Coaching Corner

Develop and Foster Curriculum Coherence

Essential Coaching Action 8 is to develop and foster curriculum coherence. Coaching will focus on mathematics curriculum used by teachers in their classrooms. This can include developing an understaning of the curriculum materials, connections within and among grade level materials, and how big ideas of mathematics might sequence and connect.
  • Develop coherence in mathematics curriculum
  • Utilize learning progressions
  • Close the gap between the intended, implemented and attained curriculum
The online only reproducible from NCSM Essential Action Series: Instructional Leadership in Mathematics Education explores the importance of learning trajectories and provides a scenario of how teachers/teams can use learning trajectories to intensify instruction.
A compilation of website resources to mathematics progressions of learning
A planning tool to provide school- or district-level mathematics leadership teams with questions that support the design of a coherent mathematics curriculum prior to engaging in the process.
Hear from or read the story from Tim Brister, Mathematics Specialist, Harding University Finley STEM Center how focusing on content from upper level grades to lower and then back up again can help ground vertical alignment discussions and help teachers see relationships between mathematical ideas.
Learn from Beth Pesnell, Math and Science Curriculum Specialist, Rogers Public Schools as she shares how their elementary instructional facilitators collaboratively selected priority standards in K-5 Mathematics and how that process influenced their building level work in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and helped promote instructional equity across the district.
This book shares a unit planning template to support teachers and teams as they make sesse of the standards students must learn in each unit to include an understanding of prior knowledge, vocabulary, tasks, tools, and reflection.
Tracey Garrison, K-12 Math Coordinator, Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District, describes the on-going process of developing curriculum with teachers across multiple buildings. It talks about the importance of this process being done with teachers as opposed to for teachers. It is not a fast process but an important process.