To:

Members, Board of Education

From:

Eric J. Becoats, Ed.D.
Sharon Ozment

Date:

April 4, 2008

RE:

Implementation of Guilford Education Management System (GEMS)/Learning Village

Guilford Education Management System is the district’s curriculum management system.  Teachers, curriculum facilitators and curriculum specialists collaborated to create current curriculum guides including instructional resources such as lesson plans, assessment tools, and textbook materials to create a learning village known as GEMS.

GEMS serves as a single access point for communication, collaboration, teaching and professional development and includes powerful features that:

• enable the district to build, create, link, and maintain their curriculum within an easy-to-use instructional framework
• provide teachers with a single instructional desktop and the ability to create customized lessons and activities based on individual student needs
• align instructional plans, content and assessment to state or local learning objectives and standards
• facilitate collaboration and feedback among all participants of the learning community, including peer review of lesson plans to determine best practices
• help administrators manage the communication and learning environments within their district and individual schools
• provide secure access to all the district's Web-based applications for teachers, students, parents and administrators

Currently, GEMS is being piloted by all high school social studies teachers in preparation for a full roll out in the fall of 2008.

At the April 8 Board of Education meeting, curriculum staff will provide an overview of GEMS to illustrate how it will enhance the educational process in Guilford County Schools.

Attachment - presentation