Plan: Balancing Good Teaching Every Day

1. Plan:Balancing Good Teaching Every Day Christin Perovich, M.Ed. ELA Coordinator mperovich@dsdmail.net

2. Why do “you” plan for lessons? • I plan my lessons because … (Post-it note activity)

3. Objectives: Review standard for Plan. Understand how effective teachers might use the 12 touchstone items to balance classroom demands through appropriate planning strategies. Recognize the importance of using the 12 touchstone items to design and create well planned and focused lessons.

4. Standard for Plan • Effective educators plan instruction and assessments designed to support students in meeting rigorous learning goals as outlined in DESK and the Utah State Core standards. Through careful planning of relevant and meaningful learning experiences, effective educators address student strengths and challenges while balancing the best instructional strategies with an understanding of individual student needs.

5. If educators know what effective planning should be, why are so many of us missing the mark?

6. Why do educators struggle with planning effectively? • What is it that takes up time?

7. Problem Solved? • http://youtu.be/-tNgm5UiizE - http://youtu.be/-tNgm5UiizE • The 299 model aircraft was not “too much for one man, it simply was too much for one man’s memory.” • How the Pilot’s Checklist Came About, by John Schamel

8. We won’t be able to eliminate all of our distractions, but we can get rid of many of them through planning. • Research suggests that, “…teachers can devote time to the wrong things, engaging in practices that simply don’t work---or that don’t work as well as other practices.” (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013)

9. Let’s focus on identifying the 12 Touchstone Items that will help us plan for effective classroom instruction. • There are three categories that the 12 items fall into: • Be Demanding:Align teaching with high expectations for learning. (Items 1-4) • Be Supportive: Provide a nurturing learning environment. (Items 5-8) • Be Intentional: Know why you’re doing what you’re doing. (Items 9-12)

10. Be Demanding: Item 1 • I Use Standards to Guide Every Learning Opportunity: • “It is critically important that every teacher gets on the same page with the learning opportunities they provide students to ensure that student learning experiences reflect a continuous progression toward greater knowledge and skills---without gaps and unnecessary redundancies.” (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2014) • Standards are used as a guide to ensure that the right learning takes place at the right time. • Standards help us plan lessons with a focus on learning outcomes! We need to know what to teach and at what depth it needs to be taught before we can teach our students.

11. In high achieving schools and classrooms where standards are being taught and met, higher student achievement follows. • Clearly articulate the curriculum and its purpose. Be Explicit! • Both teacher and students monitor whether the curriculum is being taught and taught with a deep understanding for future application. • Curriculum and assessments align together to demonstrate student achievement. • “If curriculum guides are available, you owe it to your students and colleges to use them.” (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2014) • Identify your focus for the lesson. Determine how you will assess learning. Determine how to engage students. Determine how you will engage students in learning and mastering concepts. Know what to do if students are not getting it. Identify how to close your lesson.

12. Be Demanding: Item 2 • I Ensure that Students Set Personal Learning Objectives for Each Lesson. • “… students are driven by both serious goal-directedness--- a long-range vision for achieving external rewards---and short-term intrinsic motivation to achieve the task at hand” (Csikszentmihayi et al., 1993). • “Shrink the Change” Break large challenges down to more manageable components when trying to motivate people to take action. This idea comes from the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, (Heath & Heath, 2010). • Teachers need to narrow standards and benchmarks into more concrete steps that students can accomplish during a lesson or series of lessons---steps that move students toward these larger goals. • Plan with the “End in Mind” (Wiggins) • Clearly communicate and remind students of learning objectives.

13. BE Demanding: Item 3 • I Peel Back the Curtain and Make My Performance Expectations Clear. • Using criteria to define increasingly advanced levels of performance should guide instruction. • Having clearly established performance criteria helps students understand specifically what they must do to improve their performance. • Assessments should NOT be used to trick students.

14. Be Demanding: Item 4 I Measure Understanding Against High Expectations High Expectations Unclear Expectations Lax grading standards Late or missing work Allowances for effort or attitude of student Provides a false indication of students learning and ability to demonstrate knowledge of content Does not motivate students to do better Uses “practice” to determine grades • Focused on student learning • Grading is based on performance of understanding on content • Provides student feedback throughout lessons and provides support during practice • Uses multiple assessment genres for students to demonstrate learning • Teacher evaluates where students are and has a plan to move them forward.

