Curriculum Compacting

1. Curriculum Compacting Finding the Time! Meeting the Needs of High Ability Students Presented at OCCGATE Fall 2012

2. What is Curriculum Compacting?

3. Definition: • Curriculum compacting is a procedure used to streamline the regular curriculum for students who are capable of mastering it at a faster pace. • The compacting process has three basic phases: • Determine the goals and objectives of the regular curriculum. • Assess students for previous mastery of these objectives. • Substitute more appropriate (challenging) options.

4. Why compact curriculum?

5. Rationale – Reason One • Students already know most of their text’s content before “learning it”. • Taylor and Frye (1988) found that 78-88% of fifth and sixth-grade average readers could pass pretests on basal comprehension skills. • Flanders (1987) found that students in grades two to five encounter approximately 40-65% new content.

6. Rationale – Reason Two • Textbooks have been “dumbed down”. • Decreased vocabulary • Simplification of vocabulary • Narrowed range of reading ability • Sentence structure simplified • Adjectives and other describers are limited

7. Rationale – Reason Three • The quality of textbooks has failed to improve. • A Nation at Risk (1983) recommended that (textbooks) and other tools of learning and teaching be upgraded to assure more rigorous content. • Chall and Conrad (1991) indicate that readability levels did not change in any appreciable way. • Tyson-Berstein (1988) state “editors are increasingly organizing elementary reading series around the content and timing of standardized tests.”

8. rationale – Reason four • The needs of high-ability students are not often met in classrooms. • The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented – “The Classroom Practices Observation Study” (1992) • Little differentiation in instructional and curricular practices including grouping arrangements and verbal interactions. • Gifted students received homogenous grouping only 21% of the time. • GATE or high-ability students experienced no instructional or curricular differentiation in 84% of the instructional activities in which they participated.

9. Rationale – Reason Five • Compacting provides time for more challenging learning experiences. • Pursuit of independent studies • Reading self-selected materials • Other replacement options

10. Rationale – Reason Six • The pace of instruction and practice time can be modified. • Elementary classroom teachers can eliminate as much as 40-50% of the basal regular curriculum for high-ability students. • For gifted learners, that percentage may be as high as 70-80%. • Middle school students can compact out up to 50% of core curriculum.

11. Rationale – Reason seven • Compacting guarantees educational accountability. • Not all high-ability and gifted learners will know it all. • When compacting curriculum, teachers can document the student’s strengths and teach missed concepts commensurate with student ability.

12. How to compact curriculum

13. How to – Step One • Identify the relevant learning objectives in a given subject area or grade level. • California Department of Education – Grade Level Standards • Common Core Standards • District pacing guides • Teacher’s manuals • Curriculum specialists

14. How to – step two • Find or develop some means of pretesting students on one or more of these objectives prior to instruction. • District assessments • Adopted curriculum assessments • Chapter tests • Unit tests • Beginning of the Year/End of Year assessments • OARS – Online Assessment Reporting System

15. How to – step three • Identify students who may benefit from curriculum compacting and should be pretested. • GATE identification list • GATE folder list/merit list • STAR data • Teacher recommendation

16. How To – step four • Pretest students to determine their mastery levels of the chosen objectives. • Determine as a grade level or site what constitutes mastery. • Determine what students will participate in extension activities or enrichment projects. • Determine what students need to have small group instruction for missed concept(s).

17. how to – Step five • Eliminate practice, drill, or instructional time for students who have demonstrated prior mastery of these objectives. • Students “buy time” to work on extension activity or enrichment project. • Differentiate assignments based on student need.

18. How to – step six • Streamline instruction of those objectives students have not yet mastered but are capable of mastering more quickly than their classmates. • Small group instruction • Practice worksheets • Computer software/on-line resources • Cooperative learning • Peer tutoring

19. How To – Step Seven • Offer enrichment or acceleration options for students whose curriculum has been compacted.

20. enrichment options • Classroom Activities: • Independent or small group study • Escalated coverage of curriculum • Special interest groups • “Interest-A-Lyzer” – Joe Renzulli • “My Way” – Joe Renzulli • “If I Ran the School” – Sally Reis and Del Siegle • Lessons to further cognitive and affective processes • Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) – Type II Process Skills

21. how to – step eight • Keep records of this process and the instructional options available to “compacted” students. • Personalized Education Plan (PEP) • Report card • “The Compactor” – Individual Educational Programming Guide

22. The compactor - Example

23. Where to Start?

24. Recommendations: • Start small – choose a small group of students for whom compacting would be appropriate. • Select one area – choose one curricular area in which the targeted group has shown considerable mastery and that you have appropriate enrichment materials. • Experiment with pretesting – find a method compatible with the curriculum, the students, and you.

25. recommendations: • Compact by topic – compact for a unit, chapter, or topic rather than a grading period. • Decide how to document – determine at the site how a child’s progress will be documented and define proficiency based on site consensus and district policy. • Find a wide variety of alternatives – find and create a wide range of enrichment opportunities to replace content that will be eliminated through compacting.

26. Final recommendation: • Keep experimenting – try new ideas, reflect upon success, and modify as needed.

27. Student Sample Comic Book

28. Student Sample Bridge

29. Resources: • Curriculum Compacting: The Complete Guide to Modifying the Regular Curriculum for High Ability Students • Sally Reis, Deborah Burns, Joseph Renzulli • Independent Study • Sandra Kapan and Bette Gould • The Parallel Curriculum: A Design to Develop Learner Potential and Challenge Advanced Learners • Carol Ann Tomlinson, Sandra Kaplan, Joseph Renzulli, Jeanne Purcell, Jann Leppien, Deborah Burns, Cindy Strickland, Marcia Imbeau

30. Resources • Type II Processing Skills • www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/typeiips.html • My Way (Expression Style Inventory) • www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/pdf/myway.pdf • The Compactor (Documentation of Services) • www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/curriculumcompacting/SEC-IMAG/compactor.pdf

31. Resources • Interest-a-lyzer (Small group or independent project survey – upper elementary) • http://enrichmenttriadmodel.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/4/7/7647438/the_interest-a-lyzer.pdf • If I Ran the School (Small group or independent project survey – primary) • http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/curriculumcompacting/SEC-IMAG/ranschol.pdf

32. Good Luck and good teaching! Krisa Muller Woodsboro Elementary Placentia-Yorba Linda School District kmuller@pylusd.org