Residents kept asking Jennifer the same question at the door: what is your take on curriculum? She spent her career as a principal and district administrator going through textbook adoptions. These are the three things she looks for.
What Jennifer looks for in a textbook
- It aligns with the California Common Core State Standards. The state sets the standards; the district chooses the materials that teach them. That alignment is the first priority.
- It supports differentiation. The textbook has to come with resources for the students who are still below grade level and for the students who are already ahead, so a teacher can do something specific for both.
- It has progress monitoring built in. A quick check at the end of a lesson, sometimes a single question, so a teacher knows who actually got it before moving on.
- Who decides: a collaborative process. The district team, principals, teachers and parents all have a voice, and the central question stays the same — is this adoption going to meet the needs of our students?
Transcript
Quite a few residents asked me, what is your take on curriculum? So my stand is whatever curriculum that we choose, or textbook that we choose, it must align with the California Common Core State Standards. That is the number one priority.
And number two priority is that I should be able to find resources of that particular textbook to offer teachers. So these are the students who are still not there yet, they are below grade level. These are some of the things that you can do, lessons and resources. As well as, these are the students who are already there, they are above grade level, so these are the resources that you can use to help them excel. So the differentiation piece is critically important to me.
The third component that I’m looking for is if the textbook offers some quick assessment at the end of a lesson, maybe one question, to see if students have learned whatever the teacher set out to teach. Because a lot of times you hear us say, oh, we taught this lesson. But a more important question is, do you know if the students got it?
So that quick one question, progress monitoring, will let the teachers know. Oh, wow, 80% of the students got it. Great. So those 20%, maybe just three or four students, the next day I need to bring those kids together, do a quick mini lesson in small group. Oh, only 50% of the students got it. Tomorrow I need to reteach this lesson. But what is another way of teaching the same concept, or another way to teach into the same standard?
So those are the three elements that I will look for, for any curriculum, for any textbook adoption.
What do you think a parent should do if they don’t think the curriculum is working for their kid?
Well, this is a collaborative process. So the district team, principals, teachers, parents have a voice. So I think in the end, we listen to all those voices. And going back to the central question: is this textbook adoption going to meet the needs of our students?
That’s the question that we always need to ask. Does it teach to the Common Core State Standards? Does it meet the needs of different learners and students at different performance level? Does it progress monitor students’ learning and mastery? I think those are three very objective, key questions that we need to consider when it comes to the final decision.
