Curriculum & Standards
These documents outline what students should know and be able to do in a specific subject by the end of a grade band or level in Wisconsin.
What are the Wisconsin Academic Standards?
This is a proactive teaching framework where educators tailor their curriculum, methods, and assessments to fit individual student needs.
What is Differentiated Instruction?
Unlike a final exam, this type of quick, ongoing check is used during the learning process to adjust instruction and provide immediate student feedback.
What is a formative assessment?
This type of assessment occurs at the end of a unit, semester, or school year to measure total accumulated student learning.
What is a summative assessment?
This collaborative group of educators meets regularly to analyze student data, share instructional strategies, and improve their teaching practices.
What is a PLC (Professional Learning Community)?
This term describes the logical, sequential order in which learning targets and content are taught across a school year or multiple grade levels.
What is a sequence? (Accept "Scope and Sequence")
This three-tiered structural framework guides Wisconsin districts in providing both academic and behavioral support to meet the needs of the whole child.
What is RTI (Response to Intervention), or MLSS (Multi-Level System of Support)?
This specific, actionable piece of information tells a student exactly where they are succeeding in and what specific step they need to take next to hit a target. A teacher will give this to a student.
What is feedback?
This grading practice separates a student’s academic mastery of a standard from behavioral factors like turning work in late or good behavior.
What is Standards-Based Grading?
Under the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness (EE) model, teachers set these specific academic goals for student growth at the start of every school year.
What are SLOs (Student Learning Outcomes)?
When a district reviews curriculum to ensure that classroom instruction directly matches state-adopted standards without gaps or overlaps, they are performing this process.
What is curriculum mapping or aligning standards.
This design framework asks teachers to start by identifying the desired end results of a unit before planning specific daily learning activities or choosing materials.
What is Backward Design
Whiteboards, "fist-to-five," and exit tickets are all examples of these quick, low-stakes strategies used mid-lesson to see if the class is ready to move on.
What are checks for understanding, or quick checks?
This scoring guide uses explicit criteria to evaluate student performance across different levels of quality, ensuring grading is fair and transparent.
What is a rubric?
When looking at student assessment scores, teachers look at "demographic breakdowns" (like race, socioeconomic status, or disability) to identify and close these.
What are achievement gaps?
This tier of curriculum represents the core instruction and high-quality universal practices that all students receive.
What is Tier 1 instruction?
This pedagogical model shifts responsibility from total teacher support to total student independence using the phrase "I do, We do, You do."
What is the Gradual Release of Responsibility?
This practice involves students evaluating their own work against a clear rubric to identify their own strengths and areas for growth.
What is self-assessment?
This state-mandated assessment suite is given annually to Wisconsin students in grades 3 through 8 and 10 to measure proficiency in English Language Arts and Mathematics.
What is the Forward Exam?
This specific Wisconsin Administrative Standard requires school leaders and teachers to collaboratively manage a system that ensures equity, continuous improvement, and rigorous academic expectations for all students.
What is Wisconsin Administrative Standard 2 (or the Instruction/Curriculum standard)?
This process involves breaking down a broad academic standard into smaller, highly specific learning targets that students can achieve in a single lesson.
What is deconstructing (or unpacking) a standard?
Under Wisconsin’s Act 20 literacy legislation, schools are required to transition away from "three-cueing" systems and instead utilize this evidence-based instructional approach anchored in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.
What is the Science of Reading?
Formative assessment is considered a process rather than a static tool because its primary purpose is to do this for the teacher's next steps.
What is inform (or adjust) instruction?
This term describes an assessment that requires students to apply their knowledge to a real-world task or create a tangible product, rather than taking a multiple-choice test.
What is a performance-based (or authentic) assessment?
This type of systematic review uses local benchmark assessments, behavior reports, and attendance records to identify students who may need immediate academic or emotional intervention.
What is a data screening (or universal screening)?