Curriculum Mapping Project

1. Curriculum Mapping Project Sue Z. Beers suebeers@netins.net Bettina Mihai bettinamihai1@gmail.com 2011

2. The Process • Understanding the standards • Developing purpose of mapping • Getting the big picture: mapping by month • Understanding the components of the curriculum map • Developing 21st century curriculum maps • Reviewing / Evaluating the maps • Revising curriculum maps • Sharing the maps!

3. "There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832 McWilliams, 2009

4. Definition of Curriculum Mapping Calendar-based curriculum mapping is a procedure for collecting and maintaining an operational data base of the curriculum in a school or district. Curriculum mapping provides the basis for authentic examination. Module 1, Figure 1

5. Curriculum maps can be aligned both horizontally and vertically, organizing content, skills, assessments, and resources over time.

6. By mapping what's actually taught and when it's taught, teachers produce data that can be used with assessment data to make modifications in instruction. (Educational Leadership, December 2003/January 2004).

7. Curriculum Mapping

8. Curriculum Mapping… • Stage 1 – Identify desired results • Stage 2 – Determine acceptable evidence • Stage 3 – Plan learning experiences and instruction

9. Stage 1: Identify Desired Results • Content Standards and Knowledge & Skills • Enduring Understandings • Essential Questions

10. Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence • Determine methods of assessment • Performance task • Other evidence • Quizzes, tests, prompts, work samples • Observations • Student self-assessment

11. Stage 3:Plan Learning and Instruction • WHERE • Misunderstandings • Determine the role of technology in enhancing teaching and learning i.e., using the audio documentary content

12. Do the activities explain by themselves where are your students heading and why? Do the activities hook your students through engaging, thought provoking experiences? WHERE Do the activities help students experience the ideas or issues to make them real? Do the activities cause students to reflect and rethink- to dig deeper into the core idea? Do the activities allow for students to exhibit their understanding through a product or performance?

13. Curriculum Mapping: The Big Picture Timelines for Curriculum Implementation

15. Curriculum Mapping:Breaking It Down Creating Unit Maps to Guide Instruction

16. “Understanding is always fluid, transformable into a new theory.” • What we want students to be able to do is to take information and skills and apply them in new situations rather than “spewing back the particular fact, concepts, or problem sets that were taught.” Wiggins and McTighe Understanding by Desigh

17. “How does one go about determining what is worth understanding amid a range of content standards and topics?”Wiggins and McTighe, 1989 p.10 • BEFORE you do your lesson plans, ask yourself, “What do I really want these student to know? What is the core nugget of knowledge that, when they are 32 years old and have forgotten most of what they have learned, will allow them to function in real life situations?”

18. “Students can hit any appropriate achievement target that is clear and holds still for them.” -Rick Stiggins Assessment Training Institute

20. Many students view classroom activities as “…an arbitrary sequence of exercises with no overarching rationale.” From “Inside the Black Box” by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, Phi Delta Kappan, October 1998.

21. Traditional Planning… • What chapter I need to get to… • Daily activities • What am I going to assign for homework • I have to change the test and cross out all of the questions I didn’t get to this year • Quickly check to make sure I have some of the SLEs covered • Remind yourself that you are probably teaching something that is on the BM or EOC anyway

22. Making Sense of the Terms

23. worth being familiar with “nice to know” important to know and do foundational concepts & skills “big ideas” worth understanding enduring understandings Establishing Curricular Priorities Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD. McWilliams, 2009

24. Three types of knowledge • Good to know; knowledge worth being familiar with; covered in class • Essential, important to know; uncovered in class • Enduring knowledge; has understanding beyond the classroom; student come to the realization

25. The Six Facets of Understanding Superficial Coverage vs. Uncovering Big Ideas Explanation Interpretation Application _______ Perspective Empathy Self-Knowledge Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD. McWilliams, 2009

26. 6 Facets of Understanding • 1) explain provide thorough and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data • 2) interpret — tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make subjects personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies, and models • 3) apply — effectively use and adapt what they know in diverse • contexts • 4) have perspective — see and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture • 5) empathize — find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior indirect experience • 6) have self-knowledge — perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that both shape and impede our own understanding; they are aware of what they do not understand and why understanding is so hard

27. 6 Facets of Understanding “The six facets reflect the different connotations of understanding.…From an assessment perspective, the six facets offer various indicators of-windows on-understanding….The facets suggest a goal: In teaching for transfer, complete and mature understanding ideally involves the full development of all six kinds of understanding.” Wiggins and McTighe (p.85)

28. Explanation

29. 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 1: Explanation : knowledge of how and why. When we can explain something by generalizations or principles, provide justification through facts, data, and make insightful connections and provide examples or illustrations.Wiggins and McTighe

30. Questions that probe for Explanation • Why is that so? • What explains such events? • What accounts for such action? • How can we prove it? • To what is this connected? • What is an illustrative example? • How does this work? • What is implied?

