Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a curriculum coordinator?
- What impact does a curriculum coordinator have on children?
- What is a benchmark assessment?
- Why is a benchmark assessment a valuable use of time for our students?
What is a curriculum coordinator?
With the ever changing focus on higher achievements in schools
today, many districts are hiring curriculum coordinators,
instructional specialists and coaches to provide embedded
professional development learning opportunities for their
teachers. Coaching holds great promise as a tool to increase
teachers' content knowledge. It is an essentail ingredient in
educators' efforts to increase student achievement, and it has
the potential to nurture a culture of academic focus by valuing
current professional knowledge and extending and enhancing
effective pedagogical practice.
In a nut shell: a curriculum coordinator or instructional
specialist focuses on providing professional development for
teachers by providing them with the additional support needed to
implement various instructional programs and practices. We
provide essential leadership for the schools' entire
literacy/ss/math/science programs by helping create and
supervise a long-term staff development process that supports
both the development and implementation of curriculum over months
and years. We have experiences that enable us to provide
effective professional development for the teachers in our
schools.
What impact does a curriculum coordinator have on children?
The impact on students is dynamic! My instruction with teachers
has a great trickle down effect to students. My interaction with
one teacher influences the instruction and learning of 25
students as does my intereaction with three teachers effects the
instruction of 75 students. The more teachers I work with the
more effective the instruction is district wide! It is very
satifying to see students implementing a new strategy that a
teacher and I collaborated together. There is this unique
scaffolding that occurs for both students and teachers leading to
further success. In teaching "two heads are better than one".
Teachers and educators around the country are beginning to see
that the goal of improving teaching is improving students'
opportunities to learn and can only be reached by a path that the
United States has never taken before. This new path moves
educators away from a view of teaching as a solitary activity,
owned personally by each teacher. It moves them towards a view of
teaching as a professional activity open to collective
observations, study and improvement. It invites ordinary
teachers to recognize and accept the responsibility for improving
not only their own practice, but the shared practice of the
profession. For this new path to be traveled, however, teachers
will need to open their classroom doors and rather than
evaluating each other, begin to study their practices as a
professional responsibility common to all. (Feagin, Orum, &
Sjober, 1991; Hammerness, Shulman & Darling-Hammond, 2000,
Shulman, 1991)
What is a benchmark assessment?
A benchmark assessement system is a series of texts that can be
used to identify a student's current reading level and progress
along a gradient of text levels over time. The word "benchmark"
means a standard against which to measure something.
Why is a benchmark assessment a valuable use of time for our students?
Benchmark assessments are a very valuable use of time for our
students. They are a tool to helping educators meet the needs of
all our students.
They...
*Determine our students' independent and instructional reading
levels.
*Determine independent reading placement levels and flexibly
group students for reading instruction
*support teachers in selecting texts that will be productive for
student's instruction.
* Assess the outcomes of teaching.
* Assess a new student's reading level for independent reading
and instruction.
*Identify students who need intervention.
* Document student progress across a school year and across grade
levels.
*Inform all educational stakeholders (student, parent, teachers,
administrators)
Benchmark assessments are a wonderful way for a teacher to get to
know each and every one of their students as a reader. These
reading assessments allow us to differentiate our instruction to
meet the needs of ALL our students.