Book
Many students are capable of reading a chapter, doing the nd-of-chapter questions,
studying a little bit, and passing the
chapter test. Many teachers are in the
habit of using a textbook as a crutch
to fall back on when creativity is
lacking. Others are capable of teaching incredibly creative lessons based
on state standards but are bound by
the “adopted textbook.” The unfortunate end result: Too many students
are not being taught to master state
standards, particularly those not
covered in their textbooks. Too many
are not learning the basics, are not
achieving on standardized and ACT
tests, and are not leaving school with
the skills necessary for success in
a worldwide economy. Sadly, this
picture is the reality in classrooms
across the country.
The Vail School District found a
solution to improve student achievement that is significantly more effective than the status quo model
of textbooks determining what is
taught and when. By inverting the
curriculum and taking advantage
of digital resources, Vail improved
from being an average-performing
school district in the 1990s to one of
the top-performing school districts
in Arizona today. Even more exciting, because of free open source
software and a desire to take advantage of free digital resources,
Vail is able to share its curriculum
practices and is guiding 25 schools
and school districts across the state
to implement these practices and
develop shared resources.
Inverting the Curriculum
Vail started with the standards and
used them to select resources. No
longer would the textbook drive what
and when something was taught.
Administrators knew that for this
change to occur in classrooms, teachers needed to own the solution. So
teachers from each site worked with
Vail’s Curriculum Department to
identify essential state standards that
must be taught to mastery and schedule these standards on the calendar
for each content area at each grade
level based on logical sequences, not
chapter numbers. Soon the standards
drove curriculum, which encouraged
creativity and liberation from the
read-a-chapter-and-answer-the-ques-tions rut that didn’t encourage high-er-level thinking, mastery of skills, or
even student achievement. This move
earned every school in the district an
“excelling school” label, the highest
attainable distinction in Arizona, and
Vail’s test scores skyrocketed, placing
the district near the top of the state
academically.
Organizing the Content
Hunting for material was still a challenge, however. Although the internet
provided an extraordinary amount
of free digital content, it was not organized in a manner that promoted
teacher efficiency. The solution: Teachers needed to rely on one of education’s
best practices—collaboration. They
had come together to create the curriculum calendars, but now they needed
to share their methods to help students
achieve mastery. All educators have a
passion for at least one curricular area,
so if the passionate-about-reading
fourth grade teacher could share her
methods with the passionate-about-science fourth grade teacher at a different site and vice versa, they would
no longer remain in isolation, and students would reap the rewards.
In another neck of the Vail woods,
the district was becoming widely
acknowledged for its innovative use
of technology. It received worldwide
press coverage upon opening the first-ever textbook-free, all-laptop school
in 2005. Because teachers at Empire
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Vail School District in Arizona won the 2011 Sylvia Charp Award for District
Innovation in Technology. Presented jointly by THE Journal and ISTE at ISTE’s
annual conference and exposition, the award recognizes U.S. school districts
that exhibit effectiveness and innovation in the application of technology.
Winners demonstrate consistent district effectiveness, use of the NETS or
a local or statewide derivative of ISTE’s standards, effective and innovative
technology implementation, and commitment to participate in dissemination
to and support of other districts.
