The Journey: A Suite of Resources
Curriculum and Instruction Toolkit
Awareness Activity
Awareness Activities from the Transition Basics Toolkit are your first steps. If you or any team members have not completed the Curriculum and Instruction: Awareness Activities in the Transition Basics toolkit, begin with those now. Those activities are self-paced and prepare individuals to engage as a team. Once you have completed the Awareness Activities, move to the Extend Your Knowledge section below.
Extend Your Knowledge
Reflect. Review your team discussion and notes from the Awareness Activities in the Transition Basics Toolkit. Focus on the concept of presuming competence and how this concept should lead your work moving forward.
Watch. New Learning Standards video This video (3 minutes) outlines how educators, parents, and other professionals can help individuals with disabilities achieve their adult life vision by providing access to grade level course content.
Watch. The Journey Toolkit Curriculum and Instruction (28 minutes) This video highlights the benefits of creating grade level curriculum and instruction and how other schools around the state have seen the clear benefits in doing this with their students who have complex needs.
Reflection. After watching the recording of this webinar, take a moment to reflect on the following questions before engaging in a team dialogue.
- Can you identify where you are with your curriculum?
- How do you know this?
- What can you do better to implement these strategies with your students and curriculum?
- What are your connections to the curriculum?
- What are the strengths of you and your team in this area?
- What are the weaknesses of you and your team in this area?
- What are the barriers of you and your team in this area?
Dialogue. As a team discuss the following questions around curriculum and instruction:
- What was one new idea that you heard that resonated with you?
- What was one idea that you would like to know more about?
- What is one step you can take to begin exploring or implementing this idea/practice?
Note. Jot down the responses while your team is engaging in the dialogue, or after you have had a rich discussion. These notes will help lay the groundwork for the work you and your team will do around curriculum and instruction.
Save. File your notes to use as you move through the toolkit.
Apply Your Knowledge
Application. Congratulations! You have learned the importance of how providing access to grade level course content can help individuals with disabilities achieve their adult life visions. Now that you and your team have committed to providing your students with grade level course work, you will use OCALI’s Teaching Diverse Learners Center’s resources to guide you as you begin your work. Their resource, Planning to Meet the Needs of Diverse Learners, will provide you with the tools needed to complete this work. There you will find detailed guides on:
- Unit Planning
- Learn how developing units of study can bring together standards across subject areas into meaningful clusters that merge academic learning and real-life applications
- Tiered Planning
- Learn to plan so that each learner has what they need to actively participate in daily instruction and assessments within a unit of study. The Tiered Plan contains details for each lesson.
- Daily Planning
- Develop the details and the flow of the daily schedule through daily planning. Outline each staff member’s responsibilities and student specific schedules with this third layer of planning.
- Collaborative Planning
- Join other professionals to share expertise and resources for standards-based planning designed to support the full range of diverse learners in any classroom.
Save. File your notes and work so you can expand upon them in other working meetings. These documents are meant to be fluid and can change as you build and expand upon them.
Learn More. If you would like to continue your work on planning for Diverse Learners, complete the learning modules Ensuring Access to the General Curriculum for ALL Learners located on OCALI’s Teaching Diverse Learners Center. You will need to create an account to access the modules.
Ongoing Team Meetings
Sustainability
- Review the work you have done around grade level course content and update as you trial lessons and activities. Remember that these documents can change as you develop them.
- Discuss how you will roll out these concepts to others in your building.
- Create a professional development/training opportunity on how to use the content you have created.