Essential Learnings

All students will be productive and responsible citizens in a competitive world.

SASD Student Learning Plan

By end of Second Semester – 2010/2011  Identify and align building essential learnings with Common Core Standards and 21st Century Skills  Building teams will identify/develop common formative assessments for 50% of the essential learnings

Student Learning Plan + PLC

 To achieve the Student Learning Plan goal, the PLC framework will be utilized  Continued focus on Student Learning, Collaboration, and Results

A Shift in Purpose

Learning By Doing p. 187

A Definition…

Essential Learnings:

Knowledge and skills that teachers will ensure

all

students will learn. (8-10 per semester) Don’t think of essential learnings as minimum standards, but as the items that a student MUST know to be successful at the next level. These are items that teachers will continue to teach and reassess until they are learned.

The goal is to collaboratively create a guaranteed and viable curriculum (Larger Effect Sizes)

The Power of Collaboration

  Collaborative cultures facilitate commitment to change and improvement - Fullan & Hardgraves In “learning enriched” schools teachers worked together more than in “learning impoverished” schools - Rosenholtz  Ashton and Webb found that the main benefit of collaboration is that it can reduce teachers’ sense of powerlessness and increase their sense of efficacy.

Collaboration in Determining Essential Learnings:

 Promotes clarity of what the essentials are and what they mean (G)  Promotes consistent priorities (G)  Is crucial to the common pacing required for formative assessments (G)  Can help establish a curriculum that is viable (V)  Creates ownership of the curriculum among those who are called upon to teacher it. (G, V)

Creating A Guaranteed Curriculum  This collective inquiry is a professional responsibility of

every

faculty member — members of a PLC can neither ship this question off to someone else to answer, nor disregard their colleagues (Dufour, et. al)  Teams work together to build

shared knowledge

regarding essential curriculum

Curriculum overload results in two significant barriers to student achievement:   Too many teachers make coverage of the curriculum a priority. The ability to say, “I taught it” becomes the primary objective, while student learning becomes secondary The overload forces teachers to make decisions about what they will teach and what they will exclude. If done on an individual level rather than as a grade level team, there is no “guaranteed curriculum” to assure all students have access to the same knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

Viable Curriculum

 Marzanno, et. al (1999) studied the 49 state standards documents and concluded that teaching the content in those documents would require 71% more instructional time (about 10 additional years of school)  Reeves (2002) asserts that not all standards are created equal; some are simply more important, or more powerful, than others.

 As teams work to clarify what is essential, they also work to identify curriculum content that should be eliminated.

Separating Essential from the Peripheral

Worth being familiar with Important to know and do Essential (Endurance, Leverage, & Readiness)

Establishing Essential Learnings

 Reeves offers a three-part test: –

Endurance

: retention of skill/knowledge/understanding is critical throughout a student’s academic career and life.

–

Leverage

: Proficiency in this skill/knowledge/understanding is critical for student learning in other areas of the curriculum and in other disciplines.

–

Readiness

In order to achieve success at the next grade level or course, it is critical students learn this skill/knowledge/understanding.

When Identifying Essentials….

 Essentials must align with the Model Academic Standards  Essentials must align with 21 st Century Skills  Ensure students are well prepared to demonstrate proficiency on WKCE and required district common assessments

Pertinent Resources

 Model Academic Standards  21 st Century Skills  Proficiency levels on district common assessments  Other resources…. see handout

Locating the Pertinent Resources

 Alpha Web

Documenting the Essentials

 Essential Template –– see handout  Assessment Administration Calendar TBD

How Will Work Be Completed?

 Team Meetings  Whole Group – Meetings TBD  Vertical Team Meetings - TBD

Beginning the Work

 Each team will need to: – Establish team norms – Determine roles and responsibilities (minimally will need to address facilitation, note taking, and team contact person)  Meeting notes need to be turned in to the administrator overseeing the group. Indicate any questions, or if other supports are needed – see handout

Questions??