The Oregon-Davis School Corporation continues to try to strengthen its curriculum. The school board got an update Monday on the Junior/Senior High School’s new curriculum maps, according to Superintendent Dr. Don Harman. “What the teachers are doing is working on what state standards [are], how they’re teaching those state standards, how they’re tying those standards to literacy, how they’re tying those state standards to specific assessment vocabularies, key vocabulary words,” Harman explains.
The goal of the curriculum maps is to keep all the teachers in a specific subject area on the same page. “For example, in our English Department, those English teachers will be sharing those all the way from sixth grade all the way up through high school, and then we get that vertical articulation,” Harman says. “At the elementary school, our goal is once we complete, third grade teachers can share those with first and second grade teachers and then also with fourth and fifth grade teachers.”
Harman says three junior/senior high school teachers discussed the curriculum maps with the school board Monday. Board members heard from elementary school teachers last month.
He adds that teachers have been working on the curriculum maps for the past year and a half, and that work is going to continue. “It’s a working document,” Harman says. “You’re always updating your curriculum. When we’re done with a unit, teachers record reflections on how they might do it differently next year, how they can improve those things. And so then our next step will be taking those curriculum maps and building assessments, pre- and post-tests.”
Harman says curriculum has recently been a focal point for Oregon-Davis, to try to improve student achievement.
