Curriculum as a Dinner Party: Selection Sets the Table, Implementation is Everything Else

As the school year starts and numerous middle and high schools are using newly purchased curriculum, it is worth pausing for a moment to consider how curriculum implementation is like a dinner party. I love a good dinner party. From a casual pot-luck with friends in the backyard to a fancy dinner that uses my grandmother’s plates, gathering with good friends over food never disappoints. And just like a good dinner party, implementing curriculum starts with a selection process. All the work to create and select high-quality curricula is akin to selecting a menu and setting the table for your dinner party. The work to implement those curricular materials is everything that comes after - the food preparation and cooking, guests arriving, the serving of courses, and so on. In both cases - the excellent dinner party or successful curricular materials implementation - intentional planning and on-going work are required. For many middle and high school educators getting back to work in districts that have set the table with the newly adopted materials, the question is what might be done next to ensure a successful dinner party? 

The ways in which middle and high schools, districts, and states answer this question are incredibly varied. On one side of the spectrum are those with multi-year implementation plans that include significant support and strategic planning. I have been part of these projects and they are excellent - they give educators and students the time, space, and support to learn new content and routines in  rich curricular materials. And while we see more evidence of the adoption of high-quality curriculum, such careful plans are not yet the norm. More common are districts who adopt new materials for middle and high school but do little implementation support; after setting the table there is very little time dedicated to cooking, greeting guests, or serving food. As an example: I was working in a midwestern high school district  in mid-August (supporting their use of cross-content learning moves). They had recently adopted and ordered new ELA materials but had yet to provide the actual materials or any related professional leaning to teachers. Teachers were told they would get the materials during an all-day professional learning session the day before students arrived at school. This left very little time for any sort of deep intellectual preparation or lesson planning. Teachers were rightfully concerned that without more planning time they would not be able to prepare to use the materials well. And so most were (reasonably) gearing-up to use their old materials they knew well - novel studies, poetry lessons, and the like were being dusted off. It was these lessons they were bringing to our cross-content learning moves planning sessions - since they didn’t have access to the new materials they were applying their learning to last year’s lessons. I clearly saw the writing on the wall: the newly adopted ELA materials were not likely to be used consistently, well, or with any kind of success. A beautifully set table with no food or guests.  

If this latter example is anything like your district's curriculum implementation plan for new ELA, history-social studies, or science materials in your middle or high school, now is a good time to hit pause on the dinner party. Before the semester gets away from us, we can take stock and do some work to bridge the purchase of those new curricular materials to successful implementation. While this process is slightly different depending on your school context (teacher knowledge, student need, instructional time, professional learning supports, etc), there are three key moves that schools and districts can make to support teachers’ successful implementation of instructional materials: 

• Define Success 

• Engage in Regular Professional Learning 

• Provide Common Planning Time 

Define Success 

Be clear what successful implementation means for the instructional materials and identify priorities to meet these expectations. Success might mean implementation of 4 out of the 6 units in the ELA curriculum or it might mean ensuring students engage in 5 of the 7 required chemistry labs for the first semester. It could mean that each teacher commits to engaging in a specific set of curriculum-embedded historical inquiry instructional moves during the first quarter. Or it might look like all schools piloting just two units from the new ELA and Civics curriculum - perhaps the introductory unit and one other unit during the first semester of school. Whatever the success criteria is for the given curriculum, be clear about the agreement teachers are making. You can then identify what priorities need to be made by teachers, leaders, instructional coaches, and other stakeholders. You can order the lab materials, read the unit texts, create exemplar essay responses. With these success criteria and priorities in common, the work of educators becomes more clear and actionable across the school sites and the district. 

Engage in Regular Professional Learning 

The importance of professional learning to support the implementation of high-quality curriculum in middle and high schools is not a new idea. Six years ago we saw strong examples of curricular implementation that hinged on professional learning. Two years before that, the Aspen Institute provided guidance to tie professional learning directly to teacher’s work in classrooms with curriculum. The same lessons from then apply now: ensure all professional learning sessions for educators using the new curriculum are deeply rooted in the instructional materials themselves.  Consider providing regular learning time  - every two weeks? quarter? semester? Whatever the frequency, time spent learning should be apparently and immediately relevant to their work with the curriculum vis-a-vis their classrooms. This professional learning is key to ensuring teachers have the clear and regular opportunity to understand the content and construct of the adopted materials. Their time can and should be spent understanding core texts, investigating unit and lesson sequence, understanding and practicing key instructional moves, and creating common agreements about assessment performance. 

(And just to name it -  teachers of subjects that do not have a new curriculum should get professional learning relating to their content areas during this same time. In other words: history and science teachers should not be made to sit through ELA curriculum professional learning but instead use the same block of time to get support for teaching in their own content area.) 

Provide Common Planning Time 

An extension of this professional learning time is protected time for teachers to work together to plan for teaching with the adopted curriculum and debriefing how the units, lessons, and assessments went. This time must be protected for teachers so that they can dig-into the materials, support one another’s understanding, and investigate what is going well and what remains challenging. I’m not talking about collaboration on a Google Doc or ad-hoc 30 minutes during late-start mornings. I mean protected time - an hour or more each week at minimum for teachers to work together to co-plan, teach, and investigate lesson implementation. These groups might be constructed as professional learning communities, grade-level groups, content area groups - whatever is most meaningful for successful implementation of the given materials at the given school. Structures such as Inquiry Cycles or Japanese Lesson Study can be helpful frames for this common planning time. The regular time together to learn from the materials, one another, and student work can pay dividends on curricular investments. 

While teachers are the head chef in this curriculum implementation work, school leaders must act as partners and collaborators to the effort. I was in a school district on the east coast last spring who was doing a massive new curricular implementation and the teachers were drowning in all the complicated new materials. They saw the value in the materials and desperately wanted to use them but needed regular support to do so. When I asked what they needed, they shared that they wanted more time to learn the materials and plan together, someone to teach with them and give them feedback, and someone to ask technical questions about the structure of the materials. District and building leaders can supply all these needs - they can help define success, create schedules with common planning time, and protect professional learning time to focus on curriculum. Even better, administrators can act as instructional leaders by working alongside teachers. If you are a building leader with new instructional materials, consider model teaching a new biology lesson, observing the implementation of historical discussion lessons that were the focus of common planning, or provide actionable feedback on syntax lesson implementation. Above all, school leaders should listen to teachers; ask them what is needed and provide that support. Working together, we can keep expectations high and provide strategic and real support for teachers to meet those expectations. 

Finally, a reminder that curriculum implementation is a dinner party that will go on and on.  Learning new materials and trying to use them appropriately in middle and high school classrooms is hard work for teachers. We should not expect it all to go smoothly in this first year, but rather expect peaks and valleys of success and challenge. By focusing on the key moves listed above, educators can expect that improved literacy outcomes follow curricular implementation. 

If you’re interested in learning more about supporting successful literacy curriculum implementation in your middle or high school, let’s find time to chat and make sure your dinner party is a smashing success.