Ensuring Curriculum Alignment

Professional Development Credit – This Micro-Credential may be eligible for continuing professional development credit in your state. Contact your state affiliate association to learn more.

Overview – The Ensuring Curriculum Alignment Micro-Credential requires the practitioner to demonstrate proficiency of all the essential outcomes and the research-based subskills defined in the details. These include the ability to: provide structures and processes that ensure congruency between curriculum content, instructional methods, and assessment, utilize multiple means to effectively communicate to all stakeholders a clear understanding of the curriculum alignment process, its importance, and its effect on student learning, create a school environment that is supportive and encouraging to the process of teaching and learning, develop a plan that ensures alignment of assessment and instruction with the curriculum, and provide a plan with strategies, implementation timelines, evaluation, and a monitoring process to establish best practice in curriculum alignment for organizational improvement.

Essential Outcomes – Ensuring Curriculum Alignment includes the following identified essential outcomes:

1. Provide structures and processes that ensure congruency between curriculum content, instructional methods, and assessment.
2. Utilize multiple means to effectively communicate to all stakeholders a clear understanding of the curriculum alignment process, its importance, and its effect on student learning.
3. Create a school environment that is supportive and encouraging to the process of teaching and learning.
4. Provide a plan with strategies, implementation timelines, evaluation, and a monitoring process to establish best practice in curriculum alignment for organizational improvement.

Requirements

Part 1. Overview Questions

Develop a responsive narrative that answers the following questions (1,000-word minimum):

1. What collaborative practices and procedures have you implemented to align curriculum to national, state, and local standards?
2. How did you support staff in the establishment of horizontal and vertical alignment of curriculum?
3. What processes have you put in place to evaluate instructional methods on a regular basis?
4. How have you communicated shared instructional vision with great expectations to stakeholders?
5. What collaborative practices are in place for shared instructional decision-making?
6. In what ways have you ensured a safe, organized, and caring learning atmosphere and how did. this affect the teacher/student instructional support system in your school?

Part 2. Skill Demonstration Product with Self-Analysis

Develop an artifact portfolio that captures the essential outcomes for the Ensuring Curriculum Alignment Micro-Credential and complete the evidence self-analysis.

For each EO detail you will be required to reference an uploaded artifact(s) and guide the assessor to the specific evidence (page number, video time stamp, etc.) within the uploaded artifact(s). An explanation of how the evidence demonstrates proficiency of the outcome detail is also required. The practitioner must clearly and compellingly demonstrate proficiency of every detail under each essential outcome.

Part 3. Reflection & Application

Submit, in writing, a summary of your experience of Ensuring Curriculum Alignment (500-word minimum). Provide specific examples of how you applied all components of the essential outcomes. This could include topics covered and a description of the how you provided structures and processes that ensure congruency between curriculum content, instructional methods, and assessment, utilized multiple means to effectively communicate a clear understanding of the curriculum alignment process, importance, and effect on student learning to stakeholders, and how you created a school environment that is supportive and encouraging to the process of teaching and learning. Include a reflection about the impact of this skill on your professional practice and how you will continue to apply it in the future.