What happens in Common Planning Time (CPT)

Two years ago, South Kingstown High School began the practice of establishing common planning time (CPT) on Wednesday mornings. The day starts about 50 minutes later and while kids are utilizing the time to sleep, linger over breakfast, meet at the school to work on assignments or simply socialize, teachers are meeting departmentally to answer the following questions:

-What do students need to know and be able to do?
-How will we know if they know it?
-What will we do if the student does not get it?
-What will we do if the student already knows it?

Department chairs facilitate the conversations that for the past few years, have focused on establishing common curricular goals and creating common assessments matched to those curricular goals and the state’s grade span expectations (GSEs). By creating common assessments and then reviewing student performance, teachers can more effectively determine what students are and are not understanding. The practice also provides opportunities for teachers to share instructional strategies since those common assessments will provide a class performance snapshot. For instance, the math department created a common midterm and then graded tests blindly, that is, they did not know whose student they were assessing. They discovered that for certain teachers, some students excelled in some areas compared to other sections taught by other teachers. That type of data provides opportunities for teachers to share instructional strategies that have been particularly effective. While it can be intimidating for teachers to have their students’ performance made public, it does provide a growth opportunity and strengthen the goal that no matter the teacher, students are going to cover the same material eliminating the potential issue of some students having gaps as they move forward in a specific content area..

As it is the end of the year, I asked the department chairs to reflect on their department’s progress over the past year in relation to working together to improve curriculum, instruction and assessment. Neile DiNitto, our science department chair answered the questions, “what is your vision for the science department and what has been done to support it? What do you plan to accomplish next year,” by saying the following:

We, the science department, have been working on “Establishing a Culture of Improvement” over the past few years. The science department faculty has been working diligently to meet the vision set forth by the state; to improve student learning through improved curriculum alignment. We are working to tightly align our curriculum to the state Science Grade Span Expectations (GSE’s) and South Kingstown High School’s 8 Student Learning Expectations (SLE’s). During the 2007-2008 school year departmental Common Planning Time focused on modifying comprehensive course exams (midterms/finals) by linking them more closely to the Science GSE’s for each course. We also spent time creating additional validated tasks or modifying past tasks linked to Science GSE’s for the portfolio system. Time during Teacher Learning Center and Faculty meetings was used for the task validation process as well. The science department also determined that ALL juniors must take a chemical science course to meet the requirements for the NECAP exam in their junior year. Therefore, we created a new set of courses, Chemical Science (1 semester) and Physical Science (1 semester), to meet this need.

During the 2008-2009 school year we reexamined our alignment to the Science GSE’s by looking at the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) and priority standards put out by the state in the fall of 2008. This work was done for the core NECAP courses during our Departmental Common Planning Time. Six teachers in the department spent 2 extra days of professional development time to realign the Earth Systems course with this new information. This work was done to provide a comprehensive curriculum that is tightly aligned to the Science GSE’s while providing a smooth flow of the content throughout the year. In April of 2009 I went to a conference on Common Formative Assessments put on by Ainsworth. The book “Common Formative Assessments” by Ainsworth has guided much of our work this year with “unwrapping” the standards and curriculum alignment. The science department also worked on creating a common “flow” of the curriculum (a pacing guide) for all teachers within each core content area, including designing common assessments (labs) and revising/modifying our Comprehensive Course Assessments (CCAs). This ensures that all students have access to the same instructional & learning opportunities.

Next year the science department will be participating in the Math and Science Initiative Open Sessions, put on by the state of RI and the Dana Center, to further strengthen our curriculum alignment. We will also be working on creating common formative assessments for each GSE of the core NECAP science courses (ESS, Biology, and Chemistry) using the Ainsworth method. Our long-term vision is to maximize student learning by continuing to improve common tasks, formative assessments, CCA’s and research-based teaching strategies. There is understanding in the department that this will be an on-going collaborative process.

Much of what Neile and the science department accomplished took place during CPT. It provides context – and I think validity - to one of my basic assumptions about schools which is that the more time we provide teachers to collaborate, the better the instruction and the greater the increase in student achievement.