Christopher Dugan

Christopher Dugan

Curriculum Designer in Geneva, NY, he/him

About

I create accessible, inclusive content that cultivates curiosity and enables funds of knowledge. Literacy is an action of self-empowerment, expression, and identity.

Projects

2023

A dasboard that enables a view of all questions and aligned standards across Literably's texts.

2023
Content Production Manager at Literably

Managed six interns over Summer 2023 to develop audio, video, and text content. Content was created for spelling inventories, receptive vocabulary assessments, along with Spanish and English phonological awareness assessments. Items were designed using Biemiller, Kuperman, and Marzano word tables.

2023
Transadapt Spanish Texts at Literably

I trained two contractors on transadapation which we applied to over 50 Spanish texts.

2023
Assessment to Lesson Content Design at Braintrust

I aligned skills between Literably and Braintrust (a high-impact tutoring company). This alignment enabled Braintrust to receive an assessment with data and skills that directly correspond to specific texts and Nearpod lessons. Teachers do not have to "find" the lesson; it's designed into the assessment.

2023

A dashboard that displays the comprehension standards of all Literably Spanish texts. This enables users to choose and evaluate a text with the standards they're seeking to assess.

2023

The dashboard displays the high-frequency words in Literably's levels A-D (i.e. Kindergarten) texts. This dashboard facilitates choosing an assessment based on a text's spelling patterns and word frequencies.

2022
Literably Spelling Inventory

I provided the research, testing, concept, and content to create Literably's Spelling Invetory. The spelling inventory measures students’ spelling at the grapheme level. An animated character says the word aloud to the student and uses it in a sentence, and the student types their response. Upon completion, Literably instantly scores the assessment and returns data on skill mastery, total words correct, and total spellings correct across all words assessed.

2021

Led professional development K-4 on implementing MLL instructional taxonomies fueled by NYSESLAT data.

2020

These slides enable virtual administration for the Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST).

2020
Kami Professional Development at Teacher Equity Project

Designed and led professional development for introducing annotating software for teachers and students.

2019

These slides were designed out of Words Their Way spelling stages and CKLA spell-sound correspondence continuum. Picture sorts and Tic Tac Toe were utilized Letter Name-Alphabetic spellers. The Word Ladder and additional Tic Tac Toe were utilized for Within Word Pattern spellers. Slides worked on all platforms (ie. mobile, Chromebook), functioned as peer-to-peer, and did not require screen-sharing for implementation.

2016
Informational Guided Reading at Uncommon Schools

Designed guided reading plans for 3rd grade which were built out across upper elementary. Plans incorporated Newsela use at network-scale.

2013

Created a History of Platformers for middle schoolers. The course featured reading and applying platformer elements to Mario, Megaman, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Metroid, and other games until Portal 2.

Side Projects

2023

A list of literacy research and instructional methodology.

2021

Class logo designed for a group of second graders - the Cougars.

2017
Design Consultant at Vista College Prep

Consulted with Vista College Prep on informational literacy scope and sequence, lesson design, guided reading, reading comprehension, and vocabulary lesson plans.

Work Experience

2021 — Now

I build content and manage user knowledge at Literably.

2019 — Now
Washington Heights

Lead 2nd-grade instruction, multilingual professional development, and K-4 literacy acceleration program.

2013 — 2016
Founding 3rd Grade Teacher at Northstar Academy
Newark, NJ

Founded and led third-grade grade-level inclusion classrooms (31:2:1) for four years. While teaching, I coached curriculum writing, taxonomies, content delivery, and data analysis. The informational guided reading plans I designed were scaled across all Uncommon Schools (Northstar Academy was one region in Uncommon's network).

Volunteering

2012 — 2013
Vincentian Volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul Society
San Francisco

One year of service at De Marillac Academy teaching 4th and 6th grade while developing a summer reading acceleration program.

Certifications

2023
Navigating Decodable Texts and Leveled Readers: What Are They and How Can We Use Them? from Heggerty
2023
Writing & the Science of Reading from Education Week

CPE# 902-761

2022
Introduction to Data Studio from Google Analytics