PLAN INITIATIVES

Curriculum Database

Curriculum mapping is an essential element of any curriculum system. A solid curriculum map outlines the scope and sequence of a course, and provides guidelines around assessment and resources. At North Marion School District our Curriculum Mapping Initiative involves creating a common template for the maps, collecting complete maps for each course taught within our district, and building a district wide database to house those documents. Our curriculum documents are based on the research of both Grant Wiggins and his UbD model, as well as John Hatti'e research on visible learning.

Backwards Planning

North Marion School District is committed to providing students with a guaranteed and viable curriculum that is well aligned with state standards and school identified learning targets. To provide this for students, teachers will be taught to use a backwards-planning model when designing their curriculum. Backwards-planning models are designed to first look at then essential learnings required for a course or unit, design assessments that accurately measure a students ability to demonstrate the knowledge and skills identified in the targets, and lastly determine which teaching strategies could be used to support students as they work to reach the learning target?