Transcript The Thoughtful Classroom

Teachers as Curriculum
Designers
Thoughtful Education
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Divergent Thinking

Fluency

Elaboration

Flexibility

Originality
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Thoughtful Education
Assumptions of Thoughtful Education
1.
Improved instruction is the PRIME FACTOR in producing
student achievement gains.
1.
Professional Learning Communities are the SUREST and
FASTEST path to instructional improvement.
2.
Leadership begins with the recognition that we must
eliminate the senseless things that divert time and
attention away from the two elements most vital to school
success—how we teach, which is best improved through
focused teacher collaboration and what we teach—in
Marzano’s words, “a guaranteed and viable curriculum.”
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Think about a time you
were involved in a
creative process.
What was the process
like?
What were your
struggles?
What were your rewards?
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Creativity is a Mess--From a Mess to a Model

Generating Ideas

Forming Big Ideas/Concepts

Shaping Ideas

Refining and Polishing Finished Product
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What are the parts
of a thoughtful unit
of study?
What is the
difference between
an activity planner
and a curriculum
designer?
What makes writing a
unit challenging and
how can we simplify
the process?
How is a thoughtful
unit of study like play
dough?
As a teacher do you model questioning in four
styles when working with your teachers?
Imagine a BOX.
In this box is a curriculum
that teachers love to teach
and students love to learn.
What would be in the box?
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David Perkins
Director Project Zero,
Harvard University
Knowledge by Design
Attributes
Purpose
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Value
How would
you improve
on the design?
The focus on learning
becomes the leverage for
improved teaching.
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Attributes
Value
Purpose
Improvements
Look at the unit on evolution. What can you learn from the
design?
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Standards
Students
National
Learning Styles
State
Multiple Intelligences
District
Culture
School
Interests
Talents
Skills
Abilities
Research Based Strategies
and Tools
Learning Style Profiles
Varied Assessment
Hidden Skills
Task Rotation, Comprehensive Menus
Graduated Difficulty
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Foyer
Workroom
Library
Kitchen
Porch
Know
Be Like
Foyer
Think of a Time
Parts of a
Thoughtful
Unit of Study
Imagine a Box
Generating Ideas
Think Pair Share
Rank Order Ladder
Appreciation for the creative
process and messiness of
creativity.
Collaboration and Collegiality
Knowledge by Design
Library
Workroom
Creating a Thoughtful Statement of
Purpose
Jigsaw
Examining a Unit: Resource
Evolution Unit
Porch
Thoughtful Curriculum Guide
How is writing a thoughtful unit like
play dough?
Learning from Louie
Resource:
Learning from Research
Thoughtful Curriculum Guide
Learning from Examples
Unpacking the Standards
Principles
Five Easy Pieces
Understand
Components of a design
Planning Your Unit
Skills
Step 1: Identify Your Purpose
Unpack the standards
Identify purpose
Unpacking Core Content 4.1
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What can we learn from Louie?
Standards
SC-HS-3.5.1
Students will:
predict the impact on species of changes to 1) the potential for a species to
increase its numbers, (2) the genetic variability of offspring due to mutation
and recombination of genes, (3) a finite supply of the resources required for
life, or (4) natural selection;
propose solutions to real-world problems of endangered and extinct species.
Species change over time. Biological change over time is the consequence of
the interactions of (1) the potential for a species to increase its numbers, (2)
the genetic variability of offspring due to mutation and recombination of
genes, (3) a finite supply of the resources required for life and (4) natural
selection. The consequences of change over time provide a scientific
explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms and for the striking
molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living
organisms. Changes in DNA (mutations) occur spontaneously at low rates.
Some of these changes make no difference to the organism, whereas others
can change cells and organisms. Only mutations in germ cells have the
potential to create the variation that changes an organism’s future offspring.
DOK 3
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Standards
Students will describe patterns of human settlement
in regions of Kentucky and explain how these
patterns were influenced by physical characteristics
(e.g. climate, landforms, soils, vegetation, bodies of
water.
Students will describe how the physical environment
both promoted and restricted human activities
during the early settlement of Kentucky.
Students will use a variety of tools to explain
significant events in Kentucky’s history.
Students will give examples of why people explored
and settled Kentucky.
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Built to Last
Five
Easy Pieces
Research
Behind
Effective Unit Design
Madeline Hunter
Grant Wiggins & Jay
McTighe
Benjamin Bloom
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dentify the standards, big ideas, key details.
etermine your essential questions.
stablish your assessment task and criteria.
lign instruction/assessment to diversity, research
based strategies, and hidden skills.
equence the learning events.
Components of Thoughtful
Curriculum Design

