Curriculum Calibration Process

1) Select an assignment you give to students.

2) Determine what students are being asked to do
or demonstrate that they know.
3) Identify skills and topics in the assignment as well
as the learning objectives.
4) Using the standards (or a searchable database),
locate the actual grade level and standards
addressed in the assignment.
5) The standards being taught should be at grade level
and explicit or the assignment will need revision!

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 Grade
K

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 2nd Grade

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 DataWorks’ Findings
The Instructional Gap
Grade 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th

Assignments 0.9 1.8 2.7 3.3 3.9 4.6 5.2 5.8 6.6 7.0 7.8 7.8

By 5th grade, students are By 7th grade, students are

working on assignments in “intensive intervention”
one grade level below. at 2 grade levels below.

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Closing “The Achievement Gap”

 Actually, it’s an Instructional Gap…

 To raise student achievement, you must
ensure that the curriculum taught and
the assignments given are aligned to
grade-level standards.

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 Research also shows…
Talent Maintenance
 20% of students will do well
regardless of instruction.
Talent Development
 80% - 100% of students will do
well because of the instruction.
DataWorks Educational Research

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Moving to a Standards-based Practice

 In order to use Curriculum Calibration

effectively, however, it’s important to start with:
1) Using Backwards Planning,
2) “Deconstructing” the standards, and
3) Determining which standards are most
important for students to master.

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 1) Backwards Planning
Traditional Practice Standards-based Practice
1. Select a topic. 1. Select standards.
2. Design instructional 2. Locate/design a calibrated
activities. assessment aligned to these
3. Design and give an standards.
assessment. 3. Plan instructional activities to
4. Give a grade or feedback. assure that each student can
achieve these standards.
5. Move on to a new topic.
4. Use data from assessment to
give feedback, re-teach, or
move to next level.

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 Standards have two parts:
Critical thinking level at which
SKILL students must perform to be
proficient

TOPIC Content of the lesson

A topic often recurs at many grade levels,

but the skill required becomes increasingly
more rigorous.
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 Practice: Skill and Topic
Mathematics (2nd Grade)
Measurement and Data
2.MD 8 Solve word problems involving dollar bills,
quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢
symbols appropriately. Example: If you have 2 dimes and
3 pennies, how many cents do you have?

SKILL TOPIC
Solve …word problems involving dollar bills,
quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies…
Use app.
symbols
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 Practice: Skill and Topic
English/Language Arts (Grade 2)
Speaking and Listening
SL 2.5 Create audio recordings of stories or poems;
add drawings or other visual displays to stories
or recounts of experiences when appropriate to
clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

SKILL TOPIC

Create audio recording … of stories or poems;

Add drawings or other …to stories …of experiences

visual displays when appropriate to clarify ideas,
recounts thoughts, and feelings.
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 Resources pp. 4-7

Bloom’s Taxonomy
 CA content standards were developed
with Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind.
 Six levels of thinking, with each level
organized by complexity and challenge.
 Good tool to determine the skill levels of
standards in order to develop lessons
and assignments that address the depth
and rigor of grade-level standards.

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 Bloom’s Taxonomy
= critique,
Critical compare,
Evaluation support
thinking level
organized by = compose,
Synthesis hypothesize
complexity.
Analysis = compare, develop

Application = organize, use, solve

Comprehension = restate, explain, rewrite

Knowledge = name, define, identify, list

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Developing Authentic Questions
Checking for Understanding
How do you ensure Bloom’s taxonomy can
that questions help students ask and
engage students in answer their own
deeper critical questions.
thinking and not Goal is for questions to
merely prompt provide students with
them to recall an opportunity to think
information that and the teacher with an
they’ve read or opportunity to check for
been told? understanding.

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 Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to
Develop Questions
Example: 6th grade class
The teacher uses Bloom’s taxonomy with her students to
ask and answer their own questions in a daily Jeopardy-
type game.
1) Introduce students to a Bloom’s prompt to guide the creation of
questions. (See Resource, pp. 4-7)
2) Have groups of students create questions based on the
information they are studying that day. The number of points is
determined by the level of the question on Bloom’s taxonomy.
This process allows the teacher to check for
understanding twice – when students create the
questions and when they play the game.

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Student-Created Questions Using
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Example: 6th grade student-created questions during a unit of study
about Egypt:

Knowledge Who was Ra?

Comprehension Why do some gods and goddesses have animal

heads?
Analysis Compare and contrast Isis, Ptah, and Horus in
terms of their importance to the Egyptian people.
Evaluation How do you feel about mummification?

Evaluation What role should gods play in setting rules for

people?
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 Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to
Organize Questions
Example: 2nd grade teacher-prepared questions to be used during her
interactive read-aloud of “Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs”:
Knowledge What were the names Tommy used for his grandmother and
great-grandmother?
Comprehension How did Tommy feel when he went to visit them each
Sunday?
Application What would you have said to Tommy’s older brother when he
called Nana Upstairs “a witch”?
Analysis How were Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs alike and
different?
Synthesis Add a new last page to the book. What might the two
grandmothers say to the adult Tommy when he looks at the
stars to remember them?
Evaluation Did you like this story? Why or why not?

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Deconstructing the Standards

 A single content standard may contain

multiple skills and topics.
 This means that a single standard may
have multiple learning objectives.
 So teaching for student mastery of the
standards becomes more complex.

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 Deconstructing the Standards
 In order to ensure that instruction is on
grade-level and achieves the breadth
and rigor of the standards, teachers
must address both:
 Skill and topic and
 Multiple learning objectives.

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 Activity:
Multiple Learning Objectives
With a partner or your school team:
 Deconstruct a standard on your table by
breaking them down into the multiple
learning objectives.
 How many skills and topics will need to
be taught for each standard?

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