric. This way, it’s just the target and whether or not a student has met it. The descriptive feedback is then personalized for each student depending on how they are progressing and the strategies they are using.

Formative feedback is one of the easiest ways to get personal with student learning, and students learn more when the relationship is tended to as much as the grade.

As an example, we recently worked with Kindergarten teachers in Gasport, NY as they sought to upgrade their checkpoint assessments. We specifically honed in on writing and had conversations about what the standard was asking of students. In this case, the standard for narrative writing, which is the first one they assess, states: “Use a combination of writing, drawing, dictating, and/or oral expression to narrate an event or events in a sequence.” (New York State Education Department, n.d.)

Below is a version of their task, with an amended version of the rubric specific to their purposes.

Narrative Performance Task*:

Choose a short-story picture book related to the season or thematic topic.

Ask the class to reenact / retell the story (with discussion of vocab, main idea, and details).

Share the prompt: What happens next in this story? Perhaps have a group discussion about what could happen next. Brainstorm ideas…

Ask students to draw a picture that illustrates what happens next in this story.

Allow students to share their drawings with each other and discuss what they drew and what they think happens next.

Allow a few minutes for discussion with a partner. Give outlined or unlined paper. Then use your typical classroom writing process to support students in completing the writing prompt.

The complete response should include a picture and whatever sentences, words, or letters the student can add. An adult may assist with sounding out or spelling words and/or transcribe the child’s words if desired. Dictation is permitted.

Please distinguish the child’s independent production from words or letters produced with adult help by underlining any part of the writing done with teacher support (and recorded in the rubric). The writing sample will be most useful to other teachers if it is easy to tell where help was given.

Note that at this first checkpoint, kindergarteners have limited writing experience.

*Adapted from the Narrative Writing: On Demand Prompt for Kindergartenfrom Student Achievement Partners. (2013)

Approaching | Proficient | Surpassing
| Narrate an event or events in a sequence using a combination of drawing, dictating, oral expression, and/or writing. |

Each of the areas of the rubric are meant for feedback and anecdotal documentation. Also note that students have until the end of 1st grade to attain the writing as an individual skill. Up until the end of 1st Grade, students can continue to use a combination of drawing, dictating, oral expression, and/or writing. The “and/or” here is very important, particularly the “or.” It was crucial that these teachers came to a consensus understanding of this particular standard’s intention as they created this common assessment.

A second example comes from an AP U.S. History teacher Laura Stott in Madison, CT who clarified proficient or “meets expectations” for the students in connection to an oral history project. What is noteworthy here is that these descriptors can be used with minimal modification for other assignments. In this way, students pay attention to growing key skills over time (over the scope of an assignment and across multiple assignments) rather than orienting themselves to a new set of descriptors.

Requirement | Needs Improvement | Meets Expectations | Above and Beyond
Criteria #1: Developing a Thesis Statement through Synthesis | | You have combined multiple ideas and pieces of evidence from your interview and a variety of research sources to develop a thesis statement that demonstrates thoughtful insight on your topic’s historical significance. Your central thesis causes the reader to think, “I’ve never thought of that before” and to want to explore your ideas further. |
Criteria #2: Historical Context | | You provide an accurate, thorough and relevant historical context for your interview, gathering information from a variety of research sources, including at least one primary source. You include specific examples and evidence to illustrate your points. You clearly address why the historical trends discussed are relevant to your interview. |

Using a simplified descriptive rubric helps both teachers and students see the progression toward their goals. This type of formative assessment and feedback offers something that a summative assessment cannot: the capture of conversational and anecdotal thinking and learning as it’s happening. We see this as much more valuable information than regurgitative end-of-learning assessments.

Also of note here is the different ways in which teachers were able to adapt and then apply the simplified descriptive rubric. That is the ultimate Quest mindset: use the tools the way you need to in order to have maximum impact.

To learn more about how formative assessment plays a key role in Quest-based learning, check out our new book The Quest for Learning: How to Maximize Student Engagement, coming from Solution Tree this fall.

References:

Alcock, M., Fisher, M., & Zmuda, A. (2017) The Quest for Learning: How to Maximize Student Engagement. Solution Tree.

New York State Education Department. (n.d.). New York State Revised English Language Arts Learning Standards. Retrieved September 04, 2017, from http://www.nysed.gov/teachers/new-york-state-revised-english-language-arts-learning-standards

Student Achievement Partners. (2013, August 06). Narrative Writing: On-Demand. Retrieved August 28, 2017, from https://achievethecore.org/page/1287/narrative-writing-on-demand

Related posts:

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Marie Hubley Alcock, Ph.D is a futurist educator and thought leader. She has authored and co-authored a number of books in the field of education on topics such as; contemporary curriculum design, meaningful assessment practices, questing and engaging instructional practices, the future of education systems and policy, game design in the classroom, virtual interdependent thinking in humans, standards based practices, and education technology in classrooms.

Dr. Alcock has also participated in the foundation of and running of several educational companies and non-profit organizations including Learning Systems Associates which is a national and international consulting firm and Tomorrow's Education Network which is a non profit dedicated to promoting classical and contemporary literacy development for students. This project led to the foundation of a professional development library for educators with over 1000+ resources available at minimal or no cost. She us currently on the board of 21st Century Learning International and LINKS a comprehensive education system (CES) company

Marie has been a teacher and administrator in private and public schools for over 25 years. She has been a professor at Walden University. She is an active advocate for learners of all ages and has said the "science of teaching is an invitational art". She is known for describing a quality curriculum as "one with balance between guaranteed non-negotiables and personalized, joyful, career inspiring experiences that can make the world a better place".

A selection of publications and media: co-author with Dr. Cathy Olliver-Owens et al. of the book, School Solutions from Educators Who Know What to Do, published October 2021.

co‐author, with Allison Zmuda and Michael Fisher, of the book, The Quest for Learning: How to maximize student engagement, published by Solution Tree in Oct. 2017.

co-author, with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, of: Bold Moves for Schools, How we create remarkable learning environments, published by ASCD in Feb. 2017.

co-author with Dr. Bena Kallick, A Virtual Continuum for Thinking Interdependently chapter in Costa, A and O'Leary, P (Eds.) The Power of the Social Brain:Teaching, learning and using interdependent thinking, published by Teachers College Press in 2013.

co-author with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Dr. Debbie Sullivan, and Dr. Ann Johnson, of the Live Planner Book, Mapping to the CORE:Integrating the Common Core Standards with your local school curriculum, published by School Improvement Network in 2012.

Author Gaming in the Classroom in Jacobs, H (Eds.) Mastering Digital Literacy, published by Solution Tree in October of 2013. co‐author with Bill Sheskey for Classroom Websites in Jacobs, H (Eds.) Mastering Digital Literacy, published by Solution Tree in October of 2013.

Research experience includes: governance, stakeholder, finance, and performance reports and self-study observations for accreditations. Participation in university and doctoral research projects on literacy development in the brain, professional development practices, and memory retention among other topics.

Marie has written a number of papers and articles about student mobility, innovative models of education, standards based grading and reporting practices, curriculum mapping, gaming in education, educational leadership, and organizational change. She has been featured in 100+ videos including Brainwaves Video Anthology Series and 20+ courses available online or through specific universities or professional organizations.

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The Quest for Learning: How to Maximize Student Engagement (Strategies to Engage Students in the Classroom Using Guided Inquiry)

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The Quest for Learning: How to Maximize Student Engagement (Strategies to Engage Students in the Classroom Using Guided Inquiry) [Marie Alcock, Michael L. Fisher, Allison Zmuda, Heidi Hayes Jacobs] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

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