Instructional Leadership and Curriculum
This domain tests curriculum coherence, instructional supervision, and the leader’s role in improving teaching. Expect questions on standards alignment, guaranteed and viable curriculum, backwards design, MTSS, coaching, and professional learning communities.
Core rules
- A guaranteed and viable curriculum means every student has access to prioritized standards, not just a textbook.
- Align horizontally within grades and subjects and vertically across grades. Use curriculum maps and common assessments.
- Use backwards design: identify standards, define acceptable evidence, then plan instruction.
- Supervision should be growth-oriented: brief frequent observations, actionable feedback, coaching, and follow-up.
- PLCs need protocols: what students must know, how we will know, what to do if they do not learn, and what to do if they already know it.
Worked example
Fifth-grade math scores trail the district in fractions. The principal audits maps and finds fraction instruction compressed into two weeks with no common assessment. She prioritizes four fraction standards, supports teachers in a coaching cycle, and schedules common formative assessments every two weeks. Grade-level teams analyze item errors and reteach. After eight weeks, common assessment mastery rises from 48% to 69%.
Reasoning: the leader addressed curriculum, instruction, and assessment together, then monitored implementation.
Traps
- Calling a purchased program a curriculum.
- Assuming attendance at professional development equals changed practice.
- Observing only for evaluation, not support.
- Ignoring vertical gaps and reteaching without checking prior knowledge.
- Overloading teachers with initiatives that compete for instructional time.