During stage 1, we spend a lot of time unpacking the standards and making sure we understand exactly what students are asked to know and be able to do. This process was made significantly easier by the addition of the NGSS evidence statements. These really clarified what the writers had in mind and doubtless signal what and how students will be assessed.
Now, I will say the release of these statements drove me mad. They came out on the day we wrapped up grades K-2. A quick analysis of what we wrote showed that we were close, but some work will need to be done after our field test next year.
Back to stage 1. These evidence statements will be converted to "I can" statements. For my purposes, I define these as a restatement of the evidence statements in student friendly language. A task I am dreading when it comes to my rewrite of Kindergarten.
- I can push
- I can pull
These might be the limits given the reading ability of most Kindergarten students. I have seen some "I can" statements based on the NGSS. These, however, are a restatement of the performance expectations. These are far too coarse for my purposes.
Once we understand the standards, it is time to move on to stage 2. This is the assessment development portion. Here is where we dip into problem based learning and develop a performance based assessment. For our units, these problems are locally relevant and attempt to tie as many of the "I can" statements together as possible. These are also the basis for our storylines.
I am of a firm believe that a good curriculum should tell a story across each lesson. It is our goal that at some point during the lesson, students are asked to apply what they have learned to the problem in the unit. By the end, these individual applications become the basis for a final iteration of their original solution. Whatever does not fit into this performance assessment is assessed through more traditional means using our learning management system's assessment engine.
The assessments form the bookends of the curriculum. For each unit there is a pre-performance assessment. Here students are given the opportunity to solve the problem with whatever background knowledge they bring to the unit. By the end, their new iteration is a measure of how much they have grown across one unit of study. An important feature in our new era of teacher accountability.
At stage 3, we carve individual lessons plans. Just so we are on the same page, a lesson is not necessarily built on a specific amount of time. It is built on whatever it takes for students to accomplish the "I can" statement (formerly known as an objective).
The next page shows the lesson plan format we are using and was discussed above. I look forward to your questions and suggestions.
Standards-
For NGSS use the
specific coding you were given. Copy and
paste. USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
Look for
opportunities to integrate CCR and P21 as well.
Description: Gives the teacher
a brief summary of what the lesson is about and what students will be
doing. Finishes with estimated time to
implement the lesson expressed in number of 60 minute classes.(Two-60 minute
classes)
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Stage 1- Desired Results
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Essential Question: Avoid yes or no questions or those with a “Google-able” Answer. Should drive instruction during the lesson.
Conveys the big idea to the teacher.
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Enduring
Understandings:
Students
will understand that:
-What
specific understandings should students have after the lesson? There can be multiple items. USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
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Objective:
STUDENT FRIENDLY LANGUAGE which
starts with “I can”
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Stage 2- Assessment Evidence
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Assessment
Type
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Description
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Criteria
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Summative:
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What tool will teachers use to collect
the evidence that students have mastered the “I can…”?
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What is the evidence of mastery?
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Formative:
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What should a teacher observe during
the lesson in order to make modifications along the way?
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What specific evidence should guide
teachers to making modifications?
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Stage 3- Plan
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Lesson
Background:
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What would be helpful for the teacher to understand about
the content of this lesson? Include link
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Lesson
Prep:
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What will a teacher need to prepare before the
lesson? This is copied to the Advanced
Preparation section of the previous lesson. USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
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Materials:
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For the teacher:
What materials
will the teacher need? Include the
physical and digital assets.
For each group of
students
Group work is essential
to 21st century skills. Groups should be no larger than 3-4
students.
Materials kits will be
built for a max class size of 32 (8 groups of 4).
For each individual student:
What materials will students need?
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Lesson Planner with Differentiation:
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Components
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Brief
Description
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Engagement
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How will you
capture students attention and focus them on the “I can..”?
What do
students already know (or think they know) about the phenomena?
Have students
make a claim when appropriate. USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
Each stage
should be written with enough detail to guide instruction, but IT IS NOT A
SCRIPT. Be sure to include suggested
questions to assist teachers in guiding discussions. Highlight critical points in the lesson if
a teacher must absolutely follow the lesson or else a teachable moment may be
lost.
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Exploration
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How will
students interact with the phenomena? What evidence will they collect to
support their claim? USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
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Explanation
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How
will students explain the evidence?
How will they express their understanding? In science, students should not be limited
to only written explanations. USE
HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
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Elaboration
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How
does understanding the phenomena help students solve the problem? USE HYPHENS
IN PLACE OF BULLETS
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Evaluation
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What
tool will teachers use to collect the evidence that students have mastered
the “I can…”? (Summative Assessment) USE
HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
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Advanced Preparation for Next Lesson:
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Will be pasted in from the Lesson Prep section
of the next lesson. Complete after finalizing next lesson.
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Grade
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Unit
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Lesson
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Developers
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