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Before changes can be successfully implemented, the need for change must become evident. The belief that current practices are good enough is often an impediment to change. The following questions may be used to hold this belief up to scrutiny, and to get an accurate read on the quality of current instructional practices. To answer these questions is to iinvite content area staff to take a step back and reflect upon the big picture. A formal interview process may be created to involve key content area instructional leaders in this analysis, and their honest responses may be shared out to all staff as part of a larger conversation that will help create the capacity for change. 1) Curriculum Alignment: ●What formal departmental process has ensured course alignment with EALRs and GLE's? When was this last accomplished? ●What in-house measures exist to assess, ensure and perpetuate this alignment? ●To what extent do your departmental colleagues consciously and deliberately select activities, skill targets and assessments that align with the EALRs, GLE's and WASL as they design their lessons? ●How is this selection process discussed, monitored or verified within your department? ●How are students prepared for the WASL test in your content area? Is there a departmental level written plan or requirement in place that requires WASL preparation in key classes? If so, how is this plan monitored or verified? 2) Articulated Curriculum & Essential Questions ●To what extent is there formal agreement within the department on skill sets and understandings that should be arranged in a sequence leading toward mastery? ●To what extent are the courses in the content area seen as a sequence, with the first course targeting skills and essential understandings that will be carried forward to the second course, and then carried forward to the third in the sequence and so on? Is this formally written down and published? ●Has this sequence of skills and understandings been agreed upon and officially assented to (and published) by the department? ●To what extent are Jr/Sr High programs aligned and sequenced in your content area? ●Regarding individual courses, is there departmental agreement as to what key themes or essential questions will underlie and connect learning experiences, despite the diversity of units or lessons, and despite which staff member is teaching the course? ●Has the department fashioned an ideal student profile that describes the proficiencies that a student should possess after having completed the journey through your curriculum? ●If so, is this profile used as a guide to establishing course sequence and learning activities both within and between courses? ●As you review your course descriptions: do these descriptions reflect and describe a curriculum or instructional sequence of activities and understandings that is articulated? If so, in what ways; if not, what needs to be added? 3) Consistent Expectations: ●Is there departmental agreement on, and consistent implementation of, standards for student participation and performance in your content area? 4) Assessments: ●Does your department have agreement on the kinds of assessments that appropriate to measure skill development? ●Does your department have agreement on what assessments should predominate at early and advanced levels in order to monitor student progress? ●In general, does your department employ a variety of short assessments with quick feedback as a means of leading to larger, unit ending assessments? 5) Competency Based Assessment/Promotion & Data Based Adjustment: ●Are underperforming students formally identified early on as part of a departmental process? ●If so, what specific strategies has the department adopted to intervene, support, contact the home and provide remediation in such cases? ●In situations where the student is not truly able to perform, what alternative strategies exist? ●In general, are students who fail to achieve competency in a course promoted to the next level? ●Do effective remediation or retention options exist in order to ensure that students develop the skills and attitudes that are required for success as they move forward? 6) Professional Culture: ●How often does your department meet, and what percentage of time is devoted to discussing core values and instructional activities in the content area? ●Is there agreement among your department members about what is essential and what is important to mastering competencies in the content area? 7) Teacher mentoring: ●Does a teacher or peer mentoring system exist to provide support for teachers in your content area? ●In general, is the culture of your department such that colleagues drop in on each other and observe each other's instruction? ●What suggestions do you have in this area? 8) Staff Development: ●In general, have you found staff development experiences to be useful? ●What suggestions would you make in regard to staff development in the future? 9) Evaluation: ●In general, do administrators provide evidence of instructional and curriculum expertise as they discuss evaluation? ●What alternatives to the present evaluation process would better support teachers and better strengthen your curricular program and instructional delivery? ●Does your administrator actively participate in department level discussion of your curriculum? 10) Guidance: ●Are students familiar with the classes and credits they need in order to fulfill their goals? ●Are students systematically placed in the classes they need in order to graduate? ●Are students appropriately placed in classes according to their ability level? ●Are students adequately informed of the options that are open or closed to them as they participate and make choices during their learning experience? 11) Daily schedule: ●Does the current schedule permit students to enroll in courses that they need in order to reach WASL benchmarks? ●Are courses in your curricular area available (without significant gaps) in a timely manner so as to maximize academic success? ●If the schedule needs to be altered to accomplish this, what would that alteration be? 12) Materials and adoptions: ●Are the materials you have the materials that you need? ●When were they last adopted? ●Does your department have enough materials so that teachers can offer the instructional sequence that they prefer? ●What suggestions do you have in this area?
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