SMITHFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Smithfield, Rhode Island
CURRICULA STANDARDS
All curricula are based on:
- National professional standards
- Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Frameworks and Grade-level Expectations/Grade-span Expectations
CURRICULA UNDERSTANDING
All curricula are based on research-based principles of:
Principles of Learning for Understanding
| 1. Learning with understanding is facilitated when new and existing knowledge is structured around the major concepts and principles of the subject. |
| 2. Learners use what they already know to construct new understanding. |
| 3. Learning is facilitated through the use of metacognitive strategies that identify, monitor and regulate the cognitive processes. |
| 4. Learners have different strategies, approaches, patterns of abilities and learning styles that are a function of the interaction between their heredity and prior knowledge. |
| 5. Learners’ motivation to learn and sense of self affects what is learned, how much is learned and much effort will be put into the learning process. |
| 6. The practices and activities in which people engage while learning shape what is learned. |
| 7. Learning is enhanced through socially supported interactions. |
Principles of Curriculum for Understanding
| 1. Structure the concepts, factual content and procedures that constitute the knowledge base of the subject around organizing principles (big ideas) of the domain. |
| 2. Link new knowledge to what is already known by presenting concepts in a conceptually and logically sequenced ordered that builds upon previous learning within and across grade-levels. |
| 3. Focus on depth of understanding rather than breadth of content covered by providing students with multiple opportunities to practice and demonstrate what they have learned in a variety of contexts. |
| 4. Include structured learning activities that, in a real or simulated fashion, allow students to experience problem solving and inquiry situations that are drawn from their personal experiences and real-world applications. |
| 5. Develop students’ abilities to make meaningful applications and generalization to new problems and contexts. |
| 6. Incorporate language, procedures and models of inquiry and truth verification to new problems and contexts. |
| 7. Emphasis interdisciplinary connections and integration and help students connect learning in school with issues, problems and experiences that figure prominently in their lives outside the classroom. |
Principles of Assessment for Understanding
| 1. Designed in accordance with accepted practices that include considerations for reliability, validity and fairness of the inferences that will be drawn from the assessment results. |
| 2. Aligned with curriculum and instruction that provides factual content, concepts, processes and skills the assessment is intended to measure |
| 3. Designed to include important content and process dimensions of performance in a subject and to elicit the full range of desired complex cognition including metacognitive strategies. |
| 4. Multifaceted and continuous when used to assist learning by providing students multiple opportunities to practice and receive feedback. |
| 5. Designed to assess understanding that is both qualitative and quantitative in nature and to provide multiple modalities with which a student can demonstrate learning. |
National Research Council
| Subject | Completion Date |
| Science | 2009 9-12 2007 K-8 |
| PE/Health | 2008 |
Mathematics
| 2006 and 2008 |
English Language Arts
| Writing 2008 Reading started in 2009 – completed 3/2010 |
| Family and Consumer Sciences | 2009 |
| Business Education | 2009 |
| Social Studies | Will start in 2009/10 |
| Art | Will start in 2010/10 |
| Music | Will start in 2010 – complete 2010 Summer |
| Health | Will start in 2009 – complete 3/2010 |
| Technology | 2010/11 |
| World Languages | 2010/11 |
| Guidance | 2010/11 |
| Media | 2010/11 |
| Mathematics | 2010/11 |
Approved: Smithfield School Committee, September 2009