Aligning Instruction to Standards
Pennsylvania's Curriculum Frameworks provides the structure needed to align the standards, with the instruction. The Curriculum Framework takes the clear, high standards that must be achieved and organizes them in a context that will enable teachers to create instruction that is aligned to the standards.
Pennsylvania has established a recommended Curriculum Framework at the state level. Regions, districts, schools and individual classes are free to interpret and use the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s recommendations that best suits their students' needs. In this way, educators can create a curriculum that aligns to the standards and individualize instructional needs of students.
Pennsylvania's Curriculum Framework includes big ideas, concepts, competencies, and essential questions which align to the standards and any applicable content. The big ideas, concepts, and competencies specify at different levels of detail what should be taught for each subject in the curriculum. In the rest of this topic we will examine each of these components in detail.