The Colorado Department of Education

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Design Tools

The three tools in this section – vertical progression, concept connections and discipline concept maps – will help districts redesign existing curriculum or design new curriculum aligned to the new standards. They help organize the content, concepts, and skills represented in the new standards.

Using the Vertical Progression Tools

These at-a-glance documents show what students should know from preschool through high school in each content area.

For example, in science, kindergarten students should know that organisms can be described and sorted by their physical characteristics. By seventh grade, they should know the human body is composed of atoms, molecules, cells tissues and organs. By the time they graduate, students will have analyzed at a variety of organizational levels the relationship between structure and function in living systems.

Guiding questions for each grade level:

  • Which prepared graduate competencies (add link) are being developed?

  • What essential concepts and skills must students master?

  • What are the next steps in learning the prepared graduate competency after this grade level?

Documents:
Comprehensive Health and Physical Education (Word Doc)
Dance (Word Doc)
Drama and Theatre (Word Doc)
Mathematics (Updated December 2010) (Word Doc)
Music (Word Doc)
Reading, Writing and Communicating (Updated December 2010) (Word Doc)
Science (Word Doc)
Social Studies (Word Doc)
Visual Arts (Word Doc)
World Languages (Word Doc)

Using the Concept Connections Tools (K - Grade 5)

Concept Connections Tools are designed to provide a cross-content (multi-disciplinary) tool that identifies possible unifying concepts within the Colorado Academic Standards from kindergarten to 5th grade. The intent of this tool is to facilitate integrated instruction when possible at the elementary level and to make interdisciplinary connections explicit through intentional instruction.

These documents help kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers make connections among all content areas and focus instruction that lead to postsecondary and workforce readiness. Connecting concepts also increases the effectiveness of teaching and learning, and ensures the viability of a rich and balanced curriculum.

Guiding questions:

  • What are the cross-disciplinary connections – the concepts and skills – that are shared among at least five content areas at each grade level?

  • How will your curriculum support cross-disciplinary connections?

Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade

Using the Discipline Concept Maps

Discipline Concept Maps (DCM) provide a visual representation of unifying themes and organizing and supporting concepts at each grade level. The DCMs provide a central purpose for that discipline at that grade level and depict how concepts relate to each other for intentional planning. They provide a framework for entering the standards in a way that honors the emphasis on 21st Century learning and interdisciplinary connections across the content areas.

Three key terms are used in the discipline concept maps:

  • Unifying themes provide an overview of content at a grade level. They are found in the center of the DCM and denoted by a blue dot.

  • Organizing concepts connect multiple grade level expectations (GLEs) and evidence outcomes (EOs). They are the first node out from the center and are denoted by a red dot.

  • Supporting concepts elaborate on and show the depth of an organizing concept. They are second node out from the center and are denoted by a yellow dot.

Guiding questions:

  • What are some organizing concepts within each content area for each grade level?

  • How would you support a progression of learning to support the ideas and connecting concepts within a grade level?

  • How would you use levels five and six of the Colorado English Language Proficiency Standards to support the development of content language proficiency?

The links below provide additional information on Discipline Concept Maps:

Click here to go out to discipline concept maps organized by content and grade level.

Click here to go out to discipline concept maps organized by grade level (such as Grade 5 or Kindergarten) or content area (such as Mathematics or Social Studies).