Mascoma has 3 district-wide CIA groups which are all in various stages in the Curriculum Review Cycle. English Language Arts (ELA), Social Studies and Science CIA groups are working hard to improve our instructional practices, curriculum and assessment scores.

Here is a quick overview of our ELA action plan:

• 2024-2025: review possible K-8 ELA comprehensive programs; continue professional development and curriculum work (scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment); budget for possible program pilots; plan summer of 2025 professional development.
• 2025-2026: pilot K-8 ELA comprehensive programs; continue professional development and curriculum work (scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment); budget for possible program change/implementation; plan summer of 2026 professional development.

Here is a quick overview of our Social Studies action plan:

• 2024-2025: update scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment; budget for possible program pilots; plan summer of 2025 professional development
• 2025-2026: review possible K-8 social studies comprehensive programs; continue professional development and curriculum work (scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment); budget for possible program pilots; plan summer of 2026 professional development.
• 2026-2027: pilot K-8 social studies comprehensive programs; continue professional development and curriculum work (scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment); budget for possible program change/implementation; plan summer of 2027 professional development.

Here is a quick overview of our Science action plan:

• 2024-2025: review student learning data; research best practices and developments in science; establish areas of improvement; select new materials/equipment; plan summer of 2025 professional development.
• 2025-2026: update scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment; budget for possible program pilots; plan summer of 2026 professional development
• 2026-2027: review possible K-8 science comprehensive programs; continue professional development and curriculum work (scope & sequence, competency grading & alignment); budget for possible program pilots; plan summer of 2027 professional development.

Pop into one of our MCIA monthly meetings!

ELA - Second Monday of the Month

1/13/25, 2/10/25, 3/10/25, 4/7/25*, 5/12/25, 6/9/25

SOCIAL STUDIES - Second Wednesday of the Month

1/15/25, 2/12/25, 3/12/25, 4/9/25, 5/14/25, 6/11/25

SCIENCE- Third Tuesday of the Month

1/21/2025, 2/25/2025*, 3/18/2025, 4/22/2025*, 5/20/2025

* Meeting Date changed due to holiday, vacation or conferences.

Have project coming up and need to use a specific website? Fill out the Google Form below to get the process started! Don't wait until the project has started to find out the website is blocked. All websites, web apps, and educational software are subject to App Vetting.

Brief overview of the process:

1. Teachers submit a request for App Vetting via Google Form

2. Principals review the request; approve or do not approve the request

3. CIA and IT Directors review the request; approve or do not approve the request

4. If the app requested has not been approved by the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), then a request is made to them. This part of the process can take months and I mean months to get approved or not get approved.

5. If the app requested gets denied by the SDPC, the app cannot be used!

Please remember this process takes time for everyone to do their due diligence. We appreciate your patience while we work through this process.

Want to know more about App Vetting? Check out the video from our mandatory trainings.

• NH CIVICS has partnered with NHED to share resources with educators via NHED’s Canvas platform. Using the public NH Civics course on Canvas, educators can stay updated on upcoming professional development, public events, in-class programs for students, the NH Civic Learning Coalition and more.
• Keene State College, Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies: We believe that Holocaust and Genocide Education has much to contribute to civics education. Although this is difficult and traumatic material, we teach to ensure consistent engagement with the pressing questions of individual and group responsibility towards the other. By exploring values, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and critical understanding of these complex issues and forces, we enable responsible civic engagement. As we remember, we seek to prevent genocide and crimes of mass atrocity by finding points of leverage, intervention, and empowerment.

• “Moose on the Loose” is a social studies curriculum for the State of New Hampshire. Created by the New Hampshire Historical Society, it explores the Granite State’s history, economics, geography, and civic life, introducing students to the state’s rich cultural heritage. The site was designed for kids in the upper elementary grades (Grades 3-6), but much of the material is adaptable for students in other grades. "Moose on the Loose" provides many ways for kids to connect what they learn about the past to current, statewide issues. It also provides a foundation for lifelong learning about New Hampshire, America, and the democratic traditions that unite us all. So dive in and find out more about the state we all love!
• Civics Fundamentals takes the one hundred questions asked by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on the naturalization test for U.S. citizenship and explores the “WHY?” to help the student discover their meaning and importance. We have created a two-minute video for each of the one hundred questions that can be turnkey lessons in civics education classes nationwide. Our goal is to move beyond the rote memorization of facts that dominates the current civics curriculum toward “inquiry-based instruction” that engages learners and is becoming more prevalent in education today. This video based product is available – at no cost to any educator or student – via online streaming.

This video shows how the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) may be used as a formative assessment — to determine students’ understanding of a concept or their knowledge of a topic. Educators can use the QFT to assess their students at the beginning of a unit, as seen in this video, in the middle of the unit, and toward the end of the unit.

There are other creative ways to use the QFT, including as a summative assessment (see: “Making Questions Flow” to read more about how to use student questions).

In this video, Lucy Canotas, a fourth-grade teacher in Manchester, New Hampshire, uses the QFT for formative assessment purposes. “I’m interested to see what they can bring as questions to make me understand where they’re still stuck or what they still don’t know,” she explains. To elicit students’ questions about fractions, she designed a visual Question Focus (QFocus). She found that using the students’ questions and work helped her better understand what they knew about this mathematical concept. This video shows each step of the QFT in an elementary-school classroom, and it shows how Canotas uses the QFT to collect information that helps her fine-tune lessons.

Math Running Record videos - There is an introduction video and then one for each operation where I interview students and explain how I coded the running record. Teachers can download the recording sheets from the site www.mathrunningrecords.com for free and practice while watching the videos.

Daily Routine Videos - There are separate videos for Kinder through 4th grade. All links to the daily routines shared are on my padlet: https://tinyurl.com/RecordElementaryMath

Teachable Courses - Teachers will go to the link and click in the upper right hand side of the site where it says "All products". They will then see all the courses I currently offer on the Teachable site- Cuisenaire Rods, Problem Solving K2, Fraction Essentials, and Place Value.

Please see the Mascoma Curriculum Google Classroom for the code.

• 🖍️ Kindergarten
• 📏 First Grade
• 🎲 Second Grade
• ⏲️ Third Grade
• 🧮 Fourth Grade
• ✏️ Fifth Grade
• 📐Sixth Grade
• 📊 Seventh Grade
• 📉 Eighth Grade

IM Professional Development slides by Jess Jacques

Working with Jess Jacques, the Merrimack Valley School District Math Coach, we have developed pacing guides based on Mascoma I Can Statements laying out the quarter by quarter plan for teaching the IM curriculum. Each document includes helpful suggestions and links.

Check out our Mascoma Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment Google Classroom for professional development materials, Grit materials & new videos, K-8 math pacing guides, scope and sequence documents, and more. 📚 📏 📖

Course Code: cshmptt

Need help with your Frontline PD? Attend your school's after school help sessions to help you with Frontline! See your PD building reps for more information. Remember, your PD reps are happy to help you when they are not teaching or working with students. Please be respectful of their time and attend after school help sessions.