GASD Curriculum & Instruction
It is by design that upon graduation, our students will have had guaranteed opportunities to develop competencies that will prepare them to navigate their own course successfully. We want our students to be marketable in the workforce and continuing education paths that are available to them. We are committed to the continuous development and revisions of our curriculum that will challenge students to achieve to their greatest potential.
We recognize five pathways that students may take beyond graduation and that our curriculum and instructional programs must prepare students for:
Workforce Pathway
Military Pathway
4-year College Pathway
2-year College Pathway
Trade School Pathway
All five pathways can lead to success. GASD will support students in finding the pathway that best serves their passions and matches their skillsets. By engaging students at the earliest ages, we believe that explicit attention to our GASD Core Competencies through a comprehensive and well-designed curriculum will provide opportunities for students to grow in their understanding of self and take ownership for their personal growth and development.
The Greencastle-Antrim School District recognizes that our fundamental responsibility is high quality teaching and learning. During 2021-2025, we will be transitioning our curriculum to an online platform, EduPlanet. Our approach when writing curriculum will use the Understanding by Design framework, which is a backwards design process that ensures that all learning goals and lesson activities align to mastery of our core competencies and to our GASD Curriculum and Instruction Beliefs and Related Actions.
Each year we will continuously update our curriculum to reflect the UbD elements. Until that time, some content areas and features such as Long-Term Transfer Goals, Knowledge, and Skills, may be incomplete or in draft form.
Specific questions regarding the content, resources, or assessments taught in your child's classroom should first be directed to the classroom teacher. If questions remain, please contact Dr. Lura Hanks, Superintendent of Schools and director of curriculum & instruction at lhanks@gcasd.org.
To access the the Curriculum Blueprint in EduPlanet, click here.
Understanding the Format of Courses in the Blueprint:
Summary of Learning provides a description and rationale for the course.
Unit Focus provides a description of the individual unit.
Standards (Established Goals) include the Pennsylvania State Standards as they appear in the PDE mandated document. No modifications can occur to the standards.
Long-Term Transfer Goals are goals for students to independently demonstrate repeatedly and over time. These goals are the overarching goals for the course.
Understandings are nuances that students will come to understand throughout the course and over time. These understandings may come to students at different times.
Essential Questions are those questions that provoke deeper learning and discovery. They provoke questions and have no correct or singular answer. By using methods of inquiry, students will seek their own answers to these questions.
Knowledge is the facts and background information students must know in order to develop an understanding of the topic.
Skills are the tools and abilities we want students to develop in order to demonstrate and express their understanding of the topic.
The Greencastle-Antrim School District is dedicated to developing curriculum that is aligned with state and national standards with an emphasis on the skills needed to realize the district vision for competent and competitive graduates. We value curriculum design that constructs and shapes powerful learning experiences to build pathways and connections for application. Substantive learning will be measured using a variety of indicators that include a student’s ability to leverage skills and content for authentic application. Students will be challenged to arrive at deep understanding of content while pondering important essential questions.
Our mission is to be a community that invests in empowering our students to strive for excellence to succeed in the future.
GASD seeks to plan and implement curriculum, instruction, and assessment that is horizontally and vertically aligned to a shared set of district-wide competencies, guided by the Understanding by Design framework thoughtfully, effectively, and collaboratively.
The GASD K-12 curriculum fosters and supports the district mission statement by:
Clearly defining a viable expectation of what students should know, understand, and be able to do across the grade levels, based on discipline-specific standards (state or national).
Engaging students in problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, innovation, imagination, and leadership so students can be successful in their aspirations within and beyond the school community.
Providing students with learning experiences that are balanced, relevant, and rigorous within grade levels and content areas.
Utilizing varied resources to differentiate instruction and accommodate a variety of learning modalities and needs.
Embracing an on-going curriculum process that reflects new understandings and an ever-changing society.
Equal Opportunity-Discrimination
The Greencastle-Antrim School District is an Equal Opportunity Education institution, and will not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, sex, creed, handicap or veteran status in its actions, programs, activities, or employment practices as required by Title VI, Title IX, and section 504. Should you have any questions or concerns please contact Dr. Lura Hanks, Superintendent, at (717) 597-3226, Greencastle-Antrim School District School, 504 East Leitersburg Street, Greencastle, PA 17225 for grades K-12 issues.
