About Course Mason
What is Course Mason?
Course Mason is a free comprehensive online tool that helps teachers and administrators prioritize and align Common Core Standards and develop articulated courses, units and assessments
Course Mason enables teachers in all content areas at all grade levels to develop courses, units of instruction and assessments that directly align to any standards. The online program is FREE to any teachers, schools or districts that are looking for an incredibly simple and effective way to develop curriculum that is directly aligned to standards from start to finish. While there are other products out there that help educators map curriculum, there are several things that set Course Mason apart:
- It’s free! Others charge as much as $150 per teacher per year plus initial set up costs; there is no charge for Course Mason and you can do as little or much professional development as you deem necessary for your district.
- It was developed by a working administrator in a school system to meet district and building level needs for a curriculum mapping and unit assessment development.
- It is far less cumbersome than other mapping programs and takes the "TurboTax approach" - simple and step-by-step.
- It aligns well with both PARCC and Smarter Balanced expectations for assessment.
- It deconstructs for you and sets an initial level of Bloom's Taxonomy to drive assessment development.
How can I use Course Mason?
Course Mason only requires creating a free account for your school or district. There are no hidden fees. No demo-only versions. Once the account is created, teams can begin immediately developing curriculum that is directly aligned to standards from start to finish. The website can be used individually by teachers or as a complete system by a building or district. When used by a building or district, administrators can view teacher progress on course creation and run vertical alignment reports to guide development or building meetings.
If any professional development training is desired, we are more than happy to help you. Feel free to Contact Us for more information.
Features for Teachers
- Create standards-based courses, units, assessments and lessons.
- Prioritize all standards within a course.
- Align curriculum to any standards including the Common Core State Standards.
- Deconstruct standards automatically to reveal what students need to know and be able to do.
- Share your work with other teachers.
- Clone courses to save time.
- View progress and be able to quickly assess standard coverage and emphasis.
- Generate a standards-based course pacing guide.
- Identify 21st Century Skills and Vocabulary.
- Upload your resources and attach them to units.
- Store your files in Course Mason and let us worry about backing up your data.
Features for Administrators
- View all courses, units, assessments and lesson plans within the district and building and determine progress and needs.
- Run vertical alignment reports on every ELA course.
- Run standards reports to view the courses and units where certain standards are covered.
- Run reports for course, unit and assessment progress.