©Brad Niebling, Heartland AEA 11 Page 1 4/21/11 Iowa Curriculum

 Iowa Curriculum Alignment Toolkit (I-CAT)
Updates and Changes, Spring 2011
The adoption by the State Board of Education of the Common Core State Standards in English/Language
Arts and Mathematics as the content for the Iowa Core in Literacy and Mathematics brought about the
need to update the Iowa Curriculum Alignment Toolkit (I-CAT). In this document, we provide text and
visual descriptions of these changes. You can see a briefer summary of these changes at <insert link
here>.
1 & 2. Uploaded new Literacy and Mathematics content
Although there is new content for Literacy and Mathematics, the way to access this new content remains
the same, by clicking on either the blue Literacy or Mathematics button on the main screen.
Please note, however, that sections of the new Literacy standards are not accessible by clicking on the
Literacy button. Instead, you will need to click on the Science, Social Studies, or 21st Century Skills
button to reflect on these content-specific Literacy standards, as indicated below.
• Reading Standards for Literacy in
Science and Technical Subjects 6-12
• Writing Standards for Literacy in
History/Social Studies, Science, and
Technical Subjects 6-12
• Reading Standards for Literacy in
History/Social Studies 6-12
• Writing Standards for Literacy in
History/Social Studies, Science,
and Technical Subjects 6-12
• Reading Standards for Literacy in
Science and Technical Subjects 6-12
• Writing Standards for Literacy in
History/Social Studies, Science, and
Technical Subjects 6-12
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4/21/11 3.
Fixed Discrepancy for Civic Literacy in 21st Century Skills
As has been previously mentioned, the incorrect version of Civic Literacy has been in the I-CAT under
21st Century Skills since late October 2010. The correct version has now been put in 21st Century Skills,
matching the version of Civic Literacy found in Social Studies. Any data entered for 21st Century Skills
previously for the 2010-11 school year will be carried forward.
4.
Time stamps added to entries.
Although only visible currently visible to users in two locations (more on that in #xx below), we have
added two types of timestamps for every course that a teacher starts a new reflection for by content area.
The first is when a teacher starts a new course entry. The second is the most recent addition to a course
entry.
5.
Updated Labels for “Discipline” in Literacy and Mathematics
The new Literacy and Mathematics standards no longer use the term “Discipline” as the first organizing
heading for more specific content. For Literacy, the closest heading to the previously-used “Discipline”
heading is “Strand.” For Mathematics, the closest parallel is “Domain” K-8, and “Conceptual Category”
9-12. The term “Domain” is used just below “Conceptual Category” for 9-12. It is important to note that
comparing Disciplines, Strands, Domains, and Conceptual Categories to each other conceptually is not
appropriate. Refer to the <insert document name and/or link here> for more detailed information on this
topic.
6.
More Information Screen: New, dynamically-updating drop down menu for Grade for Literacy
and Mathematics.
Since the new Literacy and Mathematics standards are at individual grade-levels K-8, and Literacy is 910/11-12 in high school, the Grade drop down menu was changed to accommodate these differences
between the older and most recent versions.
Older Version
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Most Recent Version
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4/21/11 7.
More Information Screen: New, dynamically-updating drop down menu for Strand/Domain/
Discipline for Literacy and Mathematics.
The label for the drop down menu that contains this information, instead of just being “Discipline” is
now “Strand/Discipline” for Literacy and “Domain/Discipline” for Math. Note that for the purposes of
this label for Math, the term “Domain” is generically used for the 4/19/11 version to mean Domain for
grades K-8 and Conceptual Category for grades 9-12.
The drop down menu associated with this level of content were changed to dynamically change
depending on the version selected, to accommodate these differences between the older and most
recent versions. Previously, any changes to “Discipline” across grade spans were all listed in the same
drop down menu. Below is an example of how the current menu changes depending on the grade
level/span selected.
Grade Level/Span: 03
8.
Grade Level/Span: 9-12
More Information Screen: School Year Changed from Open Field to Drop-Down Menu on Data
Entry
Teachers, when using the I-CAT, need to indicate the school year they are going to reflect on. Previous
versions of the I-CAT required teachers to enter this information into an open field. That field has been
changed to a drop down menu.
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4/21/11 9.
More Information Screen: Must make selection from each menu before proceeding to data
entry
Previous versions of the I-CAT allowed the user to skip the Course drop down menu and proceed to data
entry. The result of this action was that data entered into the I-CAT were saved, but were inaccessible to
the user because there was no course title associated with the data. This loophole has been closed.
Users are now required to make a selection from every drop down menu on the More Information
Screen. If one of the drop down menus is skipped, an error message will result, and the user will not be
allowed to proceed forward to data entry until the user makes a selection from each drop down menu.
10.