Identify your Purpose
A statement of purpose
defines what you want
students to know,
understand, do, and be like.
A statement of purpose
includes a set of essential
questions that last over time
and frame the learning.
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What Essential Questions will
frame the learning?
Knowledge
Attitudes
What specific facts,
details, or vocabulary
does the unit need to
address?
What dispositions or
attitudes does the unit
instill in students?
Understanding
What big ideas and
themes need to
Skills
What skills do students
need to develop?
be covered?
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Components of Thoughtful Unit
Design

Task Description
Assessment pulls together the
various threads you have
explored throughout the unit and
provides students an equal
opportunity to show what they
know and apply what they have
learned.
Clear expectations are defined
through a rubric or scoring
guide.
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Task Rotation
Comprehensive Menus
Graduated Difficulty
Project Learning
Assessment:
How will
students’
understanding
be measured?
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Standards
Activity
Strategy/Tool Product
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Learning
Style
Now, it is your turn to
frame your unit of
study.
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Identify the framework for learning……
Knowledge
Attitudes
Understanding
Skills
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Workroom
Porch
What essential questions
will serve as the
foundation for learning?
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Foyer
Hook/Bridge
Workroom
Activities
Library
Resources
Porch
Reflection
Kitchen
Assessment
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Assessment: How will students’
understanding be measured?
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How is a thoughtful
curriculum like play
dough?
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Teaching, What Matters
Most
Teacher Impact on Learning
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Teacher
Student
Home
Peers
Schools Principals
What influences matter?
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1. Leadership, teaching, and adult actions
matter.
While it is true that demographic variables
are directly linked to student achievement, it
is also true that adult variables, including the
professional practices of teachers and the
decisions leaders make, can be more
important than demographic variables.
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The single greatest
determinant of
learning is NOT
socioeconomic
factors or funding
levels---IT IS
INSTRUCTION.
Mike Schmoker
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Indisputable Evidence
What teachers do has six to ten times as much
impact on achievement as all other factors
combined.
Mortimer Simmons
The single greatest determinant of learning is
NOT socioeconomic factors or funding levels,
IT IS INSTRUCTION.
Mike Schmoker
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Indisputable Evidence
Two teachers working with the same
socio-economic population can achieve starkly
different results.
Different Results
In one class 27% of the students pass a state
assessment. In another 72% of the students
will pass a state assessment.
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Thoughtful Education
Three years of Effective
Teaching accounts for an
Assumptions of Thoughtful improvement
Education
of 35-60
percentile points.
1. Improved instruction is the PRIME FACTOR in
producing student achievement gains.
William Sanders
1.
Professional Learning Communities are the
SUREST and FASTEST path to instructional
improvement.
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Thoughtful Education
The best teachers in a
school,that is to say the top
1/3,Education
have SIX TIMES more
Assumptions of Thoughtful
impact on student learning
than the bottom 1/3.
1. Improved instruction is the PRIME FACTOR in
producing student achievement gains.
1.
Katie Haycock
Professional Learning Communities are the
SUREST and FASTEST path to instructional
improvement.
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Thoughtful Education
There can be no improvement
without the teacher.
A successful, face to face team is
more than just collectively
intelligent. It makes everyone work
work harder, think smarter, and
reach better conclusions than they
would have own their own.
James Solowreck
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Why Professional Learning
Communities?
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Instructional Learning Teams ensure follow up
and reflection on instruction and its impact on
learning.
Instructional Learning Teams are results driven.
Instructional Learning Teams reinforce a focus
on common essential instructional standards.
Instructional Learning Teams create the best
kind of accountability—a commitment to people
we know.
Instructional Learning Teams honor
and empower the intelligence
of teachers.
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Imagine you are on a
Learning Walk in your
school.
What would be the general
quality of instruction
throughout the building?
What would be the level of
student engagement be?
What would you see and
hear?
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In an extensive research study conducted by
24/7, 2005 of 1,500 classrooms here is what was
observed:
Behaviors
Percentage
Evidence of clear learning goals/objectives
4%
Worksheets
52%
Lecture
31%
Monitoring with no feedback
22%
Use of high yield research based instructional 2%
strategies
Communication rich environments with
writing and rubrics
2%
Fewer than half the students engaged
82%
Bell to bell learning
Less than
1%
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What is going on in your school?
