Rigorous Curriculum as defined in Rigorous Curriculum Design

"A rigorous curriculum is an inclusive set of intentionally aligned components--clear learning outcomes with matching assessments, engaging learning experiences, and instructional strategies--organized into sequenced units of study that serve as both the detailed road map and the high-quality delivery system for ensuring that all students achieve the desired end: the attainment of their designated grade- or course-specific standards within a particular content area."

Additional Definitions

"A rigorous curriculum must keep students at the center of the its design."

"The high-quality delivery system for ensuring that all students achieve the desired end--the attainment of their designated grade- or course-specific standards."

"...the intentional alignment between standards, instruction, and assessment."

"...the intentional inclusion of and alignment between all necessary components within that curriculum."

"To design a comprehensive curriculum that intentionally aligns standards, formal and informal assessment, engaging student learning experiences, related instruction that includes a variety of strategies, higher-order thinking skills, 21st-century life skills, data analysis, and so on, is to indeed design a rigorous curriculum."

"A rigorous curriculum must remain flexible, adaptable to the diverse and continuously changing learning needs of all the students it serves."

BPS Curriculum Mapping Process - Rigorous Curriculum Design

Beatrice Public Schools - Curriculum Website

Step 1: Prioritze and Unwrap the Standards

    Prioritize and vertically align from grade to grade and course to course the academic content standards or learning outcomes.

Step 2: Name the Units of Study

    Identify the specific units of study for each grade level and course. 

Step 3: Assign Priority Standards and Supporting Standards

    Assign Priority Standards and supporting standards to each unit of study, taking into account "learning progressions" -- those building blocks of concepts and skills that students need to learn before they can learn other ones.

    Confirm that every priority standard is assigned to one or more Units of Study.

Step 4: Prepare a Pacing Calendar

    Create a curriculum pacing calendar for implementing the units of study to ensure that all Priority Standards are taught, assessed, retaught, and reassessed throughout the school year.

Step 5: Decide Big Ideas (Enduring Understandings) and Essential Questions

    Decide the foundational understandings derived from the "unwrapped" concepts and skills for that unit of study. Write essential questions that will engage students to discover for themselves the related Big Ideas.

Step 6: Develop Learning Goals and Scales

    For each priority, develop the learning goals and scales defining the skills and vocabulary necessary to reach proficiency for each priority standard.

Step 7: Create the End-of-Unit Assessment

    Create the end-of-unit assessment directly aligned to the "unwrapped" Priority Standards.

Step 8: Create the Unit Pre-Assessment

    Create the pre-assessment aligned or "mirrored" to the post-assessment.

Step 9: Plan Engaging Learning Experiences

    Design meaningful learning activities directly based upon the "unwrapped" concepts and skills and representative of additional vocabulary terms, interdisciplinary connections, and 21st-century learning skills.  Ensure writing and text-dependent activities are included in the engaging learning experiences.

Step 10: Gather Resource Materials and Select High-Impact Instructional Strategies

    Gather print materials and seek out technology resources that support the planned learning experiences for the unit. Also, select high-impact instructional strategies to use during instruction and related learning activities with the whole class, with small groups, and with individual students that have specific learning needs.

Step 11: Implement and Monitor

    Implement the units of study according to the pacing calendar. During implementation, evaluate student pre-assessment, formative and progress-monitoring measures, and end-of-unit assessment. 

Step 12: Adjust the Unit of Instruction

After the unit, reflect and adjust the unit to continue to build a stronger unit.

Course Design Template