Clinical Field Experience D: Curriculum Action Plan

Michael Underhill

Department of Education, Grand Canyon University

EAD-520: Strengthening Curricular Programs to Promote Continuous School

Improvement

Dr. Jeffrey Mehlenbacher

June 15, 2022

Analysis of Curriculum Map:

The curriculum that I viewed and analyzed for this assignment is our packaged grade level

material that is used in our middle school grades, six through eight. From the program’s website,

“Students learn new subject matter in dynamic ways that spark curiosity and increase motivation.

Teachers gain a deeper understanding of each child. Together, they build strong connections and

set goals to empower students with agency and accountability for their own learning (Summit,

2022). With this focus in mind, the platform is set up and operates at a level where much of the

staff would say it is easy to operate and implement what is laid out within each class and unit.

As I have mentioned previously, this curriculum is exclusively online, and teachers are able to

receive training in order to fully experience how it should be taught. Within any core class, you

would find several different units that allow the students to work through different project-based

assignments and activities. Part of our organization’s mission and vision is to prepare students

for the future in education and we believe that having a learning background that focuses on

solving different problems through a project is what best suits our students. A major idea that we

considered was that through project-based learning, there was the benefit of “higher learner

motivation” as was discussed in a 2016 article published by researchers at Durham University.

Another area that was considered when our organization went this route was the fact that

everything (units, lessons, resources, activities, and differentiation materials) was all online. This

just also happened to coincide with when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full force and our

school ended up spending parts of 2 years online. No need to send the students home with

textbooks when their entire learning suite was packaged into one platform. When looking at a

specific subject-area like Social Studies, the teachers are able to see the material that is covered

in each grade level and the platform does a decent job of linking grade levels together and
building onto what had been taught in years past. The grading itself is set up and probably meant

to be implemented through a “standards-based” grading system but the organization still uses the

traditional system (A-D, F) and we just convert their standard scores over to letter grades.

Review of Survey Results:

The survey that was distributed went out to teachers within my building that teach in the Summit

platform (grades 6-8). Each core subject teacher uses the platform, and I received a small sample

size of seven teachers out of a possible eleven that were sent the survey. The feedback I received

was not overwhelming and I was not surprised by some of the responses. This particular set of

curricula that is being used was placed in front of the staff at the start of the pandemic and there

was not really a formal training that took place so most of our staff have been going through and

completing units in a “trial by fire” type of way. The first area that needs to be discussed is the

response to whether the staff was happy with how the Summit platform is being utilized here at

our middle school. Most of the responses were not positive. A few of the staff expressed concern

over the fact that the standards used to design this curriculum are from a completely different

state and most do not apply to what Illinois requires. The next area that I found important was

the strengths and weaknesses or flaws of online platform. The biggest strength that was

mentioned repeatedly was the use of instructional materials as part of the curriculum and the

additional list of materials that could be used as a supplement or extension of the basic lesson or

activity. Within each unit, there are a variety of different resources available and embedded into

each activity, is the option to differentiate each assignment and other supplemental materials.

There is an option to have the platform itself, assign materials to certain students but the teachers

also have the option to go through and individually assign material to students if they feel they
need some remediation or even prompt the student to do more to give those few students an extra

challenge. One of the gaps that was discussed was that since most of the staff began using the

platform during the pandemic, they never received the formal training that the platform offers

and so, to correct that, there is a decent sized group of staff heading down south this summer to

receive that training. Following along the same lines, one of the science teachers mentioned that

they like seeing how others teach a lesson or concept and there are currently no teacher

exemplars to review and use as a resource for the teaching staff.

 References

Kokotsaki, D. and Menzies, V. and Wiggins, A. (2016) 'Project-based learning: a review of the

literature.', Improving schools., 19 (3). pp. 267-277.

Learners for life. Summit Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2022, from

https://www.summitlearning.org/