Even at the middle school level, we could not agree between the three grade levels. In addition, there wasn't really a consensus between the needs of teachers within specific grade levels. In the end, there were a lot of compromises, but there were still a number of teachers who were disappointed with the final decision.
There ended up being three major groups that formed within my grade level for adoption and each had a different idea of what they needed/wanted for their classroom. Here are the three groups:
Technology Focused - Purchase of Kindle readers for each classroom along with a yearly budget for purchasing text (books, articles, etc.). Classroom/District licenses for a number of online tools for productivity (Grammarly, Kami, Turn It In, etc.). Classroom budgets for additional technology or software to be used at that teacher's discretion.
Traditional Text Focus - Each classroom receives a new set of traditional hardback books that include a variety of texts aligned to grade level. In addition, the teacher receives an instructional guide that helps create lessons based on the texts included. This adoption also included the use of disposable student workbooks that are one use only - each year the classroom receives a new set of workbooks from the publisher. In addition, a district license for Turn It In would be purchased.
Mixed Focus Technology/Text - This group was pushing for the use of online tools that were brought up by the technology-focused group, but not the purchase of Kindle readers. Instead, they wanted to purchase a simpler text from a different publisher that just included stories linked to content and a simpler teacher guide. This option also allowed for some discretional classroom funds that were earmarked for specific needs to the classroom and a variety of ideas were discussed about what that could be.
I have a large Houghton Mifflin bag sitting next to my desk that contains the decision made by the grade level. I received it in June and have honestly not touched it since it was handed to me by my district's curriculum administrator. I was a little disappointed to say the least that the decision went this way and a little surprised that certain colleagues of mine agreed to this choice as well. My district is relatively forward thinking, but there are a number of vocal veteran teachers that seemed to really hinder this process. I think in many cases they were a little afraid of the technology and what they would do without a physical book for text sources. Most of what we work on in my classroom is technology focused, so integrating the text might be a challenge for me. I'll eventually start thumbing through the book and see what is there, but I'm not really in a hurry to do so.
If you were in this situation of adopting curriculum, which group do you think you might be in? Let me know your choice and reasoning in the comments below!
Unfortunately, the vocal seem to win out in instances like this. I hope you have the flexibility to infuse technology within the choice made for your district. Curious if your librarian was invited to share in the decision making process?
ReplyDeleteGeri - The media specialists at any of the middle schools were not consulted. It seemed like certain veteran teachers had more pull and sway than others - the squeaky wheels I suppose.
DeleteThat's interesting...I was wondering if the media specialist was involved also. :)
ReplyDeleteAs a media specialist, I would tend to choose technology centered. However, I will say that when the wifi is down, or laptops aren't available, or there are issues (and there often are with so many students attaching)...it can be frustrating to not have textbooks as a "backup plan". That is the complaint from my colleagues. And I see both sides...it can be very frustrating to control a classroom when nothing is working. I have to admit...I love using the technology and all of the features associated with it!
Great post!
Philomena :)
Philomena - Unfortunately our media specialists weren't involved in the decision. I agree it's nice to have a backup plan when technology hits bumps, but being flexible should always be a part of the teaching plan.
DeleteSitting on those committees is so frustrating! We haven't updated our ELA books in 10+ years and I'm ok with it. Our district is really awesome and allows for us to use what we want. I prefer to incorporate technology and resources I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. Our math, however, was updated to Ready Common Core last year and I'm not much of a fan. They committed to 5 years and already at year 2, most teachers are opting out of getting the printed workbooks.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same math curriculum at our school with similar results. I think it looks good on the surface but once you start using it the issues come out. We were around ten years on ours as well and five years ago we all sat down and created this really well done curriculum with six units. It was good and I was happy to modify that to my teaching style and to update the texts as I went. I'm honestly going to keep doing what I have been doing in my classroom as my results have been excellent. Maybe this new book will have some new text sources for me to play with.
DeleteWe just adopted a new curriculum at my site, and we went with a hybrid program. We have print consumables for our text, and the text and activities are also available online. In addition, we have purchased subscriptions for NoRedInk, Newsela, TurnItIn.com, and an ebook library. I'm not sure what everything will look like this year, though, as they collected student Chromebooks at the end of the year and rolled back to having class sets and Chromebook carts. In a high school, managing Chromebooks being used by five sets of students can be a challenge!
ReplyDeleteI agree - it takes some changes to classroom management to make Chromebooks and other technology work. Usually if the guidelines are in place it seems to work as students get acclimated to it. We picked up Turnitin.com, but there has been zero training or insight given on how to use it. I was a little more vocal about not using it, because most of the resources it encompasses are available for free elsewhere. There are also some connections between Turnitin.com and another site that helps students who plagiarize not be caught. I'd have to go back and look to find the articles I read about that.
DeleteMy district just went through this process at an elementary level. We had to find something that met the ELA needs K-6. That was hard enough. I can even imagine what it was like trying to do that K-12 and meet everyone's needs. We were only presented with traditional text-based options. We put together a committee to try to figure out the best option for our elementary students. When the committee finished, we had ranked our options from what we wanted to definitely didn't want. Technology was never much of a consideration during the process. In the end, a curriculum was selected against the committee's recommendation. Once we started getting access to the curriculum online, our curriculum directors realized that they should have paid attention to the online aspect of the programs. The technology of this new curriculum we will start is a significant step backwards in the technology field.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that technology was at least discussed for your district, although it sounds like things didn't go the way you had hoped. Good luck with your new curriculum this year.
Thanks Avery - It never ceases to amaze me how little attention is paid to those who have to implement the curriculum or even those who must suffer the curriculum that is chosen. Students and teachers should have a larger role when selecting items for adoption...sigh.
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