Curriculum Analysis and Review Process
Mid-Year Progress Report (within division; across divisions)
Department: Social Studies/History – Lower School Date: February 3, 2011
Department Head(s): Cheryl A. Bair
Restate topic: 1.) We will focus on the current grade 1-4 Social Studies curriculum and compare it to the new 2010 National Standards. We would like to investigate the spiraling of the current grade 1-4 curriculums. 2.) We would like to document our current curriculum and resources so that they are usable by current and new teachers.
List steps you have taken thus far: At the beginning of each meeting we ask Katie, the second grade social studies representative to share social studies curriculum information from the second grade team. At our first meeting, we learned that she had received very little information regarding the social studies curriculum in 2nd grade. The committee, having background knowledge about the 2nd grade curriculum, brainstormed questions that she could ask her grade level. Katie asked her team members these questions and began to put the curriculum into place. We learned that the curriculum was not well-documented which led to much confusion for the new members of the second grade team. We also learned that Patti and Cheryl both felt the documentation of their previous social studies curriculums (4th grade and 1st grade) was weak. As a result, we are working towards improving the documentation of these grade levels. Currently, first grade has joined the social studies wiki and is actively updating their social studies units. This is the first step to creating a more consistently taught curriculum. Cheryl started the social studies wiki which has evolved into an amazing resource. Gina and Cheryl use it daily. We hope that second grade will begin to use it next year. We haven’t looked at the third grade curriculum from this perspective yet. Sarah feels that her curriculum is well documented and that the material is taught in a consistent manner.
What still needs to be done?
1.) Cheryl will make copies of the new National Standards and Sarah will make copies of the Wisconsin State Standards. At our next meeting we will each take some time to review our own grade level curriculum and make some notes as to how it measures up against the State and National standards. As we begin to discuss our notes as a team, we hope to start evaluating the spiraling process. We think our current CARP topic will need to carry over into next year. This is a big topic and to do it right, we will need more time. Most likely this topic will come up as we enter into the Super Review.
2.) Further discussion about using a Wiki as a means to document curriculum will need to occur. It works for fourth grade, but it may not work for everyone. We need to decide “how” each grade level curriculum will be documented and then continue with the documentation process. None of us feel that the curriculum maps work well for teaching or documenting social studies in our grade levels.
Electronic Copy to J. Bloch 2/4/10 Use separate sheet for each topic of investigation.