As a teacher, I have been a part of a project that involved
scope creep. Since many states are
adapting their curriculum to the Common Core Standards, the district I have
been teaching in for six years decided to implement these standards early to
see if there were any glitches. They
asked k-2 grade teachers to begin implementing these first and then add 3-8th
this school year. The curriculum
committee put together materials and a scope and sequence for primary teachers
and we received these new adoptions the week before the school year
started. I was overwhelmed at first because
I had to develop lessons that aligned with these new standards. They broke the standards down into quarters
and asked us to implement them right away.
There wasn't much professional development training, so a team of
teachers got together and dissected the new scope and sequence and devised a
long term plan for the year. There were
some hurdles to overcome and adjustments that needed to be made. A part of the plan was for administration to
observe teachers using these standards within their lesson plans. I actually came across an issue when I was
teaching math. Apparently I taught a
lesson on place value using standards from the second quarter, which we were
still in the first quarter of the school year.
Administration quickly brought up the issue and I corrected it
immediately and we moved on. By the end
of last school year, K-2 successfully implemented the common core standards and
student test scores increased by at least 10%.
Looking back, if I were an administrator I would have created more
resources that aligned with the Common Core Standards. One issue that many teachers faced was the
lack of resources to use when teaching to these new standards. Many of us had to create our own resources
that took a lot of time and effort to make our lessons successful. This year they invested in a new curriculum
for math that aligns exactly with the new standards and is functional and easy
for students to understand.
Math teachers at my school are having a major issue with the common core. They are having to teach both the state standards and the new common core at the same time. State testing this spring will use the state standards, while students are expected to know common core. The scope has expanded greatly for both the teachers and the students.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you handled it well despite the challenges. The project was unrealistic to begin with by giving teachers such short notice. Then, on top of it, having so few resources to make the instruction effective had to be frustrating!
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