The document discusses establishing a guaranteed and viable curriculum through teacher collaboration. It emphasizes that the fundamental purpose of schools should be student learning. Key steps include: 1. Teachers work in teams to identify essential learnings and "power standards" from state standards. 2. Teams ensure every student learns these standards through developing common formative assessments and ensuring consistent curriculum pacing. 3. Data from common assessments is used to inform instruction and provide timely support for students who are not learning or have already mastered the material. The overall goal is establishing curriculum, instruction, and assessments aligned to prioritize what is most essential for students to learn.

2.  We accept learning as the fundamental purpose of
our school and are willing to examine all practices
in light of their impact on learning.
 We are committed to working together to fulfill
our fundamental purpose. We cultivate a
collaborative culture through development of
high-performing teams
 We assess our effectiveness based on results rather
than intentions

3.  What is it we expect students to learn?
 How will we know when they learn?
 How will we respond when they don’t learn?
 How will we respond when they already know
it?

4.  Educators work collaboratively and take collective
responsibility for student learning.
 Teams implement a guaranteed and viable
curriculum, unit by unit
 Teams monitor student learning through ongoing
common formative assessments.
 Educators use the results of common assessments

5.  One of the most significant factors that impacts
student achievement is that teachers commit to
implementing a guaranteed and viable
curriculum to ensure that no matter who
teaches a given class, the curriculum will
address certain essential content
(Marzano,2003) **

6.  Taking the seductive shortcut
and merely handing out
documents to individual
teachers, pretending that
documents create a guarantee
and viable curriculum.

7.  1. gives students access to the same essential
learnings regardless of who is teaching the
class and
 2. can be taught in the time allotted…

8.  Teachers have to teach from the same page on
the same day
 Teachers need to use the same instructional
strategies or same materials.

9.  During a unit presented within a specific
window of time established by the team
( for example, three weeks)
Each member of the team will work to ensure
every student acquires the knowledge and
skills the team has agreed are the most
essential

10.  The question is not “How can I cover all the
material in this textbook?”
 The question becomes, “ What materials should
I use and instructional opportunities must I
provide to make sure that ALL students reach
the benchmarks set for this course…..

11.  Identifying essential learnings- “the critical
skills, knowledge, and dispositions each
student must acquire as a result of each course,
grade level, and unit of instruction(
Dufour,2010)
 Reeves calls these Power Standards—
identify these from current state standards or
common core **
Interesting fact------

12. Endurance
standard that students will need to
know for a longer period of time.

13. Leverage
Standard is taught and used in
more than one subject

14. Readiness
For the next level of learning

15.  If a standard has one or more of these
characteristics it is considered a power
standard
 Research suggests that teams look for about
1/3 of their standards to fit one or more of
these criteria

16.  Teachers individually review the list of
standards for a subject area.
 Meet together, but work independently
 Shouldn’t take to long
 Gut reaction
 Check the standards you believe to be
power standards based on the criteria

17.  Teacher teams need to come to agreement and
build a consensus about which standards are
power standards,
 Compare common checks
 Come to agreement vs just voting
This step might take some time
Note: Important that everyone has a voice

18. Alignment-
 Check with other teams- grade level or cross-
curricular
 With what will likely be on state tests- look
over released items or test blueprint
 Common Core-**Read Dufour response

19.  Teams can obtain a collective focus on what
students must learn and then what learning
will be monitored with common formative
assessments
 Next large group session in two weeks will
center around
 Interpretation and intent of standards
(unwrapping and assessments.)
Common Formative Assessment

20.  OPI website:
 Home page
 Tab across top Curriculum & Assessment
Drop down menu Content Standards Click
Find Content Standards on left hand side- Click
Will show list of all subjects-

21.  Montana Analysis and Reporting System
Can find:
 CRT release items
 Item Analysis
 Montana Common core field test items
grade 10-11-12
 I will email the link with the user name &
password for this site: