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(school bell rings)
WOMAN: I think we're part of something big.
WOMAN: Massachusetts has that history
of having really high standards.
I have tremendous hope for this particular change.
WOMAN: We have brought teachers from across the state
who are working in four content areas to create model units.
So what is the skill you're looking for the students to get?
WOMAN: Understanding by Design is a particular design model
for curriculum development.
There are a lot of publishing companies out there.
They create a lot of wonderful resources.
But those are just resources, they're not curriculum.
Very often, those things don't take into consideration
people's individual situations or individual classrooms.
WHITE: So to have teachers be the ones
that are writing the units and creating the curriculum
is really what drew me to the project.
VANDEGRIFT: It's people that are there doing this work every day
and really in their hearts have what's best for the students.
JUDI ALLEN: Teachers can package themes and ideas
the way they think it will work for their students better.
So the textbook now gets reduced to a resource, just one of many.
It's an idea that makes a lot of sense.
WOMAN: I think it's really interesting
for kids to see a big connection.
VANDEGRIFT: We came up with which learning standards
in the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks
we would be teaching in this unit,
and we started to develop what they call a CEPA,
a curriculum embedded performance assessment.
WOMAN: This is their assessment.
We have to make sure that each one of the things
that are skills and knowledge shows up for the CEPA.
VANDEGRIFT: And we hashed out our learning plan.
And that's the actual lesson that you carry day to day.
MAN: Don't they go together?
It's not somebody at the state
or somebody in a publishing company or an assessment company
saying, "Oh, you have to do it this way."
Having teachers involved in the process is key.
PHELPS: What we're saying is teachers,
you as educators see those children every day.
You know their needs, you know how to get to them.
You can actually look at the students in front of you
and say, "What will they relate to, what should I use?"
instead of a prescription.
What can we do to get students excited
and generate interest in this unit?
WOMAN: They know their classrooms better than anyone.
WOMAN: It's about understanding financial literacy
in the economy.
COLOMBO: The kind of curriculum we're creating
will help promote the best kind of learning that we can
in classrooms across the state.
It is amazing.
PHELPS: So this year,
we've got development of new units
and piloting and refinement of the ones
that were developed in year one.
STUDENT: At a steady increase, it would just be a flat line.
We need to help our students
learn in a way that will survive into life.
PHELPS: That's really powerful,
and you can't buy that.
Standards to curriculum to instruction...
student achievement.