Goal Based Design & Curriculum Development

    When it comes to a goal based design, Teachers usually set academic pathways with a goal in mind. "These are the standards for this year, standards being our goals, and this is how we will get there" is how a lot of the teachers at my school district see the Oklahoma Academic Standards. The philosophy of  design-down, deliver-up is very applicable to our curriculum alignment. We design to the students academic level and then strengthen those skills to deliver them up to our goals. 

 Assessments should be used to determine how we have reached a academic goal, and which standards still need to be kept as a goal. Assessments should test the learning objectives and those objectives alone. I usually benchmark assess my students a few weeks into school, then again before Christmas break, and lastly in February. I use these to track students academic growth. 

    Our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade team all collects this data and passes along this information to the next grade level. This allows the next teacher to focus on where each student was and progress them forward. 

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