Mission: To effectively consolidate and deliver Delaware Department of Education services to districts, schools, programs, and agencies to ensure all educators have access to effective professional development and technical assistance that will result in high-quality education for each child and youth.
Vision: To create a culture for effective teaching and learning that maximizes the success of all children, youth, and educators.
Overarching Enduring Understandings
All children and youth are learners.- All children and youth deserve a safe and respectful learning environment.
- Effective educators participate in focused and ongoing professional learning throughout their career.
- Curriculum, instruction, and assessment must be aligned to standards, continuous, systematic, and founded in evidence-based practices.
- The school community is ready, willing, and able to anticipate and plan for the needs of children, youth, and their families.
- Teachers know their content and how to teach it effectively to all students.
- Families and communities are essential participants in all aspects of a child’s life.
Sub-Domains
Curriculum Alignment
Enduring Understandings
- Alignment of curriculum to the Delaware Content Standards and Early Childhood Foundations promotes student understanding and success in 21st century society.
- Understanding how students learn is fundamental to curriculum design.
- It is the responsibility of educators to promote success for each student, regardless of learning styles or needs.
Assessment
Enduring Understandings
- Alignment of assessments to the Delaware Content Standards and Early Childhood Foundations promotes student understanding and success in a 21st century society.
- Assessment has two purposes and uses. Formative assessment informs teachers and students about current levels of student understanding and is used to determine what learning is still needed in order for the student to meet standards. Summative assessment documents student proficiency of the standards at a point in time and is often used for accountability and grading purposes.
- High-quality summative assessments allow students to demonstrate transfer of learning to new situations.
Instruction
Enduring Understandings
- Alignment of instruction to the Delaware Content Standards and Early Childhood Foundations promotes student understanding and success in 21st century society.
- Integrated learning experiences help students conceptualize both the boundaries and the relationships among the content areas.
- The individual standards are building blocks that can be combined in any number of ways to create a solid foundation for effective citizenship.
- New instructional methods will require new tools.
- Teaching for understanding helps students to achieve the concepts found in the Delaware Content Standards.
Teacher Quality
Enduring Understandings
- Access to quality instruction is a key factor for student success.
- Quality teachers have knowledge of the content(s) they teach and are highly skilled at using appropriate teaching strategies to meet the needs of various learners.
- All students must have equitable access to qualified teachers if they are to meet challenging State content and academic achievement standards.
Embedded Concepts
Fairness, Equity, and Access
Enduring Understandings
- To create an effective learning environment, we must take into account the cultures, strengths, limitations, and other factors affecting the students, families, and staff members within the school.
- We must recognize the vast array of strengths, abilities, experiences, and cultures of the adults and children in that environment.
- We must use this information to create a safe and caring learning environment for all.
Knowledge of All Students
Enduring Understandings
- Understanding how students learn is fundamental to curriculum, assessment, and instructional design.
- Students may have difficulty learning because the learning environment does not complement their learning styles, interests, and/or needs.
- A successful teacher knows how and when to shape the learning environment to effectively address students' learning styles, interests, aspirations, and needs.
- It is the responsibility of educators to promote success for each student, regardless of learning styles, interests, aspirations, or needs.
Family and Community Collaboration
Enduring Understandings
- Children learn and develop within the context of their families and their communities.
- Family and community engagement in schools/programs expands opportunities for children to learn.
- We must develop strategies and practices that promote family and community collaboration.
- Collaboration strategies must include meaningful opportunities for families and the community to participate in our schools/programs.
- Family, community, and school/program relationships must be built on trust, respect, and an understanding that we have a mutual, responsibility for student success.
Global Citizenship
Enduring Understandings
- In order for Delaware students to thrive in the 21st century, we must prepare them to be global citizens.
- Students must be informed, engaged, and internationally competent.
- Students must have an internationalized education that provides them with a developmentally appropriate set of experiences and a broad context in which to actively participate in a multicultural society and global workforce.
- Students must have the ability to apply problem-solving and critical-thinking skills while seamlessly using technology to locate, evaluate, and effectively use information.
- Students must have access to real-world, career-based curriculum, assessment, and instruction in order to prepare for post-secondary education and/or work.