R-I teachers work together to develop curriculum

Poplar Bluff R-I teachers develop their own curriculum in teams, in an effort administrators believe keeps the information they teach students as current as possible.

The district spent around $652,300 in 2019 on textbooks, digital resources and other areas, such as supplies, according to board documents. These products supplement the curriculum teachers develop.

“I will tell you that we get better and better with curriculum every year,” said Patty Robertson, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. “Teachers get better with writing curriculum, writing assessments, understanding the standard and trying strategies to teach the standards.”

Robertson said it takes time for a teacher to get good at developing curriculum.

She credited the professional learning communities, organized on each campus, with helping teachers stay in tune with state standards.

Also, through these groups, the teachers can discuss with each other strategies that aren’t working and brainstorm fresh ways to approach a topic, Robertson continued.

Previously, Robertson said, a committee picked the right curriculum, and it seemed like it wouldn’t get used.

“It really wasn’t worth the time to make it because it was not usable by teachers,” she said.

Now, teachers create the curriculum and store it online in their Google Drive, which can be shared with others.

The challenge with that method, Robertson said, is it becomes hard to keep things organized. That is still a work in progress.

“What happens is a teacher retired, they leave the district and unless they move the ownership (of the documents) to a new teacher, we lose all those documents,” she said. “It kind of feels like it’s chaotic. We’re trying to figure out how we keep them in an organized fashion.”

Teachers normally are good about passing along documents to another teacher before they leave, Robertson said, but the district still would like to have a better long-term storage system.

The concern with buying curriculum, Robertson said, is it can become outdated quickly, and teachers weren’t liking it.

The district has programs that help teachers with developing curriculum and will purchase textbooks if a teacher asks for them.

“By and large, people don’t even ask for textbooks so much anymore because they know they can create, if we give them the time to do it, something better than we can purchase,” Robertson said. “It happens time and time again.”

While teachers work with others in the same grade, they also communicate with those in the grades above and below them to address transition for students.

Robertson said the district is doing well with horizontal communication within the same grade, but is working on increasing vertical communication between grades.

“It’s just the distance and time it takes,” she said. “Technology should fill that. They can see the standards; they can see the information. That dialogue, we struggle with because there never seems to be enough time.”

Some departments are stronger in that area than others, she continued.

Dr. Scott Dill, superintendent, said that was one area being focused on during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Teachers, he said, were discussing things among themselves in an effort to address the time students missed in school.