This document summarizes a session on developing coherent and rigorous instructional programs. It discusses the importance of aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessment. School leaders attended and performed a scan of their school's instructional program, identifying areas of strength and concern. Topics discussed included developing essential standards, integrating curriculum, using high-impact instructional strategies, incorporating technology, and balancing standardized tests with broader skills. The goal was for school leaders to develop priorities for continuous school renewal focused on student-centered, 21st century learning.

1. Coherent and Rigorous Instructional
Programs
Achievement-Centered Leadership Development Program for Practicing and
Aspiring Principals
Western Michigan University
A Project funded by the United States Department of Education (USDOE), Washington, DC
Session Designers:
Dr. Patricia (Pat) Reeves
Dr. Robert (Bob) Leneway

2. 2
Agenda
Manage safe and
orderly school
Redesign the
organization
Real-time and
Embedded
Instructional
Assessment
Achievement
Coherent Curricular
Programs
Centered
Leadership
operations
Engage in data-informed
decision-making
Develop teacher
leaders
Establish a
coherent and
rigorous
instructional
program
Lead the
continuous
school renewal
The ACL
Leadership
Model
Where do
you spend
the largest
portion of
your time –
why?

3. Session Goals
• Explore the importance of insuring that our schools offer
Coherent and Rigorous Instructional Programs
• Explore the characteristics of Coherent and Rigorous
Instruction Programs
• Examine the status of our own schools Instructional
Programs
• Explore possible ways to increase learning opportunity and
learning results for our students by strengthening
Instructional Programs
3

4. Coherent Curriculum
Programs
4
Why? What?
How?
What’s
Next?

5. Why and how much should we care?
• Per McREL research (Marzano, et al),
Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
shows one of the highest correlations to
improving student achievement
• Effect sizes for evidence based
instructional strategies drop
precipitously when not coupled with a
guaranteed and viable curriculum
Talk with your
table partners
about how you
have encountered
this in your school.
5

6. How do we know where we are?
Let’s look at one strategy
for understanding where
we stand in our schools
when it comes to
providing Coherent and
Rigorous Instructional
Programs (CRIP)
for all students
6

7. Doing a Scan
1. Using the “Doing a Scan” handout, use your
time here to quickly assess where your
school may be falling short on delivering a
Coherent and Rigorous Instructional Program
(CRIP)
2. As we discuss each element of CRIP, think
about how the markers of each element
apply to your school. Be ready to record.

8. What are the Markers of CRIP?
Part 1 - The Written Curriculum: What we teach
1. Core curriculum standards aligned to state and/or
national standards
2. Local District or school level standards
3. Essential or “power standards” aligned to both the
core and local curricula
4. Horizontal and vertical alignment and articulation
Discuss your school’s status;
Circle areas of concern and make a few notes
8

9. What are the Markers of CRIP?
Part 2 - The Interpreted Curriculum: What we have
students do
1. Demonstration of essential understandings
2. Applied skills
3. Applied concepts
4. Performances – how we ask students to apply what
they know
5. Integration – how we weave curricular elements
together
Discuss your school’s status;
Circle areas of concern and make a few notes 9

10. What are the Markers of CRIP?
Part 3 – The Taught Curriculum: How we support
student learning
1. Aligned and appropriate learning resources (hard and
electronic)
2. Aligned and effective classroom instruction
3. Engaging and meaningful learning experiences
4. High expectations and supportive encouragement
5. Sufficient learning time
Discuss your school’s status;
Circle areas of concern and make a few notes
10

11. What are the Markers of CRIP?
Part 4 – The Communicated Curriculum: How we engage
staff, students, parents and others
1. Learning focused leadership
2. Clear and consistent communication about learning
expectations and learning progress
3. Affirmation and celebration of success
4. Student parent, and stakeholder feedback
Discuss your school’s status;
Circle areas of concern and make a few notes
11

12. What are the Markers of CRIP?
Part 5 –The Assessed Curriculum: How we monitor
student learning
1. Aligned and authentic curriculum based assessments
– both formative and summative
2. Immediate and targeted feedback
3. Continuous progress monitoring
4. Student developed personal learning goals
5. Student managed personal learning plans
Discuss your school’s status;
Circle areas of concern and make a few notes
12

13. What are the Markers of CRIP?
Part 6 – The Adapted Curriculum: What we do when
students struggle or accelerate?
1. Differentiated instructional strategies
2. Tiered interventions that start in the classroom
3. Adjusted learning plans
Discuss your school’s status;
Circle areas of concern and make a few notes
13

14. A Recap of 6 Elements of CRIP
We just looked at your school’s status on five
elements of CRIP:
• The written curriculum
• The interpreted curriculum
• The taught curriculum
• The communicated curriculum
• The assessed curriculum
• The adapted curriculum
Count all the circled
items for your school
under each of the six
elements. Put that
number of dots on the
chart at the front of
the room under each
of six elements
Where do you see the
most common areas
of concern? Why do
you think that is?

