Eduplanet21: Blog

The Power of Two: Combining Mastery Data and Curriculum Alignment Data to Drive Student Achievement

Written by Dr. Becky Brown and Clare Coupe Scott | Sep 27, 2022 4:15:00 AM

As a building administrator or school leader, a significant aspect of your job is looking at data. State testing results, standardized testing data, and benchmarking results all provide a way to investigate how your school or district is performing. As you comb through the reports looking for trends in student performance, you may end up having as many questions as you do answers. 

 

Questions you may have include:

  • Why do students who appear to be strong, based on teachers’ comments and progress reports perform poorly on standardized measures?
  • Why do certain cohorts of students appear to be weak some years and stronger in others?
  • Why are our scores lower in specific content topics or standards?

To truly answer questions like these you need a holistic way to look at both classroom performance and your curriculum. More specifically, you need to be able to look at information that is more than just the year-end, aggregate course grades. 

Game-Changing Approach to Capturing Student Progress and Learning

Schools that transition to a standards-based system for capturing evidence of, and communicating about, student learning find it to be a real game changer. Having a way to look at performance that is reported by student learning on specific targets aligned to standards, not just quarterly or yearly aggregate scores, provides a whole different level of insight.  

 

When you are equipped with a more complete picture of student performance you can monitor the implementation and effectiveness of your curriculum. Schools can compare the student learning on targets assessed to what their curriculum maps say should be assessed. 

 

This comparison allows schools to make sure that what they planned to be teaching and assessing is being assessed. Furthermore, if the comparison shows students aren’t making progress on those targets, the school can then consider revising curricular maps and units to add additional instructional opportunities.

 

Similarly, if cohorts of students had an inconsistent performance from year to year on standardized measures, information on mastery exhibited by classroom assessments can be reviewed to consider the placement of standards and learning targets. 

 

For example, if a school notices that year after year their fourth graders do not perform well on geometry standards in state testing, they can review student progress on the geometry targets assessed. It could be that additional, introductory targets need to be added at an earlier grade level. Or, it could be that the targets being assessed in fourth grade are not rigorous enough and need to be rewritten.

Curriculum Analytics

Many schools and districts consider housing their curriculum in a traditional student LMS or Google Docs as good use of technology. And while these may be a good start, a true curriculum management platform allows for a much more consistent and collaborative approach to designing an effective curriculum.  

 

With technology that is focused on curriculum - schools have the opportunity to “dig deep” into analytics. Being able to set priorities for standard and goal coverage, view alignment of goals, assessments, and learning activities is another game changer. Imagine seeing “live” where your gaps and redundancies are - and being able to make real-time decisions and updates to your curriculum.

The Power of Two

Now, imagine that you utilize a technology platform to design and manage your curriculum, and standards-based grading and reporting system. How powerful would that be? And the good news is, even if you have started with one, it’s never too late to add the other to enhance your practices.

With JumpRope’s Standards-based Gradebook teachers can:

  • Assess mastery of the standards;
  • Give specific, descriptive feedback to students;
  • Share progress with students and families;
  • Customize the grade book with their own standards, scoring scales, calculations, and more;
  • Reflect on performance across classrooms and evaluate how well expectations are aligned; and
  • Import data from Google Classroom and 20+ SIS ― including PowerSchool and Infinite Campus.

If you would like to see JumpRope’s standards-based Gradebook, click here to schedule a demo.

With Eduplanet21’s Curriculum Planner, schools and districts can:

  • Visualize their K12 curriculum and share it with their key stakeholders;
  • Develop courses, units, and lessons utilizing a guided approach;
  • Use built-in standards and goals - or add your own - and access these from a drop-down menu;
  • Facilitate peer and leader curriculum review cycles; and
  • Search, filter, and analyze your curriculum.

Teachers and leaders can work collaboratively to develop high-quality units of learning, ultimately impacting student achievement. To learn more about Eduplanet21’s Curriculum Planner, click the button below.

Authors:

Becky Brown, EdD is a Senior Researcher/Standards-based Practices Specialist at JumpRope. Clare Coupe Scott, MEd. is the Manager of Marketing and Professional Learning at Eduplanet21.