It was quite a process for the district to arrive at this point. This exploration year's primary focus was for sites to explore a variety of Common Core State Standards aligned math curricula. This collaborative exploration strengthened teacher understanding and instructional strategies in relation to the CCSS and built a cohesive teacher leadership group that recommended the three curricula that are worthy of a formal pilot during the 2016-2017 school year.
Yesterday's final math lead meeting that resulted in the three pilot curricula was the culmination of two years of work - identifying the math curricula neighboring district's adopted, reading research, connecting with other math professionals at NCTM, and collectively developing our understanding of CCSS and the Math Practice Standards to help inform our process of exploration and decision. Having had this year of exploration that helped us deepen our understanding also had additional benefits, one of which was that some publishers were still in the process of completing their CCSS-aligned curricula. We found that several neighboring districts that had adopted various curricula were unhappy with their "rushed" decision.
It was an incredibly collaborative process to explore the eight curricula (listed in the image below). The timeline of our exploration year is also included below. Now as we move forward with our three selected curricula for pilot, we will definitely assess the following areas of each curricula:
- concept development
- math practice standards organization
- teacher accessibility and easy of use
- student accessibility and special needs populations
- lesson design and sequence
- assessments
- instructional strategies
- supporting/supplementary materials/technology