Covering Mandated Standards

1. Standards-Based Curriculum

1.1. "Curriculum has become a prescribed set of academic standards. Instructional pacing has become a race against a clock to cover the standards, and the sole goal of teaching has been reduced to raising student test scores on a single test." (Tomlinson, 2000)

1.2. Promotes Accountability

1.3. In a standards based environment, "the starting point is the standard. Direct instruction to that standard is followed by an observable student behavior that demonstrates specific mastery of that single standard." (Rakow, 2008)

2. Standards-Embedded Curriculum

2.1. By definition "teachers choose from standards in multiple disciplines at both above and below grade level depending on the needs of the students and the classroom or program structure." (Rakow, 2008)

2.2. According to Rakow (2008), this results in more advanced curricula at earlier ages.

2.3. Rakow (2008) added that more experienced teachers "create opportunities for gifted and advanced students to work on a standard in the same domain or strand at new higher grade level.

3. Differentiation

3.1. "Challenge all learners by providing materials and tasks on the standard at varied levels of difficulty, with varying degrees of scaffolding, through multiple instructional groups, and time variations."

3.2. Describes methods of "how" to teach standards based curriculum. (Tomlinson, 2000)

3.3. Examples of statewide initiatives attempt to "introduce teachers to the Parallel Curriculum model focused on having teachers look at adding rigor and relevance to the curriculum and provide meaningful differentiations for students." (Tomlinson, 2002)

3.4. Differentiation suggests that you can choose any standard and "challenge all learners by providing materials and tasks on the standard at varied levels of difficulty, with varying degrees of scaffolding, through multiple instructional groups, and with time variations." Additionally, "teachers can craft lessons in ways that tap into multiple students interests to promote heightened learner interest in the standard." (Tomlinson, 2000)

4. GOAL: Teachers should not be threatened or hindered by the number of students in the classroom, the mountains of paperwork, endless demands, and the habit of providing standardized lessons. "Our profession cannot progress and our increasingly diverse students cannot succeed if we do less." (Tomlinson, 2000)