31. Interpretation

32. Six Facets of Understanding Facet 2: Interpretation : making meaning, translations, interpretations “The student possessing this understanding can show an event’s significance, reveal the data’s importance, or provide an interpretation that strikes a deep chord of recognition and resonance.”Wiggins and McTighe (p. 89)

33. Questions to Illicit Interpretations • What does it mean? • Why does it matter? • What of it? • What does it illustrate or illuminate in the human experience? • How does it relate to me? • What makes sense?

34. Application

35. Six Facets of Understanding Facet 3: Application : ability to “do” the subject. Ability to use and adapt what we know in diverse contexts. “We show our understanding of something by using it, adapting it, and customizing it. When we must negotiate different constraints, social contexts, purposes and audiences, we reveal our understanding as performance know how. Wiggins and McTighe (p.93)

36. Questions to ask for Demonstration of Application • How and where can we use this knowledge, skill, or process? • How should my thinking and action be modified to meet the demands of this particular situation? • How is ____ applied in the larger world?

37. Perspective

38. Six Facets of Understanding Facet 4: Perspective: see and hear different points of view; see the big picture. “A student with perspective is alert to what is taken for granted, assumed, overlooked, or glossed over in an inquiry or theory. …This type of perspective is a powerful form of insight because by shifting perspective and casting familiar ideas in a new light, once can create new theories, stories and applications.” Wiggins and McTighe (p.95)

39. Questions that probe for Perspective • From whose point of view? • From which vantage point? • What is assumed or tacit that needs to be made explicit and considered? • What is justified or warranted? • Is there adequate evidence? • Is it reasonable? • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the idea? • Is it plausible? • What are its limits? So what?

40. Empathy

41. Six Facets of Understanding Facet 5: Empathy : The ability to get inside another person’s feelings and worldview. “Empathy is different from seeing in perspective, which is to see from a critical distance, detached to see more objectively. With empathy, we see from inside the person’s worldview, we walk in their shoes, we fully embrace the insights that come with engagement.” Wiggins and McTighe (p.98)

42. Questions that Illicit Empathy • How does it seem to you? • What do they see that I don’t? • What do I need to experience if I am to understand? • What was the writer, artist, or performer feeling, thinking, seeing, and trying to make me feel and see?

43. Self Knowledge

44. Six Facets of Understanding Facet 6: Self-Knowledge : The wisdom to know one’s ignorance. Critical self reflection. “…a greater attention to self-knowledge means we do a better job of teaching and assessing self-reflection in the broadest sense. Self knowledge is the key facet of understanding because it demands that we self-consciously question our ways of seeing the world if we are to become more understanding-better able to see beyond ourselves.” Wiggins and McTighe (p.102)

45. Questions that Encourage Self Knowledge • How does who I am shape my views? • What are limits of my understanding? • What are my blind spots? • What am I prone to misunderstand because of prejudice, habit, or style?

46. STANDARDS Definition: Standards from the NY Social Studies Standards and the NCCSS Criteria: • Direct instruction • Assessed within the unit • Represent key learnings expected

47. An essential question • “is an intellectual linchpin. A linchpin is the pin that keeps the wheel in place on an axle. Thus, a linchpin idea is one that is essential for understanding – without it a student cannot go anywhere.”

48. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS Definition: Overarching questions that provide focus for the unit and are aligned to the “Big Ideas,” concepts, or themes Criteria: •Encourage higher level thinking •Help students make connections beyond content being studied •Focus on “Why is this important?” •Include different levels of questions (fundamental, situational, authentic) •Written in question form

49. An essential question: • is a provocative question designed to engage student interest and guide inquiry into the important ideas in a field of study. • does not have one “right” answer • is intended to stimulate discussion and rethinking over time • raises other important questions • When using more than one, essential questions can be differentiated to meet student needs.

50. Essential Questions • Have no one obvious right answer • Raise important questions across content areas • Reflect conceptual priorities • Recur naturally • Are framed to provoke and sustain student interest