Social Studies Middle School Guide

Canyons School District

Instructional Supports Department

Comprehensive Administration of Credentials for Teachers in Utah Schools (CACTUS) is a database housed at the Utah State Board of Education containing Utah teacher credential information Canvas is a LMS, Learning Management System, (i.e. a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of online learning). Canvas was selected as the LMS for Canyons District because of its ability to increase collaboration among students, teachers, and parents, along with its extensive use in Utah institutes of higher learning Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is a brief standardized measurement procedure designed to ascertain a student’s overall academic performance in a basic subject area: e.g. reading, spelling, or writing. CBMs were designed to help teachers monitor academic growth over time, so that instruction could be modifed and learning rates accelerated Common Formative Assessments (CFAs) are assessments typically created collaboratively by a team of teachers responsible for the same grade level or course, in order to improve instruction with a specifc group of students. Common formative assessments are frequently administered throughout the year to identify ● Individual students who need additional time and support for learning ● The teaching strategies most effective in helping students acquire the intended knowledge and skills ● Program concerns – areas in which students generally are having diffculty achieving the intended standard, and ● Improvement goals for individual teachers and the team *Dufour (2004). Learning by Doing, p. 214. Clever is a Single Sign-On tool used to log in to digital devices and programs. CSDDocs is the Canyons School Districts’ portal to access Google’s G Suite for Education productivity tools for collaboration. Teachers and district employees access CSDDocs by going to http://csddocs.org Canyons Teacher Effectiveness Support System (CTESS) is Canyons School District’s teacher evaluation system that includes documentation of student growth, evidence of instructional quality, and response to stakeholder input (complies with Senate Bill 64) Canyons Teacher Support Academy (CTSA) is for First Year and New To Canyons Teachers. Includes four sessions to assist teachers in being successful with the CTESS process Dual Language Immersion (DLI) is designed to build academic fuency in both English and a second language. Utah’s DLI program promotes a ffty-ffty model, in which students spend half of their school day in the target language and the other half-day in English. Canyons’ offers a DLI program in Kindergarten through 12th grade with the goal of bilingualism and biliteracy Depth of Knowledge (DOK) refers to the complexity of mental processing that must occur for a student to answer a question, perform a task, or generate a product. A greater DOK level requires greater conceptual understanding and cognitive processing. Utah’s formal Digital Teaching and Learning (DTL) initiative began in 2012 with the collaborative efforts of local school systems, the Utah State Board of Education, the Utah

CACTUS

Canvas

CBM

CFA

Clever

CSDDocs

CTESS

CTSA

DLI

DOK

DTL