Textbook adoption process in educational institutions

¶ … Adoption Process

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION AND SUMMARY

The activity I completed was gaining a better understanding of how curriculum is provided for the students at my school. Doing so was an involved process in which I arranged a meeting with the assistant vice principal of my school, Mrs. Panetta, who gave me a detailed overview of how exactly relevant textbooks and workbooks are selected for student use. Additionally, I spoke with some other faculty members at my school who have been there for a significant amount of time (longer than I have). They were also able to provide insight into how the curriculum selection process works. By combining their perspectives with that of my vice-principal, I now have a thorough understanding of the various facets of curriculum selection that routinely take place for the students at my school.

Additionally, my conversations with the aforementioned individuals helped me to glean the method by which teachers effectively learn the curriculum they teach. Doing so requires a dedicated effort on the part of pedagogues as well as on the part of a school's administration, which must facilitate the curriculum learning process for instructors. This process can include attending professional development functions as well as presentations given by representatives of the various curricula selected by a learning institution. The specific curriculum deployed at my school (which involves materials provided by ReadyGen, Reading Street, GoMath and enVisionMath) has been successfully utilized for over a year due to the efficacy of this curriculum selection process.

PROGRAM OUTCOME RATIONALE

The overarching theme of this activity is to better prepare teachers for assisting students to achieve educational objectives by giving them relevant curriculum to do so. The specific program outcome that this activity supports is Instructional Leadership. The aforementioned theme supports this program outcome since it involves data driven processes for evaluating curriculum as well as for ascertaining the efficacy of curriculum on an ongoing basis (American College of Education, 2013). The part of curriculum development in which members of materials manufacturers visit schools, and in which educators attend professional development workshops to learn the intricacies of curriculum, aids in the "overall content delivery" and the maintenance of a community of professionals working together. The outcome indicators of this program outcome include:

• Problem solve potential instructional deficiencies in staff to improve overall content delivery and enhance professional development.

• Engage teachers in team building strategies and facilitate the process of developing and maintaining professional learning communities to strengthen instruction and to increase student achievement.

• Strategically plan effective lessons with teachers and engage in data driven decision making to enhance learning for all students.

• Effectively assess instructional proficiencies through classroom observations to determine teacher needs and strengthen effectiveness.

• Evaluate instructional models on an ongoing basis, used by teachers to determine suitability based on student assessment data.

ADOPTION PROCESS

The timeline for the curriculum adoption process is somewhat lengthy, and requires the better part of a year to complete. That process initiates at the federal level with the New York City Department of Education. After careful deliberation and a consideration of the various standards of each grade and the best way to meet them, the Department of Education compiles a list of academic materials referred to as its Core Curriculum. Various schools in New York have some degree of autonomy in their choice of curriculum and are not mandated to select materials from this list. However, they are encouraged to do so and, in several instances, can actually succeed in achieving state and national standards by doing so. Additionally, within the Core Curriculum there are various options that educators can consider, so that there is some level of independence even while adhering to this curriculum.

At the school level, the administration consults with the faculty prior to the former's selection of certain curriculum materials. This way, individual's such as the principal of vice-principal can get input and feedback from those who utilize the curriculum the most (other than the students). The administration is ultimately the one that decides on the particular books and workbooks that they will disseminate to the various grades; funds that were specifically allocated for the purpose of procuring curriculum are used to make the purchase.

Finally, instructors have to learn the curriculum. This involves them attending professional development conferences explicitly for the purposes of familiarizing themselves with the materials. Additionally, representatives from the company that creates the curriculum sometimes come to the schools to deliver presentations about them. My school could expedite the process in which teachers learn the curriculum by establishing relationships with publishers and reusing the same curriculum for more than one year. The district is currently committed to utilizing a range of publishers, although there are exceptions. The entire district does not adopt all materials from one publisher. The administration uses data from state and national standards and the school's ability to meet them to influence its decision for curriculum.

IMPACT ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

This activity has a very important impact on student achievement. One of the reasons why the administration at the school studies data is because there is a direct relationship between curriculum and the achieving of testing standards. What curriculum is selected can help students to achieve their goals academically, and to prepare them for advancement to higher grades. Furthermore, it is important to realize that in exploring how curriculum is selected, one has opportunity to refine the process. Certainly, devising methods to expedite the curriculum development process can better student performance by getting them that which will help them more celeritously.

Additionally, the process by which educators actually learn the curriculum certainly impacts student achievement. To a certain extent, the more proficient and adept a teacher is with his or her curriculum, the more proficient his or her students will be at learning such materials. This sentiment particularly applies to curriculum that is initially implemented. Those presentations and seminars referred to earlier in this document effectively helps teachers to implement their curriculum, which correlates to student achievement.