How does this compare to a
Thoughtful Classroom?
Behaviors
Percentage
Evidence of clear learning goals/objectives
4%
Worksheets
52%
Lecture
31%
Monitoring with no feedback
22%
Use of high yield research based instructional
strategies
2%
Communication rich environments with writing and
rubrics
2%
Fewer than half the students engaged
82%
Bell to bell learning
Less than 1%
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Moving from an
Instructional
Leader to a
Learning Leader.
Rick DuFour
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There are
particular
leadership actions
that show
demonstrable
links to improved
student
achievement and
educational
equity.
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•Inquiry: the degree to which school
leaders analyze the underlying causes of
deficiencies and successes in student
achievement and equity.
•Successful inquiry attributes the causes to
adults in the educational system—teachers,
school leaders, and policymakers.
• Unsuccessful inquiry attributes causes to
students. In other words, “blame the
victim” is not only morally reprehensible but
statistically untrue.
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•Implementation: the degree to which the
specific elements of school improvement
processes are implemented at the student
and classroom levels. Effective
implementation is a continuous variable in
which leaders recognize that there are
degrees of successful implementation that
are subject to quantitative and narrative
description.
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•Monitoring: the degree to which a school self
assesses their own progress in reaching school
goals. Plans without monitoring are little better
than wishes upon stars. It is important to
distinguish carefully between appropriate and
insightful monitoring and monitoring that
equates to a compliance drill for external
authorities.
•Assessment and reflection is designed to
improve teaching and learning, provide
immediate feedback for students and teachers,
and focus on specific objectives.
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The focus on learning
becomes the leverage for
improved teaching.
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What percentage of your
students are academically
successful?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
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80
90
100
Do you know the
names, faces
and stories of
those who will
not be
successful at the
end of the year?
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What do Learning
Profiles look like?
Are you using
profile data to
support student
learning?
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What Matters Most…
From Planning to Performance
P
I
M
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What Matters Most…
From Planning to Performance
Planning
Implementation
Monitoring
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Low
Frustration
Low Implementation
Enthusiasm
Burnout
No Implementation
Overload
Commitment
High
High Implementation
Little Implementation
Low
High
Number of Old, Continuing, Pending and
New Initiatives
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Weeding the Garden
Every school has weeds.
The gardener must
continuously remove the
weeds in order to ensure a
healthy garden.
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Learning Leaders must be ever
vigilant for persistent weeds
with deep roots in the academic
garden.
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What is Leadership?
Leadership is the
continuous engagement
in moving individuals and
organizations from their
present state to an ideal
state.
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To lead learning means to
model a “learner-centered”
as opposed to “authority
centered” approach to all
problems, inside and
outside the classroom.
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Tools for
Schools: A
Learning SWEEP
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Imagine a Box….not
Pandora’s Box, but a box
that would provide answers
your
school
has
been
.
searching for in your quest
for school improvement.
What would go in the box?
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Meet Dennis Mitchell, a
Learning Leader
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S
W
E.
E
Inquiry Focus:
What does reading instruction look like
and sound like in our school?
How can we improve reading instruction
and student learning?
Are students’ learning styles addressed
so as to provide equal opportunity to
learn?
P
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Select a focus and collect three
consecutive days of work.
W
E.
E
P
Reading Class
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S
W ork on the work, analyze the work using
criteria.
E.
E
P
Reading Class
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Task: After reading “Titanic Found” draw a
picture and write a summary of the text.
Summarizing
Recall
Creating Visuals
Mastery Learning Style
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S
What patterns emerge?
What questions need answering?
W
What are our greatest needs?
What are the implications?
teaching practices and
.
Examine
students’ learning.
E
P
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S
W
What are we doing well?
What do we need to do MORE of?
E..
Evaluate and assess what is working,
what is not.
P
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S
Goal
Action
Dates
Expected Outcome Results
W
E.
E
Plan a course of action for reaching
school improvement
goals.
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What can a school learn from a SWEEP?
How might this information bring about
improvement in teaching and learning?
How is this data different from the type of
data you presently use?
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