15. A Sad State of Affairs
• “Curricular chaos” — not coherence — still
prevails in most schools, a result of our no-oversight,
high autonomy culture
(Schmoker and Marzano 1999).
• Fortunately, many successful schools have
seen achievement levels soar after
developing coherent, high-quality curricula
— but only when they instituted
monitoring mechanisms for ensuring that it
is taught.
15

16. Wayne-Westland Process and
Progress Monitoring Examples:
Collaboration using “Data Walls”

17. Wayne-Westland Process and Progress
Monitoring Examples
Collaboration using “Data Walls”

18. ACL’s Renewal Focus
• 6 Research Grounded School Leadership
Dimensions
• Renewal Planning Matrix
• School Teams
• Assessment of renewal needs
• Building on previous renewal
(improvement work)
• Future Oriented

19. How do you want to move forward?
Student
Centered
Mandated
Standards
19
If your answer is both…

20. Strike a balance between State Curriculum
and Identified Student Needs
20

21. Align with State Assessments,
but don’t stop there!
21

22. Align also, with life and
learning competencies
22

23. They are Not mutually exclusive
Our Students Can and Must Have the Best of Both
23
To Compete in an emerging and shifting global context

24. Decisions to Avoid
24
Over focus on a few Tests;
giving short shrift to the rest

25. Decisions to Avoid
Allowing learning to
remain predominantly
teacher centered,
teacher controlled, and
teacher driven
25

26. Decisions to Avoid
Limiting learning to
traditional time slots,
traditional learning
tools, and traditional
learning activities;
in fact,
limiting learning
at all!
26

27. Decisions to Consider
Make the Curriculum an
Open Door to the World
27

28. What is a Classroom?
Is it This?

29. Is it Any of These?

30. Ask any Student …

31. What Would They Tell Us?
Don’t prepare us for your world,
prepare us for ours!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoSJ3_dZcm8

32. Decisions to Consider
Balance the Core Curriculum with:
• Learning to learn standards
• Life skill standards
• Learning through technology standards
• Higher order thinking and reasoning standards
• Post-secondary learning and career preparation standards
• Problem solving and productivity standards
• Social development (personal/interpersonal) standards
• Arts and humanities standards
32

33. Better yet, integrate
Core Curriculum
Area
Learning and
Thinking
Creativity,
Arts, and
Humanities
Life and Career Research and
Technology
Eng Lang Arts
Math
Science
Social Studies
Career and
Technical
Visual and
Performing Arts
Life Skills, P.E.,
and Health

34. The Power of Curriculum Integration
Start with these research findings:
Students in any type of interdisciplinary or integrative
curriculum do as well as, and often better than, students in a
conventional departmentalized program. (National
Association for Core Curriculum, 2000; Vars, 1996, 1997;
Arhar, 1997)
How might curriculum integration coupled with technology
integration better serve students in your schools?
34

35. The Power of High Impact Instruction
How might these 9 high impact instructional
strategies (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollack, 2001)
improve student learning in your school?
1. Identifying similarities and differences
2. Summarizing and note taking
3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
4. Homework and practice
5. Nonlinguistic representations
6. Cooperative learning
7. Setting objectives and providing feedback
8. Generating and testing hypotheses
9. Cues, questions, and advance organizers
35

36. The Power of Technology

37. When we connect students with the
power of Technology…

38. Engage Them or Lose Them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZokqjjIy77Y

39. We make learning fit today’s learners by…
• Making learning multi-dimensional
• Making the world their classroom
• Integrating curriculum
• Personalizing learning
• Differentiating instruction
• Providing learning on-demand
• Empowering learners to set goals and benchmark
their progress

40. Circling Back
• Look at all the areas you circled
• Look at your notes
• Together, identify 3-5 top priorities
• Be ready to share your priorities and why
• How will these ideas inform your renewal work?
– 21 Century Learning
– High Impact Instructional Strategies
– Curriculum Integration
– Going beyond the Core

