Curriculum Tools
Curriculum is an integral aspect in the Galileo K-12 Online Instructional Improvement Cycle. The cycle’s three phases are goal-setting and planning, implementation, and evaluation. The cycle is a goal-driven process in which each cycle includes adjustments intended to further the goal of standards mastery. Galileo K-12 Online’s curriculum component empowers districts in many ways, including the following four key functions.
1. Accommodate existing curriculum and changing standards
Planning and management are made easy through Galileo K-12 Online.
- Link a district’s pacing calendar directly to the Galileo system.
- Use the Assessment Planner within Galileo K-12 Online to represent the district pacing calendar, thus making it possible to construct benchmark assessments that are customized to reflect a district’s curriculum.
- Enter curriculum materials such as lesson plans into the system or import existing documents. Incorporation of existing materials into the system makes it possible to integrate the implementation of the curriculum with the assessment information used to guide instruction. For example, formative assessments may be directly linked to the implementation of specific lesson plans.
- Link assignments to formative assessments and grades; making it easy for a teacher to track what has been learned after a lesson plan is implemented.
- Adapt to future changes in state standards by utilizing the items in the Galileo K-12 Online item banks that are remapped to the new standards.
2. Implement instructional resources to promote learning
ATI’s interactive, online Instructional Dialogs implement a full range of multimedia technology inspiring learning, and can:
- be constructed using new content and/or existing lesson plans.
- be copied or edited.
- be implemented as class lessons.
- contain imported multimedia resources.
- provide web links to instructional resources available on the Internet.
- be implemented as assignments involving independent learning activities linked to formative assessments.
- contain an optional quiz following instruction that does not contain feedback, and thus measures the degree of mastery for the materials presented.
- be linked together in Dialog Books, series of lessons and/or assignments aligned to a district’s curriculum.
- accommodate response-pad technology supporting active student participation in the instructional process.
ATI has constructed hundreds of Dialogs aligned to state standards and more Dialogs are added to ATI Dialog banks on a regular basis. Click here to view a sample dialog featuring a science lesson about acids and bases.
3. Promote the sharing of curriculum resources in a learning community
Sharing is supported in a variety of ways within Galileo K-12 Online, including:
- the library system, which makes it possible to construct and share resources among selected groups.
- the Professional Development Forum, which provides an opportunity for teachers to share ideas and plan for resource sharing.
- user-friendly technology. For example, a teacher may share a Dialog with others by clicking the share button at the time the Dialog is published.
4. Integrate assessment and curriculum in one instructional improvement system
The essential ingredient supporting the use of actionable information to promote learning is the integration of assessment and curriculum within Galileo K-12 Online and occurs in the system through:
- online planning, monitoring and reporting tools that help evaluate student learning and providing actionable information to administrators, teachers, parents and students to guide decisions designed to increase learning.
- risk assessment information being provided following a benchmark assessment that is linked directly to recommendations as to what should be taught in order to bring at-risk students on course to meet standards.
- teachers clicking on a recommended student expectation and the system displaying Dialogs that can be used to promote learning related to that expectation.
The close link that the Galileo K-12 Online Instructional Improvement System provides between what has been taught and what has been learned is not possible to attain when curriculum and assessment are not integrated components in one system.