‘Understanding by design’

By Abby Wolf
WARWICK — As it moves toward reaching the goal of educating its students to meet the needs of the 21st Century – initially as learners, and, eventually, as workers and citizens – the Warwick Valley School District is in the process of designing and refining its curriculum in all subject areas, at all grade levels.
It was with this undertaking in mind that Schools Superintendent Dr. David Leach presented the school board with an overview of how administration and staff are doing just that, at Monday’s regular monthly meeting.
Among the skills “required for success in a global economy” that the WVSD hopes to inculcate in its students:
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
• Agility and adaptability
• Initiative and entrepreneurism
• Effective verbal and written communication
• Accessing and analyzing information
• Curiosity and imagination
• Empathy, diversity and inclusion
Subject matter that has relevanceIn a phone interview, Leach said that the district is working with teachers “to prepare for our future and not live in the past.”
In order to meet district goals, teachers have been developing curricula this past year, “Understanding by Design:” the objective is for the subjects to matter – to have relevance – and for the students to be able to understand key concepts at the end of each unit.
For the coming year, the teachers design “performance tasks,” or exercises that mirror real life, that “call for 21st Century skills … leadership, collaboration,” etc.
The next phase of the curriculum design and implementation in the following year involves benchmarking, where teachers will develop formal assessments to measure how well the students have assimilated the material.
‘Real-life context’Leach said that there’s a strong emphasis on assessment, “not just using traditional methods,” but rather a “balanced approach” that gives students the ability to “demonstrate the skills they’ve learned in a real-life context … raising the level of instruction to engage kids.”
The curriculum will be developed, Leach continued, independent of any one particular teacher, yet any teacher in a given subject will have the ability to step in to a class and teach a “guaranteed curriculum.”
Ideally, the class content and sequence of study will be designed so that parents can get a handle on where their children are in the learning process (and if they are meeting expectations for their grade level); teachers will be able to gauge immediately if their students are meeting the targets for their grade.
Raise the level of discourseThe reason for implementing both the new curriculum and the new approach to learning, Leach said, is that, “With the rise of robotics and automation, how do we provide students with the skills to fail, to learn from that (and succeed), in order to meet the challenges of the 21st Century?”
The goal is to get kids to think critically, to “raise the level of discourse to meet unseen challenges.”
It’s a lot easier to “shoot down the middle,” and use the instructional materials already developed by the state, Leach said.
While Warwick is developing its own unique curriculum – curriculum is “not a (particular) textbook, worksheet or piece of tech,” – the general contours of the course of study must conform to New York State standards: “We’re held accountable to New York State standards, Regents, etc. (However,) all districts have some autonomy” in meeting those standards.
“We’re confident that students will meet those standards,” Leach continued, that WV students will do well on the Regents exams, and will be accepted into competitive universities.
During Monday’s meeting, Leach told the board and the teachers present: “You should be proud of our students … we have among the highest test scores and graduation rates in the region ...” and that WV students go to some of the “best schools (universities).”
As for students who have learning disabilities or intellectual challenges, Leach said that the Warwick-centric curriculum also takes them into account: “Units are designed to provide differentiation of instruction” to demonstrate that kids with those challenges “make adequate progress” in their subjects.
For example, in the case of students who have difficulties with language fluency, reading, and so on, “We do a program called ‘balanced literacy,’ so they can improve their literacy, comprehension, decoding (skills), etc.”
The teachers, for their part, are “exhausted,” owing to the comprehensiveness of this undertaking, but Leach added, they are also “excited,” because the kids are learning.
Developing the new curriculum forces teachers to go beyond simply “lecturing in front of the room,” Leach said: It gives the kids a chance to really engage in the process of learning, to “collaborate and challenge the status quo…(to ask) ‘Why are we learning this?’”
NextRegular meeting: Jan. 14, Dorothy C. Wilson Education Center, 7 p.m.