No matter how promising a curriculum is in the design phase, seeing how it plays out across classrooms is essential to track, which is where we can leverage a curriculum feedback loop. There are three major considerations to make it more likely that the responses you get are valid.
1. Develop a balanced and conversational feedback tool.
Ask simple, clear prompts with the expectation of evidence. This should honor the reasonable difficulties staff encounter when making sense of something unfamiliar to implement. Ideally, the tool also is designed to promote collegial conversations about reasonable time frame, instructional practice, and student impact. Last month, the following curriculum feedback tool was drafted to clarify this was an expectation AND that the responses provided would be taken seriously for the following year.
2. Create a consistent timeframe for feedback.
Too frequently, it can become a wearisome, bureaucratic exercise. Too seldomly, it can become difficult to pinpoint minor issues along the way. The feedback tool shared here was designed to be completed weekly during PLC time.
3. Make this a priority across a range of stakeholders.
When there is significant investment in curriculum design and pedagogical practice, the perspectives of building administrators, instructional coaches, classroom teachers, and support staff help guide the collaborative review and refinement. In this tool, the curriculum team specified that the teacher lead or building administrator would document staff conversations.
I’m interested to hear more about how your school (district) balances common expectations with teacher flexibility:
- What feedback tools do you use to evaluate curriculum?
- What might be some ways you can reimagine feedback tools to grow teacher agency and ownership?
- What might be some ways you can continue to strengthen locally-designed curriculum?
Please leave a comment with your insights!
