Course articulation
In a well-articulated, standards-based system, subject-area teachers from a range of grade spans meet several times a year to discuss textbooks, pacing schedules, common assessments, and the standards to ensure that students progress in standards-based knowledge from one grade level to the next.
To ensure cross-grade articulation, professionals at all levels of the district play a role:
- The superintendent and school board expect and encourage articulation by providing regularly scheduled district days for content specialists to compare textbook choices, develop benchmark tests, and map curriculum.
- Principals meet on a regular basis to coordinate articulation activities among school staff members and between schools.
- Middle grades teachers from content teams (departments) meet with area elementary teachers in their field (and separately with high school content specialists) to ensure that texts and curriculum planning prepare students to move from one level to the next. Ideally, these meetings occur once or twice each year.
- Counselors from area schools meet to plan articulation activities that will help prepare students for the transition to the next grade level.
- Subject-matter teachers throughout the district work together to develop and score standard-based benchmark assessments. Working in collaborative teams, the teachers score sample student work from below and above their own grade level to familiarize them with the expectations for course work at adjoining grade levels. They become more aware of student weaknesses and foundational skills that need to be built for student success the following year.
- Teachers and counselors from the middle school meet with elementary teachers to administer and review the results of end-of-year assessments that assist them in placing students in summer bridge classes and English language development (ELD), reading, and mathematic classes.
- The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Program, and The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), provide teacher training to help fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade teachers prepare their students for transitions to the middle grades.
In the Spotlight
Kennedy Middle School, El Centro Elementary School District, a 2005 Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage Model School
To ensure articulation with elementary schools, Kennedy provides GEAR UP, grant funds to the feeder schools to help coordinate the upper elementary curriculum with middle grades expectations. In the articulation meetings, teachers discuss common expectations in science and math.
Rio Norte Junior High School, William S. Hart Union High School District
Sixth-grade teachers from feeder elementary schools are invited to the Rio Norte campus to meet with middle grades teachers by department at least once each year. Teachers from the sixth grade have refreshments provided by the Rio Norte Parent Teacher Student Association and discuss articulation issues about course content and how to prepare students to succeed in middle school.
Kennedy DataQuest School Profile
Kennedy Middle School (Outside Source)
Schools to Watch™-Taking Center StageVisitor's Guide: Kennedy Middle School (PDF; Outside Source)
Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage
Rio Norte DataQuest School Profile
Rio Norte Junior High School (Outside Source)
In a 2007 report on best practices in middle schools, Springboard Schools, a nonprofit network, studied what it called HP2 schools—those that are both high performing and high poverty.1 Springboard found that both average- and high-performing middle schools are working to align curriculum and instruction in the following ways:
- With standards
- Between classrooms
- From grade level to grade level
- With feeder and destination schools
- Between English language arts and ELD
Some of the high performers extended the goal of alignment beyond curriculum to include the schoolwide use of common instructional strategies.
Related Links
Previous
Articulation Agreements with Elementary Schools
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Academic counseling to prepare for transitions
Footnote
1Balancing Act: Best Practices in the Middle Grades (PDF; Outside Source), (Executive Summary). San Francisco: Springboard Schools, Spring 2007, 3.
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