Vail (AZ) School District\'s Online

¶ … Vail (AZ) School District's Online Curriculum Resources

Founded in 1903 as a one-room school house, the Vail School district now serves over 9,000 students. Last year 9 of 10 schools received the highest label "Excelling" offered by the Arizona Department of Education. (the last was labeled "Highly-Performing.) Why is this little district just south-east of Tucson, AZ performing so well?

A quick search on the district website (www.vail.k12.az.us) offers some insight into the programs and curriculum they use so successfully. First the "Mission" and "Guiding Principles" (www.vail.k12.az.us/aboutUs/mission.htm) of the district highlight the districts charge to provide quality education. The district values small class size, small schools, continuous improvement and "community," defined both within the school and in cooperation with outside members including parents, neighbors, local businesses and community leaders.

Another page provides information on the STEEP program (www.vail.k12.az.us/steep2004/district/STEP1.PHP). This four-step program evaluates every child in reading, writing and math several times a year. Hour-long assessments help teachers determine where additional help is needed. In addition the website claims the program help teachers know the most efficient way to deliver any additional, individual assistance. Additional the program enables teachers to track each student's progress.

STEEP stands for "Screening to Enhance Equitable Placement." The site includes links to video clips showing each of the four steps in the program:

1. Universal Screening

2. Classroom Intervention

3. Can't Do/Won't Do Assessment

4. Individual Intervention

The programs incorporates assessments to rule out extraneous factors (such as motivation and socio-economic disadvantage) when looking at student performance (www.vail.k12.az.us/steep2004/district/SteepPrintableBrochure / SteepPamphlet2004.pdf). After assessments are given (using grade level curriculum,) problems are identified into one of four areas: math, writing, reading or behavior. Then teachers determine if motivation (or lack thereof) is a contributing factor. Lastly teachers develop and intervention strategy.

The Vail District site includes links to all of Arizona's State Standards (www.vail.k12.az.us/curriculum/azstatestandards.htm). Each grade-level's standards may include more than a hundred specific performance objectives. To help teachers focus their efforts, district committees identified "Formatives" or "Essential Standards," broken down into grade levels (www.vail.k12.az.us / curriculum/formatives.htm). Benchmark assessments are given three times throughout the year and are made available online, by grade-level, on the district website in Parent Curriculum Handbooks. Specific examples of what students are expected to do as they progress through each grade are available to parents online.

The district site includes a.I.M.S. (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) test data showing continued improvement in test scores over the past five years (www.vail.k12.az.us/newcurriculum/aimsgraphs.php). It is clear the district's emphasis is on learning. Another page on the site (www.vail.k12.az.us/aboutUs / goals.htm) shares the 2007/2008 District Goals which expects every school in the district to be functioning at the "Highly Performing" or "Excelling" level. Specifically the district developed a plan to realize high levels of student achievement by focusing on these strategies.

1. Analyzing test data

2. Determine site-specific targets

3. Determine teaching strategies using best-practice research

4. Implement staff development plan

5. Evaluate the impact on student learning

The Vail School District's increasingly steady improvement in student test scores shows the pin-pointed focus to their mission of continuous improvement -- not only in student achievement, but in the professionalism and results expected from their staff.

Part 2: The Influence of Bruner and Tyler on Alaskan State Standards

In 1991, Alaska began an education reform effort, Alaska 2000, later known as Goals 2000. Conversation began with a dialogue of what an Alaskan child should know and be able to do. The resulting Alaska 2000 Standards bears the marking of educational philosophers, Jerome Brunner and Ralph Tyler, sharing their ideas nearly half a century earlier.

Alaska's discussions in the beginning mirrored the four fundamental questions, known as the Tyler Rational:

1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

2. How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives?

3. How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?

4. How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?

(Madeus, & Stufflebeam, 1989)

Alaska, in defining the state's education purpose, set out to define the objectives, or content standards, developed key instructional strategies to help students attain the objectives, and provide a collection of assessment strategies to ascertain the effectiveness of the instructional practices.

Tyler's philosophy of balancing societal needs with those of individual students is also evident in Alaska's instructional strategies. Today math and science is expected of all students (societal need) yet the instructional practices are more individualized. Moving away from textbooks, teachers facilitate active experiences in problem solving allowing each student to use their best learning style or modality to achieve the objective.

Offering more than fifty key teaching and assessment strategies provide many resources for teachers to use to get their students to master the objectives. The prescriptive models allow teachers to focus on the ends (mastery) instead of being forces to focus on the means (historically teacher-centered instructions with heavy reliance on a textbook) and offer a smorgasbord of teaching opportunities to address the specific needs of each class, or each individual student.

In the past, isolated topics were presented sharing the "correct way" to solve a problem and students were tested with paper and pencil to see if they had mastered the correct algorithm. Today students work in teams, moving away from the competitive-individual model of learning, and classes emphasize problem solving, with more than one way to get to the answer.

Today's curriculum design model is more in line with Jerome Bruner's constructivist model of education (EDAS 7776, 2006). He looked at education through a holistic lens -- teach the big ideas with the child in mind. Bruner supported a discovery model of education, allowing learners to move from a novice to expert, working in a learning community.

Alaska's instructional strategies follow these principles of learning. Almost every strategy in the Key Instructional Strategies reflects Bruner's philosophy. The first key "Foundation Strategies" design curriculum to build upon each student's prior knowledge where each child is involved in metacognition -- understanding why instead of just recalling facts.

The second and third key includes students in collaborative, community based instruction. Using cooperative-learning models and extending the classroom beyond the four walls allows students to attain ownership and relevance in the learning process. In the 1960's Bruner was recognized for his work in instruction theory and curriculum design. He developed four criteria necessary to judge instructional theory: motivation, optimal structures of knowledge, optimal sequencing and nature and pacing of rewards and punishments (Smith & Ragen). Bruner proposed a spiral sequencing of curriculum. His philosophy is put into practice with the state standards. Instead of a single exposure to an isolated topic of content, students have the opportunity to explore interrelated topic and applications in a spiral fashion. Each year they delve deeper into a subject exposing depth of understanding of concepts and processes.

The Alaska Content Standards provide a rich resource of strategies that will allow teachers to design integrated instruction units. Each lesson provides opportunity to develop new skills and concepts in meaningful and interesting ways. Combining many strategies and resources will allow every Alaska student the opportunity to use their natural talents to develop new and stronger abilities to understand the concepts they need to be a productive member of the 21st century.

Part Three: Quality Curriculum

A quality curriculum is one that takes into account various learner styles. The basic idea of the learning style approach to teaching is that every student has a specific style of learning. In other words, some students learn a concept better through group work while other prefer visuals while still others prefer individual work. Added to this is the fact that each student's learning style is influenced by their particular backgrounds and culture. According to the learning style approach of learning, in order to best teach students a teacher must cater his or her teaching to each of these unique learning styles. To do this, the teacher needs to adopt a diverse, personalized teaching style and curriculum.