41. The Role of Assessments

42. Some Types of Assessments
• Authentic
• Portfolios
• Observations
• Formative
• Summative
• Norm Referenced
• Criterion Reverenced
• Pre-Interim-Post
• Adaptive
• Diagnostic
42

43. Real Time Embedded Assessments
Kellough (1999) lists the purposes of assessments
• To assist student learning
• To identify students’ strengths and weaknesses
• To assess the effectiveness of a particular instructional
strategy
• To assess and improve the effectiveness of curriculum
programs
• To assess and improve teaching effectiveness
• To provide data that assist in decision making
• To communicate with and involve parents
43

44. Real Time Embedded Assessments
Kellough also suggests that students need the answers to
the following questions:
• Where am I going?
• Where am I now?
• How do I get where I am going?
• How will I know when I get there?
• Am I on the right track for getting there?
44

45. Formative Assessments - definitions
Bell and Cowie (2001) “the process used by teachers and students to
recognize and respond to learning in order to enhance that learning,
during the learning.”
Popham (2008) as a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of
students’ status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional
procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics.
Garrison and Ehringhaus (2011) view
formative assessments as providing
the information necessary to adjust
teaching and learning while they
are happening.
45

46. The Value of Formative Assessments
Research has shown the formative assessments implemented
properly provide dramatic gains in learning.
The work of Black and William (1998) found that the gains in
learning by using formative assessments were “amongst the
largest ever reported for educational interventions.”
Formative assessment works and there is no particular formula
to follow and it appears to work very well for slow learners
(Popham, 2008)
46

47. Formative Assessment
Marzano (2010) explains the elements of formative assessment
• Formative assessment is a process, not any particular test
• It is used not just by teachers, but by both teachers and students
• Formative assessment takes place during instruction
• It provides assessment-based feedback to teachers and students
• The function of this feedback is to help teachers and students make
adjustments that will improve students’ achievement of intended
curricular aims
47

48. Feedback
Effective feedback is critical in the formative assessment process.
Students need to know what skills and knowledge they are to
gain, how close are they to achieving those skills, and what
do they need to do next in order to be a successful learner.
Provides motivation for students.
48

49. Feedback
Hattie and Timperley (2007) model for feedback
• Feedback about the task – whether answers are right or
wrong or directions to get more information.
• Feedback about the processing of the task – strategies used
or strategies that could be used.
• Feedback about self-regulation – feedback about student self
evaluation or self confidence.
• Feedback about the student as a person.
49

50. Feedback
Marzano’s (2003) best ways to use feedback:
• Feedback should be “corrective” in nature – provide students
with an explanation of what they did right and wrong.
• Feedback should be timely – immediately following an
assessment
• Feedback should be specific to a criterion – it should reference a
specific level or skill or knowledge.
• Students can effectively provide some of their own feedback –
students keeping track of their performance as learning occurs.
50

51. Feedback Based on Goals
Marzano indicates that feedback must be based on criterion or
goals.
• Instructional goals narrow what students focus on.
• Instructional goals should not be too specific.
• Students should be encouraged to
personalize the teacher’s goals.
51

52. Meaningful Goals
Brookhart (2008) states that teachers must be sure to do the
following with each assignment:
• Require student work to demonstrate the content knowledge or
skills specified in the learning target.
• Require students to demonstrate the cognitive process specified
in the learning target.
• Provide students with complete and clear directions.
• Specify the criteria for good work
52

53. Feedback Strategies
Timing
• Provide immediate feedback for knowledge of facts
• Delay feedback slightly for more comprehensive reviews of
student thinking and processing
• Never delay feedback beyond when it would make a
difference to students
• Provide feedback as often as is practical, for all major
assignments
53

54. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Amount
• Prioritize – pick the most important points
• Choose points that relate to major learning goals
• Consider the student’s developmental level
54

55. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Mode
• Select the best mode for the message. Would a comment in
passing the student’s desk suffice? Is a conference needed?
• Interactive feedback is best
• Give written feedback on written work
• Use demonstration if how to do something is an issue
55

56. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Audience
• Individual feedback makes the student feel the teacher values
their learning
• Group/class feedback works if most of the class missed the
concept – re-teaching opportunity
56

57. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Focus
• When possible, describe both the work and the process
• Comment on the student’s self-regulation if the comment will
foster self-efficacy
• Avoid personal comments
57

58. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Function
• Describe – don’t judge
Balance
• Use positive comments that describe what was done well
• Accompany negative descriptions of the work with positive
suggestions for improvement
58

59. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Clarity
• Use vocabulary and concepts the student will understand
• Tailor the amount and content of feedback to the student’s
developmental level
59

60. Feedback Strategies (cont.)
Specificity
• Match the degree of specificity to the
student and the task
• Make feedback specific enough that they know what to do,
but not so specific that it is done for them
• Identify errors or types of errors, but do not correct everyone
– leave some for the student to correct
60

61. Status of Formative Assessments
• How effectively are teachers using formative
assessments in your school?
• How might improving or expanding the use of
formative assessments fit into your school
renewal work?
• Take another look at the element of the
Assessed Curriculum and talk about where
you are and where you need to go.

