Schooling by Design

Chapter 1: What is the Mission of Schooling?

It’s in your mission statement!

• What does mission imply and obligate us to?• What kind of schooling does mission demand?

The Point of Schooling• Mission statements address– “lifelong learning”– “critical and creative thinking”– “productive contributions to society”

A Focus on Understanding, Transfer, and Habits of Mind

• We understand when we – Learn to use powerful ideas to make schoolwork

connected and meaningful

– Are able to transfer our learning thoughtfully and effectively to novel situations and problems

Rigor & Relevance (Daggett)

Quadrant C – AssimilationStudents extend and refine their acquired knowledge to be able to use that knowledge automatically and routinely to analyze and solve problems and create solutions.

Quadrant D – AdaptationStudents have the competence to think in complex ways and to apply their knowledge and skills. Even when confronted with perplexing unknowns, students are able to use extensiveknowledge and skill to create solutions and take action that further develops their skills and knowledge.

Quadrant A – AcquisitionStudents gather and store bits of knowledge and information. Students are primarily expected to remember or understand this knowledge.

Quadrant B – ApplicationStudents use acquired knowledge to solve problems, design solutions, and complete work. The highest level of applicationis to apply knowledge to new and unpredictable situations.

What Would an Understanding-Focused Education

Look Like?• A curriculum designed for understanding and built backward with transfer in mind…

–Begin with an essential question

What Would an Understanding-Focused Education

Look Like?• A curriculum designed for understanding and built backward with transfer in mind…

–Ask students to brainstorm and research

What Would an Understanding-Focused Education

Look Like?• A curriculum designed for understanding and built backward with transfer in mind…

–Introduce mean, median and mode as helpful possible tools

What Would an Understanding-Focused Education

Look Like?• A curriculum designed for understanding and built backward with transfer in mind…

–Conduct a three-part final assessment for understanding• Propose and defend, generalize, reflect

What Follows for Curriculum Design and Sequencing?

• To achieve a coherent and coordinated curriculum made up of understanding focused

units, we need to reconsider the nature

of subject-matter content in

relation to the larger mission.• Most states content standards documents make

the same point!

What Follows for Curriculum Design and Sequencing?

Transfer requires that students learn quickly and

often how to integrate their

knowledge and skill along with various

mature habits of mind to successfully perform

in situations “that they have never before encountered”

Needed: Perspective on Content

• Making “content” the focus of all teaching, learning and assessing gets the matter backward.

• “Put first things first.”

Why Mission Matters• From the learners perspective over 12 years,

school has no mission, regardless of what appears on wall plaques and Web sites.

• Ask learners in the midst of solo or group work the following four simple question:– What are we doing right now?– Why are we doing it?– How does it relate to what we have been doing in the

last few days and weeks?– What does doing it help us do in terms of our long-

term goals and priorities for your learning?

Toward Clarifying and Honoring Mission

Ask many

questions

Toward Clarifying and Honoring Mission

•Vision is what we would see if our goals were achieved.

Toward Institutional Purpose

•Without a commitment to mission, we don’t really have a school, we just have a home for freelance tutors of subjects.

Toward Institutional Purpose

The hard work of schooling by design involves

thinking through mission and what mission implies, with staff committed to

identifying and closing the gap between vision and reality to restructuring the educational structures to better achieve it.

Toward a Collective Commitment to Mission and True Professionalism

• We tend to think that we are doing the best anyone can possibly do with the kids we have in school although we have never tested that assumption

Toward a Collective Commitment to Mission and True Professionalism

No athletic coaches or band leaders think that way—they are constantly making changes in light of feedback against goals.

Missions and State Standards

• “But aren’t state standards our mission?”– They represent specific obligations, reflecting

some of our goals

Pennsylvania Standards Aligned Systems

http://www.edportal.ed.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?

Missions and State Standards

• What would we see if mission were realized?• What might we imagine students doing that

would reflect this accomplishment?

Ideas for Action

• Locate the current mission statement and distribute to faculty and discuss with staff

Ideas for ActionHave every staff member agree to ask learners in the midst of solo or group work the following questions:•Why are we studying this?•What are we doing right now?•Why are we doing it?•How does it relate to what we have been doing in the last few days and weeks?•What does doing it help us do in terms of our long-term goals and priorities for your learning?

Ideas for ActionLead staff through an exercise called “Picture the Graduate”– Record their views in

writing and symbolically– What would be like to see

in our graduates in terms of knowledge, skills and dispositions? What should they look like? How should they act and live?

Synthesize to begin forming a collective vision

Ideas for Action

• Analyze state and national standards to identify the long-term goals and habits of mind.