Curriculum
Southeastern Greene SD, Shirley Dickinson, Penn Pitt ES As educators, we face many issues, policies, and practices. One of these practices is the publication of our PSSA scores in the local newspapers. Student Achievement is the focus, and our test scores should reflect the many days of learning and hard work, in preparation for life ahead including testing.
This year, the state gave academic awards to schools that made a significant improvement in their PSSA scores. At the Penn Pitt Elementary, we noticed the impact of cross-grade grouping assignment, on the scores in fifth grade 1997-98. Penn Pitt received an Academic Achievement Award for $9,750.
In our cross-grade grouping project, the 4,5,6 grade students were assigned to homerooms, and the teachers were assigned to certain subjects. They were NOT departmentalized, but did incorporate a flexible block-type schedule. The teachers then were able to teach the students for the same subjects for three consecutive years. The teachers involved were dedicated to making a difference with children.
For example: One teacher (Mrs. XYZ) taught Language Arts (Reading, Spelling, and English) to the students when they were in fourth grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade. She had the ability to accelerate the students beyond the grade level, because she knew she would teach them next year, and the year after. Yet, she was a fourth grade homeroom teacher.
Each teacher integrated three subjects, and the students remained in their class for approximately two hours. The students received the benefit of knowing the expectations of their teachers for each subject; the teachers were able to gain educational time by knowing what the students were capable of achieving, from each previous year.
This can be achieved with almost any professional staff. At SEG, we did not hire additional professional staff, and we did not change our school day length. It was just another way, to take the research of the different educational trends, and put them to work for school improvement. Whether it is called looping, cross-grade grouping, flexible block scheduling, etc., administrators can put together a whole new program, using components from each, to develop an educational plan that works best for their school. For more information, feel free to contact Shirley A. Dickinson, Elementary Principal, Southeastern Greene School District.
Plum Boro SD, Pivik ES, Connie Wolford Wonderful things are happening at Pivik ES, a K-6 building. Pivik is piloting the Direct Instruction curriculum. In every classroom in every grade, the feedback about the program is encouraging. Throughout the school, student self-confidence and performance, as well as teacher enthusiasm is on the rise. These things are well due, according to the faculty, to the Direction Instruction program.
Direct Instruction is a student-driven, performance-structured curriculum. Designed by Siegfried Engelmann in the 1960s, Direct Instruction, commonly phrased D.I., focuses on individualized instruction, connecting concepts, and total mastery of facts. Other curricula and programs claim this as their focus as well, but few come as close to accomplishing this goal as the D.I. program.
The programs piloted at Pivik last school year were Reading Mastery, Reasoning and Writing, Spelling Mastery, and Connecting Math Concepts. Each program uses the techniques of choral responses, oral repetition of facts, and teacher-scripted lessons to teach skills and concepts to students. The oral and choral components are added to ensure that all students are responding correctly to questions asked about concepts and facts. Because they are responding together, students can feel more comfortable and confident when answering the questions presented.
Every lesson in the D.I. curriculum is a component of the preceding lesson, forming a complex yet fluent program that reaches the goal of mastery of facts and concepts. What is taught on one day is continuously revisited throughout the series in increasingly more complex ways. Every "bit" of information taught to the students is an essential concept to be built upon in later lessons. This process also makes it possible to teach very complex concepts, such as algebra, earlier in the curriculum.
An interesting, and even somewhat controversial aspect of the program, is the scripted teacher presentations. Teachers actually read from a script in the teacher's manual. Since the students are presented with many concepts during a given lesson, this script merely ensures that the program is delivered sequentially and in a fashion that corresponds with student learning rates. Script refinements are another direct benefit of continued field-testing.
The scripted presentation then becomes one of the strongest attributes of the program. In addition to the scripted presentation, the teacher retains the flexibility and freedom to add any creative touches he/she deems necessary. The program itself offers novel studies, additional trade books, and cross-curricular activities to enrich the information delivered in class. The students are also expected to complete projects within the program itself. The teacher may also speed up or slow down lessons according to student performance. The teacher's personality and professional experience continue to play a vital role in the D.I. classroom.
Every class in every grade of the school is different. Different things are being taught on different days in different levels. How is this possible? The answer is in the performance grouping of the student body. Some might feel that this promotes competition and a negative self-concept. In actuality, the opposite is true. Because students are now being challenged at their appropriate level and to mastery, student attitudes, self-concepts, performance, and focused behavior continue to improve. Conversations between parents and teachers revolve around how much the students enjoy school. One parent even reported that her son, who did not perform well in math in the past, is now enthusiastically discussing the possibility of tutoring other students in that subject area.
Pennridge SD, Pennridge HS, Joseph R. Mammana The curriculum at Pennridge HS's Freshman Center has been packaged into a "school within a school" concept using a team structure as its curricular foundation. This approach has allowed for more teacher-student autonomy via a restructuring of all administrative and managerial operational modes. It is our plan that by employing this concept we can combine instructional strategies, managerial organizational plans, and staff in-service opportunities into a comprehensive model that helps the school meet the actual, perceived career and human growth needs of the student body.
Autonomy has been achieved within each of the four teams. Each team can be compared to a small school consisting of approximately 100-130 students, four teachers, and an assigned guidance counselor. The teams have selected their own leaders through a process of consensus, not majority, and together with their staff, their mission is to better meet the categorical student needs as previously noted.
Our mission can most definitely be accomplished by shifting from a very structured single form of leadership to one, which is more shared and pluralistic in nature with the team teachers. Concurrently, each team leader will maintain a direct line of communication with the high school principal at all times. Our team teachers are being taught and encouraged to integrate positive teacher-learning styles with and how they relate to instructional time, space flexibility, and classroom creativity.
It is important to note that our team model reflects a merger between staff leadership style and student needs resulting in more attention being directed to student dignity, self-expression, and personal satisfaction for both students and teachers.
It is our ultimate desire that the teams will serve as a bridge, which spans from the eighth grade to the sophomore year emphasizing the importance and value of a successful freshman year for our students and a rewarding professional experience for our teachers.
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