District Curriculum

chart School District of Prairie Farm Rigor and Relevance

School District of Prairie Farm Rigor/Relevance Framework

The Rigor/Relevance Framework is a tool developed by staff of the International Center for Leadership in Education to examine curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The Rigor/Relevance Framework is based on two dimensions of higher standards and student achievement.

First, there is the Knowledge Taxonomy, a continuum based on the six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, which describes the increasingly complex ways in which we think. The low end involves acquiring knowledge and being able to recall or locate that knowledge. The high end labels the more complex ways in which individuals use knowledge, such as taking several pieces of knowledge and combining them in both logical and creative ways.

The second continuum, known as the Application Model, is one of action. Its five levels describe putting knowledge to use. While the low end is knowledge acquired for its own sake, the high end signifies use of that knowledge to solve complex real-world problems and to create unique projects, designs, and other works for use in real-world situations. 

The Rigor/Relevance Framework is easy to understand. With its simple, straightforward structure, it can serve as a bridge between school and the community. It offers a common language with which to express the notion of a more rigorous and relevant curriculum.

The Rigor/Relevance Framework is versatile; it can be used in the development of instruction and assessment. Likewise, teachers can use it to measure their progress in adding rigor and relevance to instruction and to select appropriate instructional strategies to meet learner needs and higher achievement goals.

The Rigor/Relevance Framework has four quadrants. Each is labeled with a term that characterizes the learning or student performance at that level.

The Daggett System for Effective Instruction provides a coherent focus across the entire education organization on the development and support of instructional effectiveness to improve student achievement.

Organizational Leadership

  • Create a culture
  • Establish a shared vision
  • Align organizational structures and systems to vision
  • Build leadership capacity
  • Align teacher/administrator selection, support, and evaluation
  • Support decision making with data system

Instructional Leadership

  • Use research to establish urgency for higher expectations
  • Align curriculum to standards
  • Integrate literacy and math across all content areas
  • Facilitate data-driven decision making to inform instruction
  • Provide opportunities for focused professional collaboration and growth

Teaching

  • Embrace rigorous and relevant expectations for all students
  • Build strong relationship with students
  • Possess depth of content knowledge and make it relevant to students
  • Facilitate rigorous and relevant instruction based on how students learn
  • Use assessments to guide and differentiate instruction
  • Demonstrate expertise in use of instructional strategies, technology, and best practices