Step-by-Step Vertical Alignment

Vertical alignment – let’s discuss how to vertically align curriculum in a professional learning community.

VERTICAL ALIGNMENT FIRSTHAND

It was the beginning of my second year of teaching and my first year in sixth grade.  I clearly remember thinking, “I should do a warm up to practice division so I can see where they are at.”  Well, what I thought would be a quick warm up turned into a great lesson for me in vertical alignment, when a student shared that the answer was “six remainder five.”  

Why are my sixth graders using remainders?   

Well, apparently eleven year-olds still use remainders.

You see, the year prior I had taught seventh grade, and students were required to multiply and divide decimals, so it only seemed natural that a student would know to add a decimal and zero in the event the quotient didn’t divide evenly.  My lack of experience with the curriculum meant I had to scrap the current lesson and come up with a lesson on division on the fly.

Lesson: I needed to have more context of what my students had learned in 5th grade. 

WHAT IS VERTICAL ALIGNMENT?

According to Dr. Jason Perez, “Vertical alignment is the process of organizing curriculum from one grade level or content area to the next.”

The standards are a great place to begin, though not flawless.  Vertical alignment includes combing through the standards to determine what a student already knows and what they need to know at the end of the year.  This ensures that you are adequately prepared to introduce the concept based on what students are already familiar with and that you have taught the full extent of the standard to prepare them for the next year.

Additionally, I would suggest that it also includes a bit more discussion amongst your team and department.  How will you teach long division?  Will students be taught partial quotients the year prior?  Are you familiar with partial quotients so that you can connect that to the standard algorithm?  These types of questions can be applied across the board with many different skills: fraction operations, order of operations, proportional relationships, slope, etc.

WHY IS VERTICAL ALIGNMENT IMPORTANT?

Vertical alignment is important because math is constantly building on itself. Content and skills from 5th grade are still needed in 6th grade, content and skills from 6th grade are still needed in 7th grade… There are very few skills that are isolated to a single grade level. Therefore, teachers must be familiar not only with their grade level’s content and skills but with the content and skills of the previous grade level.

More importantly, though, your students are going to be more successful!  They are going to be prepared to move seamlessly (okay, maybe not seamless) from one grade level to the next.  There will be fewer gaps in the curriculum and students will be able to see how the content continues to build.

I also think that the time and work required to vertically align the curriculum is valuable in team building and really working together as a PLC (professional learning community).  I think it opens up the doors for collaboration, which is good for students and teachers.

 IDEAS FOR VERTICALLY ALIGNING CURRICULUM

1.  Set aside a chunk of time

If your curriculum is lacking in this area or if you have a large department, then you really should expect this to take a while.  Do not attempt to accomplish this within a single PLC meeting. (Tips for doing this below)  I would suggest a half day to get started.  Some principals have professional development dollars to hire subs or perhaps you could use a staff development day to accomplish this.  

2.  Don’t start from square one

There are already great resources so that you are not starting from zero.  If you use Maneuvering the Middle Curriculum, there is a small vertical alignment component within each unit overview.  

If you want to see the bigger picture, you can always use these tools:

• CCSS Coherence Map
• 5th –  Algebra 1 TEKS Vertical Alignment

This will give you a great starting point so that you can see the grouping of content.

WHAT IS MANEUVERING THE MIDDLE?

If you find this blog post helpful, consider checking out more of our resources! At Maneuvering the Middle, we design and develop standards-based math resources for grades 5 – Algebra 1.  Our curriculum provides high quality, engaging resources for students and provides teachers with planning resources and plenty of training. 

• All Access: standards-based, on-level curricula available for grades 5 – Algebra 1 
• Maneuvering Math: a skill-based intervention program for middle school math students

3.  Attack each unit one at a time

Now that the standards have been grouped into like content or a unit, then this is where the fun comes in.  Discuss within collaboration what students are responsible for at that grade level.  A fun way to do this is to have each grade level summarize the content and then share out.  Use a timer to keep everyone on track and moving through the content.  

4.  Jot ideas down on chart paper

Next, you might consider placing a piece of chart paper for each unit with the standards around the room.  Using various colored markers, teachers can jot down the different ways they teach content.  This gives a very non-threatening way to share ideas, which can be discussed as time allows.  It keeps one person from dominating the conversation and keeps everyone on task.  A facilitator could then share out, and if clarification is needed, a specific team member could contribute more details.

5.  Build on it each year

Remember that this doesn’t have to be perfect to help everyone to feel accomplished and to take steps in the right direction without feeling overwhelmed.  

This process will not only improve the vertical alignment on your campus, but it will also provide a time to sharpen content knowledge in a collaborative environment.

If you do only have the time of a single PLC, take turns sharing what everyone was either currently teaching or what is upcoming. Then have the teacher(s) from the previous grade share any insight they might have. Question examples include:

• How did students perform on related skills? Were they approaching, proficient, or masters?
• Would students need to spend an entire lesson to review or would a warm-up question be sufficient?
• What techniques or strategies were successful? (Ask yourself if your grade level’s content can use the same strategies.) Ms. Henry was a literal angel and always had great ways for students to organize their thinking. Her method to teach adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators was revolutionary. 

How does your campus ensure your curriculum is vertically aligned?  What benefits do you see from vertical alignment?

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Maneuvering the Middle has been publishing blog posts for ten years. This post was previous published in 2015. It has been updated for relevancy and accuracy.