Smithfield High School’s social studies department has redesigned what our 9–12 curriculum looks like and how it impacts students. For our students, we personalized the delivery of five foundation power standards which are transferable in nature. This has fostered conversations around everything we do. From professional growth to grading to formative and summative assessments to daily instruction, no stone has been left unturned. We have rebuilt our curriculum into a powerful program that has clear, definable, and measurable outcomes for graduating students who are prepared for their next challenges. This session will not only explore how SHS social studies built and refined this system, but how we live in both a proficiency-based and traditional grading world. We will explore how this not only impacted our practices but student learning, feedback, and supports with the hope of helping other academic teams and teachers meet these challenges within their own schools and districts.
Participants will leave with an understanding of the challenges and strategies when transitioning content areas’ traditional curricula into interactive curriculum guides that are standards-based and 21st century skills-focused which produce a graduate with specific and measurable knowledge and skills as well as a practical approach to balancing the reporting out of both standards-based and numerical achievement.
