TAG Advisory Committee
Minutes
Karen Kerlin, Director
of Language Arts Curriculum provided an overview of the Language Arts Curriculum.
We are currently in the second year of new material for the curriculum. Harcourt has more materials to support grammar,
English, etc then the previous curriculum.
More materials have really assisted teachers and student. Overall the program has been better received at
the elementary school level.
At the K and 1st level,
the initial assessment was that the material was not progressive enough. Additional rigor has been added and the K reading
curriculum has been compacted. In addition,
an assessment component has been added to help identify if students are in the right
place in the curriculum.
At 4th and 5th grade level
the CRCT scores are being impacted by the LA component, specifically grammar. The CRCT is getting tougher, so scores are lower. The Harcourt assessments have a strong alignment
to the scores and we can predict and improve where we have gaps in student understanding.
At the middle school level,
there have been more challenges. The format
of the curriculum guide at the middle school changed when the curriculum was revised. The change in format provided teachers with a
standards-based approach to the content.
This shift was difficult for some middle school teachers who were accustomed
to a more prescriptive approach. The reading
curriculum at middle school includes the use of three resources: Holt Literacy Handbook,
novels, and the Area Content Reader (
A new feature at the middle school level is the online essay
scoring test. All students should have the
opportunity to use this tool. This is meant
to be a tool and not for providing grades.
Parents should make sure all students have had chance to write essays and
get computer feedback. The results are for
students and teachers. Parents interested
should speak with teacher about results.
This is the online writing assessment.
Students can access interactive online text books. Students can do online assessment from home. Student feedback on this program has been very
positive.
High School
This is a draft year for 9-12. So far teachers like the flexibility and have
been able to give a lot of feedback since this is a draft year. The new curriculum does not exactly match the
GA performance standards, but is close. District
is working on closing the gaps.
At the senior level,
all students take one semester of world literature then have a choice for the other
semester: British, contemporary, or multicultural. The former senior course was Pacesetter.
Georgia Performance Standard roll out is coming this year in
K-12 LA, 6th Math, 6,7,9-12 Science. The
CRCT will be testing the new content based on the GPS.
The writing curriculum at grades 3 - 5 focus on difference aspects
of writing, research, creativity, organization etc. For each element there are activities that go
into the child's portfolio. Focus is for
students to learn the steps to the final product instead of just doing a final product. Students have writing workshops as well.
The committee discussed writing of research papers. Historically, the curriculum focused on the paper
and the components. As the student progressed
in grades, the size got bigger and that was all. Now, the curriculum addresses many different aspects
and types of research. Things like validating
sources, photo essays, Power Point Presentations, a campaign plan, etc. This direction was set based on feedback from
colleges that students need to most importantly be able to search, and organization
information.
At
Media center participation varies by school. Some middle schools provide time, others do not.
As follow up to the question on 6th grade Math and the available
time differences between some MS and ES: First, not all middle school give extended
time for math. Some are on block schedule
which changes the total hours available.
Some schools do not pull kids from Math for TAG. If this is your case then, the child will still
have pre-algebra to focus and completely develop the needed base skills for Algebra. The schools have a lot of flexibility on setting
schedules and classes. This gives them flexibility
but does result in a disadvantage of variations across school systems.
The new instructional
support teacher for TAG is Gyimah Whitaker.
The next meeting will be on March 29th
Azam Khan