Program Components > Design Elements > Element 1

DESIGN ELEMENT ONE

RIGOROUS AND DEVELOPMENTALLY RESPONSIVE CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT

AIM schools focus on student learning. They keep two key questions at the center of all conversations:

• What is essential for students to learn?
• What is the evidence that learning is taking place?

AIM schools:

Establish learning communities where both students and teachers engage in inquiry, action, and reflection about what is being learned and how well they are learning.

Implement Teaching for Understanding as a guide to the development of coherent curriculum, instruction and assessment aligned with state and local standards.

Incorporate multiple intelligences into classroom lessons so that all students have access to learning.

Use time creatively so that teachers have common planning time and students have opportunities to engage in projects and other extended learning activities.

Use multiple assessment measures that give students many different ways to demonstrate what they know and understand.

Provide a variety of opportunities to read, write, debate, and engage in ongoing discourse that leads to student literacy.

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Return to Design Elements introduction/menu page.

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Read the description of Design Element 2.

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Learn about the theory and research that supports Design Element 1.

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Review the implementation benchmarks for Design Element 1.

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