A new set of standards places a new set of demands on educators. Use this strategy to help teams and teachers better understand how curriculum content standards and the cumulative progress indicators are used to make instructional and assessment decisions. Teachers can identify essential learnings (content and skills) for their own level by examining the strands within content standards and the cumulative progress indicators for each strand for the grade levels below and above their current grade level. When teachers know what students are expected to know and be able to do in order to demonstrate cumulative progress indicators, they can focus instruction and assessment on essential learnings. In the sample standard outlined here, a team of 3rd-grade teachers addressing a geography standard studies the 2nd- and 4th-grade cumulative progress indicators for that standard to identify prior and future student learning.With this knowledge, they can identify key learnings to include in their 3rd-grade curriculum to ensure that students are able to demonstrate the 4th-grade cumulative progress indicators by the end of 4th grade.