Fall 2012 Regional Meeting

Challenging and Supporting Students in preparation for the

Transition to the new‘Core Academic Standards’

Sharon R. Waite, Executive Director1014 Northeast Drive

Jefferson City, Missouri 65109www.smcaa.org

The National Dialogue:

“Quality curriculum taught by qualityteachers has the most potential to improve student achievement.”

Beverlee Jobrack, Tyranny of the Textbook: An Insider Exposes How

Educational Materials Undermine Reforms

New standards do not demand a scripted approach to curriculum…but that does not mean teachers

can skip around and ‘cherry-pick’ the elements they like and dismiss

those they prefer not to teach

CCSS have higher level of specificity

• Teachers have flexibility on how to implement the standards

BUT…• The standards are quite specific:Example:RI5.6 Analyze multiple accounts of the same

event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.

The New Standards

Require:• In-depth analysis and discussion on the

standards as a whole (horizontally/vertically)

• Consensus on the true intent of each standard regarding what students must know, be able to do and understand in order to demonstrate mastery or proficiency

Have we given them (teachers and students) enough to “REALLY GET” the expected outcome? If the only task that is being emphasized is creating learning targets, will everyone come to a common understanding of what goes in the “?” box?

Deconstruct Standards

into Learning Targets

Student Achievement Increases

?

Some of us feel like this…

Why do we need to Unpack or Deconstruct Standards?

- To identify what students need to knowand be able to do.

- To guide daily instruction and assessment for learning.

- To enable students to show mastery of the standards on common assessments and on the impending state summative assessment

Using Stiggins Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Using it Right, Doing it well

Classify each standard in one of 4 ways:– Knowledge/Understanding– Reasoning– Performance Skill– Product

Knowledge/Understanding

• Some knowledge/facts/concepts to be learned outright; some to be retrieved using reference materials; including Procedural knowledge – know how to do something (e.g., use scientific notation to represent very large numbers)

Reasoning

• Thinking Proficiencies – using knowledge to solve a problem, make a decision, Plan…

Performance Skill

• Behavorial demonstrations; where the doing is what is important; using knowledge and reasoning to perform skillfully (if a skill doesn’t really require using both some knowledge and some reasoning, it is probably Procedural knowledge and would be classified as Knowledge/Understanding)

Product

• Where the characteristics of the final product are important; using knowledge, reasoning, and skills to produce a final product

Components in the various levels of Classifying Targets

4 Questions that drive Deconstruction of the Standards

1. What knowledge will students need to demonstrate the intended learning?

2. What patterns of reasoning will they need to master, if any?

3. What skills are required, if any?

4. What product development capabilities must they acquire, if any?

Careful analysis and classification…

• Ensures we maintain the intention andcognitive demand of the standard inscaffolding the learning.

• Keeps us from reducing standards to a series of ‘knows’

Standards give the teacher a destination.

Learning Targets are the route students take to reach that destination.

Learning Targets (Objectives) Are:

Statements of what we want students to know, be able to do, and understand

Clear targets Impact on Teaching

•More focused instructional planning

•Sharpens teachers’ focus on the learning expectation

•Expectations rise•Focus on quality rather than getting it done

Clear Learning Targets Impact on Teaching

• Congruent activities• Relevant content specific vocabulary• Assists teachers in reflection

regarding their lessons and learning that occurred

• Strengthens connections with parents related to learning expectations for their child

Transitioning to the new standards teachers will need to:

• Collaboratively underline/highlight key words to determine the meaning of the standard

• Begin writing each learning target with the same classification as the standard it supports

Types of Learning Targets/ObjectivesKnowledge

The facts and concepts we want students to know

ReasoningStudents use what they know to reason and solve

problems

Skills/PerformanceStudents use their knowledge and reasoning to act

skillfully

ProductStudents use their knowledge, reasoning, and skills to

create a concrete product

Without Clear LearningTargets We Can’t Do Any of the Following…

• Know if the assessment adequately measures what we taught.

• Correctly identify what students know and don’t know and their level of achievement.

• Plan next steps in instruction.• Give detailed, descriptive feedback to students.• Have students self-assess or set goals likely to help

them learn more.• Keep track of student learning target by target or

standard by standard.• Complete a standards-based report card.

Deconstructing Standards into Achievable Learning

Targets

Standards Based Model

Design an assessment congruent to the standards and learning targets on which students will demonstrate their understandings

Select the standard that students need to know

–Unpack the standards

–Design congruent daily learning targets

• Use data from assessments to give feedback, re-teach or move to next level

Standards Based Model• Design congruent

formative assessments

• Plan congruent instructional strategies to assure that each student has appropriate learning opportunities

NAEP’s First Computer-based TestGrades 8 - 12

Evaluated criteria: (Two writing tasks)• Development of ideas• Organization of ideas• Use of language

Results:¼ Advanced or Proficient

– 3% Advanced– 24% Proficient– 52% Basic– 20% Below Basic

700 students in 25 public schools in Missouri, among 50,000 assessment participantsDESE 9/14/12

CCSS are not test-prep standards

Their aim is to teach students how to ‘think’ and raise the bar on their level of comprehension and their ability to articulate their knowledge.