62. Assessments in a Growth Model
• Growth Models are used to determine school,
teacher and other influences on student
outcomes
• Michigan now requires that districts develop
and use a growth model to estimate teacher
and administrator influence on student
achievement

63. Three Elements of a Growth Model
Estimate of
Educator/School
Influence
Student Success
And Quality
Indicators
Measures or
Assessments of
Indicators
Data Analysis
63 ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14

64. Developing a Local Growth Model
Indicators
(Targets)
Measures Analysis
1. What indicators and measures have you been using to
evaluate teachers’ and administrators’ performance?
2. How well aligned are those indicators with your school
improvement plan and the district improvement plan?
3. How well aligned are they with your definition of
student success?
64 ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14

65. News from the State on Assessments
• Current plan for Summative Assessments
• Plan for additional assessment tools
– Interim Assessments
– Assessment blueprints for non-core areas
• Adaptive assessments (computer)
– Assesses each student at their instructional level
– Provides more information on student needs
– More efficient, secure, and timely
– Better data for growth ratings
65

66. Influences on Student Learning
Student Background and
Community Factors
Curriculum, Assessment,
and Program Factors
School and Leadership
Teacher and Classroom
Factors
Factors
66 ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14

67. Elements of a Sound Growth Model
Multiple Indicators and Measures
Patterns Over Time
Actual Growth vs. Projected Growth
Correlations to Practice Indicators
67 ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14

68. Regardless of students’ entering
achievement levels, growth is:
KEEPING THEM MOVING UP AND EXPANDING:
Goal is to either maintain or accelerate growth
rates if at, or above, target achievement levels to
stay ahead of a success track (e.g. hitting 3rd,
7th/8th, and 11th Grade targets) and to branch out.
MAKING SURE THEY KEEP UP: Goal is to maintain
or accelerate the growth rates if at, or above,
target achievement levels to stay on a success track
(e.g. hitting 3rd, 7th/8th, and 11th Grade targets).
MOVING THEM UP: Goal is to accelerate growth rates
until these students are also on target to reach
achievement targets by certain grades in order to get on
a success track (e.g. hitting 3rd, 7th/8th, and 11th Grade
targets).
Higher
Middle
Lower
68 ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14

69. The Logic of a
Local Growth Model
Actual
Achievement
Projected
Achievement
Value-added
Growth
Instruction
Individual Student Past Performance
ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14 69

70. Value-Added Models:
How they work
Pre-Test
YEAR 1
Post-
Test
YEAR 2
Actual student
scale score
VALUE ADDED
Predicted student
scale score
Student scale
score
Based on
observationally
similar students
70
ACL:Session1:DDIM.Reeves2.27.14

71. Growth Model for Your School
• Districts will be developing growth
models per State requirements
• Local districts will need to define
success indicators and measures
• How will your school influence and
contribute to that work?

72. So, where is your school?
72
As you examine
your school and set
goals for your
renewal projects,
take stock,
and set targets,
that will move
your school
toward a coherent
And rigorous
21st Century
instructional program

73. Circling Back 1 More Time
• How will these ideas inform your renewal work?
– Real Time Embedded Assessments
– Contributions to your District Growth Model

74. A Systems Approach to Renewal
• Curriculum, Instruction,
and Assessment Mapping
• Process monitoring
• Progress monitoring with benchmarks
74

75. A Systems Approach
75
Changing how you work together to
renew your school for 21st Century Learners through the:
Written,
Interpreted,
Taught,
Communicated,
Assessed,
Adapted,
And, ultimately, the Learned Curriculum

76. Where do you need to go and how
will you get there?
76

77. School Renewal Decisions
• How will you harness the
power of coherent and
rigorous instructional
programs (CRIP)in your
school renewal work?
• How will you use the six ACL
dimensions in a systems
approach to school renewal?
77

78. 78
On behalf of Michigan’s most
Precious resource…
Thank you for being learning
Leaders