Content Standards Curriculum

The Archdiocese of San Francisco curriculum includes rigorous standards that serve as a foundation when designing instruction for the students in our schools.  The progression of learning for every student to meet and exceed these standards is provided by the ADSF Proficiency Scales.  The proficiency scales provide clarity and calibration of high expectations for every student/child, are based on prioritized critical concepts, knowledge, and skills that serve as building blocks for current and future learning, and serve as the guaranteed curriculum. Proficiency scales combine overlapping and repetitive standards in an efficient and clear manner providing educators, students, and parents with a clear and consistent visible curriculum. 

ADSF Essential Standards and Proficiency Scales

ADSF Prioritized Standards ELA
ADSF Prioritized Standards Math
Overview of ADSF Catholic Standards

Proficiency Scales

K-2 Standards

3-5 Standards 

6-8 Standards

ELA Resources

Math Resources

Instruction in the Archdiocese of San Francisco is engaging and motivating, addressing the diverse needs and capabilities of each student. ADSF educators demonstrate an understanding of high-impact research-based instructional strategies and how students progress through the curriculum.  College and Career Readiness instruction includes creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking through the use of technology, tools, and a variety of materials. Educators are adaptive and respond in the moment, with in-depth knowledge and skills of their content. Faculties collaborate to continuously develop, implement and improve the effectiveness of the curriculum and instruction resulting in high levels of student achievement. Professional learning is embraced to improve learner outcomes and meet the challenges of a diverse, globalized, high-tech, and rapidly changing world.

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”   Margaret Mead

For learners to thrive in the 21st century, they must be able to share their thinking in the most accessible way for  ‘active engagement ’ with others.

Thinking Routines (Project Zero-Harvard)

A thinking routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking. 

EduProtocols

 “EduProtocols are instructional lesson frames that are designed to engage students in learning through critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. EduProtocols can be used with any subject, any grade level.”

A Teacher’s Guide to Visible Thinking Activities

For many students, the thinking behind answers and how other students and teachers reach conclusions is ‘invisible’. By making thinking ‘visible’ students are let into the ‘secret’ of learning by seeing teachers and peers explain their thinking and reasoning.

Blended Learning

Blended learning is the combination of active, engaged learning online combined with active, engaged learning offline to provide students with more control over the time, place, pace, and path of their learning. 

- Catlin Tucker

Archdiocese of San Francisco Academic Excellence Goals and Pathways

(click button above to access the Educator Pathway webpage

Visible Learning

The world's largest evidence base on what works best in schools to accelerate student learning

John Hattie of the University of Melbourne, Australia, has long researched performance indicators and evaluation in education. His research, Visible Learning, is the culmination of more than 25 years of examining and synthesizing more than 1,700 meta-analyses comprising more than 100,000 studies involving 300 million students around the world.

Hattie wanted to understand which variables were the most important. Although “almost everything we do improves learning,” why not prioritize the ones that will have the greatest effect?

Hattie set about calculating a score or “effect size” for each, according to its bearing on student learning and taking into account such aspects as its cost to implement. The average effect size was 0.4, a marker that represented a year’s growth per year of schooling for a student. Anything above 0.4 would have a greater positive effect on student learning.

Together with John Hattie, Corwin's Visible Learning+ professional learning enables schools and districts around the world to effectively implement the core findings of John Hattie's research. Explore the Visible Learning MetaX website.