This requires an in-depth examination anda revamping of ‘how’ we teach on a dailybasis…

Backward Design Process

1. Identify desired results

2. Determine acceptable evidence 3. Plan learning

experiences and instruction

Assessment

By first analyzing and classifying thestandards we can then more skillfullyselect/design more efficient, effective, valid,and reliable forms of assessment to measurestudents’ progress toward mastering standards.

Stiggins, 2004

Assessment/Feedback for deeper understanding…

• Requires we take a closer look at the purpose and intention of “gathering evidence of learning.”– Summative Assessment tells us what

students know– Formative Assessment tells us what

students don’t know– Feedback informs students about how they

are doing in their efforts to reach a goal

Summative Assessment…

The assessment tool that informs uswhether or not students have mastered theIntended/expected outcome of the learning target.

Ultimately, they “Get It” or they Don’t.

The New Standards Present New Challenges:How to create assessments that resemble how professionals are performing relevant tasks in their work today.

Example:In a science classroom:

Instead of typewritten lab reports, lab groups share their data via a Google Docs spreadsheet and give a presentation that is run like scientists’ lab meetings: Students respond to comments and moderate the discussion about their findings.

Going beyond the lab report, lets students demonstrate their abilitiesto communicate and defend their ideas to many people (not just theteacher). This models how many people now do their work: creatingshared documents that are authored by many people, not just thework and thoughts of one individual.

Evaluate classroom assessments:

• Do they go beyond simple Recall? • Do they require students to apply

knowledge/skill/understanding to complex tasks that would be found in today’s world of work ?

• Do they require students to transferknowledge/skill/understanding across concepts?

Or use a single reference to examine such questions as:

What words did an author use to characterizewhat happened next in a story?

Teachers, are quick to say they already ask thosekinds of questions. “Yeah, I always ask whathappened next.”

But that's not the question. The question was,'what words did the author use?' This requires aninquiry and a determination by the reader/student.

Teachers’ role Redefined from provider of information to facilitator

of inquiry• Providing background knowledge

equalizers

• Skillfully providing questions that prompt students to examine content to greater depths in order to understand more complex concepts

Formative Assessment by Definition…

Assessments that provide information onhow students are learning as a concept isbeing taught, so that teachers can adjusttheir instruction and methodologies toaddress misconceptions/misunderstandingsas they facilitate the mastery of a particularlearning target.

Are our Formative Assessments:

• Requiring students to “Think”

• Requiring students to “Make Connections”

• Designed to reveal Misconceptions/Misunderstandings

While Re-structuring our curriculum to meet the demands of the new standards is absolutely critical…

We must also step back and ask a very important question regarding student learning…

Have we been missing the boat?

Wiggins contends that:

“Advice, evaluation, grades – none of these provide the descriptive information students need to reach our goals.”

7 Keys to Effective FeedbackEducational LeadershipSeptember 2012

Wiggins further states that for teachers and students alike:

“If I am not clear on my goals or if I fail topay attention to them, I cannot get helpfulfeedback (nor am I likely to achieve mygoals).”

Grant Wiggins, 7 Keys to Effective Feedback Educational Leadership September, 2012 p. 13

Teaching for deeper understanding requires we consider

FEEDBACK…

Information about how we are doing in ourefforts to reach a goal.

Effective Feedback does not…

• Include value judgments• Recommendations on how to improve• Give advice

Effective Feedback does…• Report on what is observed based on a clear

statement of goal(s) • Provide information about the effects of a

student’s actions as related to a given goal (user-friendly, specific and personalized)

• Provide information that is stable, accurate, trustworthy, tangible and transparent

• Occur in a timely, on-going, and consistent manner

To Be Useful Feedback Must Be Consistent

• This requires teachers to be on the same page about what high-quality work is

• Teachers much work together to become more consistent (over time) to formalize their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products/performances

Most feedback on Formative Assessments

• Yield a grade against a recent objective taught

NOT• Useful feedback against the final

performance standard(s)

Ultimate Goal of Feedback

According to Wiggins,“The ability to quickly adapt one’s performance is a mark of all great achievers and problem solvers in a wide array of fields.”

By providing effective feedback we teach our students how to self-assess and adjust their performance successfully.

In Complex Performance Situations

• Feedback about what went right is as important as feedback about what didn’t work

• Too much feedback is counterproductive:better to help the student concentrate on one or two elements of performance than to create a buzz of information

After decades of research on Feedback…

“It was only when I discovered that feedback was most powerful when it was from the student to the teacher that I started to understand it better.”

John Hattie, Visible Learning

Cris Tovani regularly finds that when sheseeks feedback from her students she canthen sincerely ask:

“What can I do to help you?” …and her students will respond with requests for assistance on things that are thwarting their ability to understand.

Tovani says…

“When students have a chance to tell me what they need, they empower me to revise and rethink my instruction. Such two-way feedback puts students – instead of just the curriculum – in the driver’s seat.”

Cris Tovani, Feedback is a Two-Way Street Educational Leadership, September 2012

Research tells us…

“By teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning”

(Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering & Pollock, 2001)

Learning Leaders must…

Ensure educators have the knowledge and skills to effectively improve their practice to increase student achievement so that they do not need a ‘miracle.’

Final Thoughts

• Teaching to greater depth of understanding prepares students to retrieve and apply knowledge and skills

• Targeting instruction to promote enduring understandings (how, why, so what, what if, what then) provides the context for deep and rich learning