Understanding and Applying Standards

Learning standards are one of the most important issues in public education today, influencing every dimension of our educational system, from high-stakes standardized testing to the topics and skills students are taught in school to the professional development that teachers need to be effective.

But understanding learning standards—what they are, how they work, why they matter, and how they affect schools and students—is no easy task, particularly given the wide range of terms and synonyms that educators use when discussing the topic.

Learning standards are concise, written descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. Learning standards describe educational objectives—i.e., what students should have learned by the end of a course, grade level, or grade span—but they do not describe or mandate any particular teaching practice, curriculum, or assessment method (although this is a source of ongoing confusion and debate).

Unwrapping Standards

"‘Unpacking’ often results in a checklist of discrete skills and a fostering of skill-and-drill instruction that can fragment and isolate student learning in such a way that conceptual understanding, higher order thinking, cohesion, and synergy are made more difficult. Too often, the process of ‘unpacking" is engaged in an attempt to isolate the specific foundational or prerequisite skills necessary to be successful with the ideas conveyed by the overall standard and is a common precursor to test preparation and reductive teaching. Although this process may be important work in some instances and can certainly be enlightening, it also poses substantial problems if those completing the work never take the time to examine the synergy that can be created when those foundational or prerequisite skills are reassembled into a cohesive whole. Metaphorically speaking, ‘unpacking’ often leads educators to concentrate on the trees at the expense of the forest.”

From “A Cautionary Note About Unpacking, Unwrapping, and Deconstructing The Kansas Common Core Standards" (DOC)

I am very glad that I learned to unpack standards. This skill gave me an opportunity to not only understand the standards better, but to also apply them in a proper organized way. I think, my teaching is now more effective and I feel confident when it comes to addressing standards.

Standards and Backwards Mapping

Backward planning or backward mapping, is a process that educators use to design learning experiences and instructional techniques to achieve specific learning goals. Backward design begins with the objectives of a unit or course—what students are expected to learn and be able to do—and then proceeds “backward” to create lessons that achieve those desired goals. In most public schools, the educational goals of a course or unit will be a given state’s learning standards. The basic rationale motivating backward design is that starting with the end goal, rather than a starting with the first lesson chronologically delivered during a unit or course, helps teachers design a sequence of lessons, problems, projects, presentations, assignments, and assessments that result in students achieving the academic goals of a course or unit—that is, actually learning what they were expected to learn.

Learning Objectives

In education, learning objectives are brief statements that describe what students will be expected to learn by the end of school year, course, unit, lesson, project, or class period. In many cases, learning objectives are the interim academic goals that teachers establish for students who are working toward meeting more comprehensive learning standards.

Conclusion

These three activities were great preparation for apply this concept within the classroom. I learned a lot and I am excited to apply all my knowledge in practice. These activities definitely helped me improve in this area. I see that next activity is doing lesson plans and this activity was good preparation to build a lesson plan. This was the first time when I created my own assessment and I am very proud of this. I am happy that Teach-Now program created very effective and powerful activities to help young teachers became professionals.

References

URLhttp://edglossary.org/understanding-standards/

Article TitleThe Glossary of Education Reform

Website TitleUnderstanding Standards

URLhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs-J8E7rPy0

Article TitleYouTube

Website TitleUnwrapping Standards Secondary Schools

URLhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_woMKwBxhwU