Data Entry: Added “9-10/11-12 Determination”
Previous versions of the I-CAT allowed the user to determine what grade span of the Iowa Core to reflect
on with the Grade drop down menu on the More Information page (see #5 and #6 above). This is still
the case most of the time now. However, with the addition of Literacy standards to Science, Social
Studies, and 21st Century Skills, an additional step is needed at the high school level. This is because the
Literacy standards are written in spans of 9-10 and 11-12, but the structure of these three sets of
Essential Concepts/Skill Sets is written in a span of 9-12. This additional step is called the “9-10/11-12
Determination.”
The 9-10/11-12 Determination requires teachers to decide, once they get to the 9-10 Literacy standards
data entry page, whether they are going to enter data for this span, or to skip this span and just enter
data for the 11-12 span. There is a gold button at the top of this page that is labeled “Skip to 11-12” that
the teacher needs to click once to skip the 9-10 span. If the teacher does want to enter data for the 9-10
span, he or she enters data normally on the 9-10 page, and hits the blue “Save and Continue” button at
the bottom of the screen, which will also take him or her to the 11-12 page.
Once on the 11-12 page, the teacher again needs to decide whether or not to enter data for this grade
span. If the teacher decides he or she should skip entering data on the 11-12 page, he or she needs to
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4/21/11 click on the gold “Skip 11-12” button, which will take him or her back to the first Discipline, Behavioral
Sciences.
Please note, if the teacher chooses to skip both 9-10 and 11-12 by clicking on both gold buttons at the
top of the pages, his or her entries for that course will be considered “In Progress” / “Incomplete.” In
other words, to have a complete entry, teachers need to choose to reflect on at least one of the two
spans. In other, other words, that means teachers are responsible for teaching content from at least one
of the two spans (or both if appropriate given the student population and needs). A teacher may still
have nothing to check on a screen, but need to reflect on it. In this case, the teacher would click a blue
save button at the bottom of the screen while leaving all of the check boxes blank.
11.
Report Criteria Page: “Grade” drop down menu dynamically updates depending on the Content
Area/Version selected, and “Discipline” selection box appears once content area and grade level/span
selected
With the changes to labels and grade level/span structure in Literacy and Mathematics, the drop down
menus had to become “smarter” than they were before, much the same way as on the More Information
screen. First, the Grade drop down menu now dynamically updates depending on the Content
Area/Version selected.
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4/21/11 Older Version
Most Recent Version
1st
Second, once Content Area/Version and Grade have been selected, a new selection box will appear
with Strands/Domains/Disciplines listed to select. The contents of this selection box will change, again
depending on what was previously selected. In the current version of the I-CAT, you can select all,
some, or one “Discipline,” whereas in the past all were selected automatically.
Third, as in previous versions of the I-CAT, you must select the building or buildings for which you want
to examine data. Note, in the Compare Data section, one of the buildings you select, as a teacher must
be one you teach in. For administrators, they can choose any building(s).
Click on the blue “Continue” button to go to the next screen.
Older Version
Most Recent Version
2nd
Select all, some, or
one
Select all, some, or
one
3rd
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4/21/11 From this screen, the user then chooses his/her desired Report Format, the Course(s) to examine, and the
School Year, and then selects the blue “Continue” button to generate the report.
Another important note is that if a teacher just wants to look at their own data, they can select “View My
Data” from the main screen. This is not new. However, once the teacher gets to the Report Criteria
page, all of the drop down menus to choose from are on one screen. There is no second screen to go to,
which is how the Compare Data reporting option works (see above for Compare Data, see below for
View My Data).
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4/21/11 12.
Reports: Building-Course-Instructor Table on data page renamed “Course List Table”
The table on the report screen that lists information about the buildings, courses, and instructors for
whom the report is based on has been labeled the “Course List Table.”
<INSERT PICTURE HERE>
13.
Reports: Course List Table shows last modified date under teacher name
To assist the viewer of the report in knowing how up-to-date the data are, the date on which the
instructor modified that course is listed below the instructor’s name.
14.
Reports: “Essential Concept” Summary Table: removed number columns, added “Discipline” in
bold to each cell
Previous versions of the I-CAT had columns of numbers next to the “Essential Concepts/Skill Sets.” These
were confusing and became unnecessary with some different labeling conventions, so these columns
were removed. Column headers will match the label from the Level of Analysis table that the data
correspond to. The primary addition to this table was inserting the “Discipline” directly next to the
Essential Concept/Skill Set in bold text.
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4/21/11 15.
Reports: “Report Table” moved course name, teacher information to row below “Discipline”
row, added last modified date under teacher name
In previous versions of the I-CAT, it was difficult to keep track of which courses went with which
columns of data in the Report Table after scrolling down the screen. To correct this problem, the course
and teacher information has been moved to the “Discipline” (for Science, Social Studies, 21st Century
Skills) row of the table (Strand row for Literacy, Domain or Conceptual Category row for Mathematics).
In addition, a last modified data has been placed under the teacher name.
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4/21/11 16.
Reports: In "Report Table" last two columns updated with current label language
The column headings for the last two columns in the Report Table formerly were “ICC Details Course
Coverage” and “Percent of Course Details Coverage.” These labels will be updated with current
language.
<INSERT PICTURE HERE>
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