15. Be Supportive: Item 5 • I Engage Student Interest With Every Lesson • If creating lessons that engage student interest seems like extra effort, it is. A boring lesson requires less effort to plan, but it will require extra effort elsewhere. • Student motivation translates into effort, which in turn has a great effect on performance. • Have you every heard as students say, “This is so boring, why do I have to learn it?” • Teachers must help students understand why it’s important to learn and acquire new skills. The ultimate key in engaging and motivating students is to help them arrive at their own answer to the question, Why should I learn this?

16. Be Supportive: Item 6 • I Interact Meaningfully With Every Student • When students are able to form a strong bond with even one teacher, it can have long-term, lasting impacts on student achievement. • “having teachers who attend to their social and emotional needs may be as or more important to academic development that specific instructional practices” (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). • Interact with every student every day… and then, DO something with that information. • Teacher friendliness and personality make students feel more comfortable, engaged, and eager to learn, (Marsh, 2012). It also shows that taking risks are a part of the classroom. • What works best is a blend of positive teacher-student connections and strong instruction (Gregory & Weinstein, 2004).

17. Be Supportive: Item 7 • I Use Feedback to Encourage Effort • One of the most powerful strategies to unleashing student performance is real-time feedback on student performance. • Present feedback in a noncontrolling way to help promote a “growth mindset” for students. • Make guidance specific, actionable, and tailored to each student. • Students benefit from real-time guidance to ensure they are learning the concepts correctly. • Teachers need to be moving around the room and supporting students as much as possible. • Feedback serves to coach students, develop a growth mindset, and help students feel positive about learning so they not just receptive but actually eager to receive information that helps them achieve goals. (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2014)

18. Be Supportive: Item 8 • I Create an Oasis of Safety and Respect in My Classroom • You can’t control everything that happens outside of your classroom. Nonetheless, you can ensure that when students are in your classroom, they are in an oasis of safety---a positive environment where students feel cared for, respected, and encouraged.

19. Be Intentional: Item 9 • Know Why You’re Doing What You’re Doing • Reflect on your own practices, continually asking why am I doing what I’m doing in the classroom. • When it comes to time, what’s most important is how much time is devoted to instruction and, in turn, what portion of that instructional time translates into student engagement and learning. • Account for every minute of class time when planning. • “He who fails to plan is planning to fail.” -Winston Churchill • Establish routines and procedures to reduce time lost to nonacademic activities. • Today, I’m going to make the most of every minute I have with my students to support their learning.

20. Be Intentional: Item 10 • I Help Students Develop Deep Knowledge. • The 6 Cs = curiosity, connection, coherence, concentration, coaching, content. • Never assume that because something is relevant to you, it’s relevant to your students. • Be Explicit! Explicitly state what students are going to be learning about and draw their attention to something they may already know about the topic. The more explicit teachers are helps the students avoid any misconceptions. • What is DOK? Be clear about the learning objectives you have for your students, and take stock of whether the lessons you’ve designed will prompt students to think about the deeper knowledge they should be gaining.

21. Be Intentional: Item 11 • I Coach Students to Mastery • How do we know what mastery is? • What coaches of elite performers do differently is a fairly straightforward process of observing students, identifying opportunities for improvement, focusing students on improving their skills in targeted areas, and reteaching as needed to ensure mastery of new abilities. (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2014) • Teachers need to take ownership of their instruction. • Do we blame students, parents, principals, or district leaders? Who is to blame? Where does more effort need to be placed? …Reflection is important. • Reteach as needed if your first approach doesn’t work.

22. Be Intentional: Item 12 • I Help Students Do Something With Their Learning. • Studies have shown that students’ intrinsic motivation in core subject areas begins to drop off around age 9 and continues to fall (Gottfried et al., 2001). • Writing assignments can help some students extend learning. • Well planned classroom discussions can help other students to be engaged and participate by sharing their thoughts. **This is not a “free-for-all; it should be relevant to learning.

23. The 12 Touchstones

24. Objectives: Review standard for Plan. Understand how effective teachers might use the 12 touchstone items to balance classroom demands through appropriate planning strategies. Recognize the importance of using the 12 touchstone items to design and create well planned and focused lessons.