Understanding Curriculum and Courses
This article explains how curriculum and courses work in Forefront.
Watch the Course Configuration webinar recording on demand here.
Terminology in Forefront
- Assessment: sets of questions or observational frameworks with defined scores, performance levels, and Standards alignments
- Program: sets of assessments, can be grouped into “parts”
- Curriculum: the assessments, standards systems, and documents
- Subject: can be used to organize curricula
- Lens: a way to highlight key standards or combine standards systems (Read more about lenses here.)
- Course: one or more curricula and associated documents and report cards
- Class: a group of students in a school with a teacher and a course
Examples of Course Set-Ups
An elementary school teacher has:
- one class of students
- in the course third grade
- subjects are math, science, social studies and ELA, which are each a curriculum with their own programs of assessments.
A middle school teacher:
- teaches the subject math
- she has several classes in the course Sixth-Grade Math
- has lenses to look at assessment results through the lenses of state standards, priority standards, and historic student data.
A large school district allows teachers to choose between two math instructional systems.
- For each grade level course
- teachers choose between curricula of the systems, to have the correct assessments and programs.
How To Set Up Courses
Single-Subject Course
Prerequisites: Users must have a district management level role to configure courses.
Step 1: Navigate to the courses page. Click “Courses” in the left side navigation, then click “Create New Course.”
Step 2: Name the course and select the applicable grade level(s).
Step 3: In-app text explains next steps. Click “Create curriculum.”
Step 4: Name the curriculum as prompted.
Step 5: Select or create the subject.
Step 6: Configure standards lenses.
Read about lenses and setup how-to here.
Step 7: Add assessments by clicking “Add assessments” and browsing for the appropriate assessments.
Step 8: Add parent reports (if applicable).
For more information on standards-based grading report card configuration, click here to watch a webinar on-demand.
Multi-Curriculum or Multi-Subject Course
To configure a multi-subject course, follow the above steps. Then:
Click the three dots in the upper right corner. Then add a new curriculum, or a new subject and new curriculum.
Follow the same steps again to create additional curricula.
Need more support?
Submit a support request or email our team at support@forefront.education.