Cohort Curriculum Meetings

1. Cohort Curriculum Meetings Spring, 2010 ESU 6

2. Goals • Participants will develop curriculum products. • Participants will design collaboration networks.

4. Objectives for the Day • Determine common curriculum • Begin to develop a common unit of instruction for fall semester • Design interim communication tools and processes • Determine interim activities

5. Agenda • Introductions • 2010-11 Cohort Schedule • Craft Knowledge • Curriculum Design Overview • Sharing of instructional units • Determine common unit of study • Interim communication tools • Work time

6. Craft Knowledge • Craft knowledge: the knowledge about the practice that is collected, codified, legitimated, and shared by professionals. (Burney, 2006)

7. Professionals in any field… • Act on the most current knowledge that defines their field. • Are client-centered and adapt to meet the needs of the individuals whom they serve. • Are results oriented. • Uphold the standards of the profession in their own practice and through peer review (Wiggins and McTighe, 2006)

8. Deanna Burney • Educational research is shared only haphazardly among teachers • Teachers do not, as a body, share an authoritative, proven understanding of the work they do. • Craft knowledge is confined to isolated classrooms • The education system does not invest in the cultivation and dissemination of craft knowledge

9. Deanna Burney • The system prevents the development of a professional knowledge base: • Individual teachers work in isolation • Autonomy is the badge of professionalism • Isolation has produced personalized forms of instruction

10. Richard Elmore • Education is a profession without a practice. • We haven’t developed a clear sense of what we do, and how it relates to our core mission. • It is no longer acceptable to say that teaching is a mysterious thing, that occurs idiosyncratically in every classroom • We need a systematic answer to the question of how we do what we do

11. Development and Sharing • Name the strategies! • Share instructional strategy • Complete craft knowledge form

12. Curriculum • What economic advantage does your curriculum provide to your students? • Scott McLeod

13. What do we want? • What things do you want your students to know and/or be able to do two years after they leave your care?

14. Essential Question • What should curriculum accomplish?

15. Literature Framework Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2007). Schooling by design. Alexandria, VA. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

16. Curriculum Defined • The blueprint for learning derived from the desired results. • Takes content and shapes it into a plan for effective teaching and learning. • Based on the learning goals for students. • Once we agree on the goals, what would the learning plan look like, and what methods would help us achieve our goals?

17. Curriculum is not… • A list of places to visit • A list of content (which even if preceded by verbs is not a curriculum, but an inventory of stuff) • Hierarchical lists of the major topics: • The Civil War • Parts of a Cell • Long Division

18. Curriculum should… • Be written backward from worthy tasks that require students to use content wisely. • Help students “do the subject”, not just learn it’s findings. • Be the blueprint for learning

19. Curriculum Components • Mission • Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions • Curriculum Maps • Common Assessments • Rubrics • Anchors • Learning Activities • Diagnostic and Formative Assessment • Differentiation • Troubleshooting Guides *See the SbD Handout

20. Mission • Specifying the integrated accomplishments sought – based on the habits of mind (problem solving, critical thinking). • If we were successful students would have • Accomplished… • Created… • Used their learning to…

21. Curriculum Components • Mission • Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions • Curriculum Maps • Common Assessments • Rubrics • Anchors • Learning Activities • Diagnostic and Formative Assessment • Differentiation • Troubleshooting Guides

22. Understanding • Read the excerpt from Schooling by Design. • Complete the Three Level Text Protocol.

23. Enduring Understandings • An important inference, drawn from the experience of experts, stated as a specific and useful generalization. • Refers to transferable, big ideas having enduring understanding beyond a specific topic. • Involves abstract counterintuitive and easily misunderstood ideas.

24. Enduring Understandings • Is best acquired by “uncovering” (i.e., it must be developed inductively, co-constructed by learners) and “doing” the subject (i.e., using the ideas in realistic settings and with real-world problems). • Summarizes important strategic principles in skill areas.

25. The facts A body of coherent facts Verifiable claims Right or wrong I know something to be true I respond on cue with what I know The meaning of the facts The “theory” that provides coherence Fallible, in-process theories A matter of degree I understand why it is true I judge when to use what I know Knowledge vs Understanding

26. Transfer • Apply learning to new situations not only in school, but also beyond it. • The point of school is to learn in school how to make sense of learnings in order to lead better lives out of school. • Learn now to apply lessons to later challenges.

27. Playing the Game • Transfer allows students to apply what they have learned to new situations • Action words for student projects • Design • Create • Develop • Recommend • Construct

28. Project Based Learning • Provide an overarching problem that students uncover throughout a learning segment. • Upside Down Teaching, Hook Problem

29. Upside-down Teaching • Cathy Seeley, former president of NCTM • Rather than starting a lesson with the identification of procedures and simple examples, and working up to a rich, challenging problem, teachers who practice Upside-down Teaching begin with the rich, challenging problem. Seeley suggests the following outline:

30. Cathy Seeley • Upside-down teaching • Start with a rich problem • Engage students in dealing with the problem by discussing, comparing, and interacting • Help students connect and notice what they’ve learned • Then assign exercises and homework • Demonstration of upside-down teaching at www.utdanacenter.org/amdm

31. Essential Questions • Provocative and arguable question designed to guide inquiry into the big ideas. • By actively exploring the essential questions, students develop and deepen their understanding.

32. What does “Essential” Mean? • Important questions that recur throughout life – “what is justice?” • Core ideas and inquiries within a discipline. “what causes conflict?” • Helps students make sense of complicated ideas. “how do the most effective leaders gain consensus”? • Engages the students through relevance and meaning.

33. Curriculum Components • Mission • Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions • Curriculum Maps • Common Assessments • Rubrics • Anchors • Learning Activities • Diagnostic and Formative Assessment • Differentiation • Troubleshooting Guides

34. Curriculum Maps • Show how habits, big ideas, essential questions and assessment tasks spiral through the curriculum

35. Example Grand Island examples at http://www.gips.org

36. Curriculum Components • Mission • Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions • Curriculum Maps • Common Assessments • Rubrics • Anchors • Learning Activities • Diagnostic and Formative Assessment • Differentiation • Troubleshooting Guides

37. Common Assessments • Answers the question: • How will we know students have learned? • Demonstrations of the most important learning targets. • Ongoing measures of learning for gauging progress and guiding improvement efforts.

38. Rubrics • Common rubrics provide consistent evaluation and specific feedback • Provide more consistent evaluation from one teacher to the next • Provide targets for students

39. Anchors • Tangible examples of student work to illustrate various performance levels • Provides examples for classroom instruction • Provides models for students to better evaluate their own work

40. Learning Activities • Research based instructional strategies are tied to the learning goals. • Recommended resources are identified.

41. Diagnostic and Formative Assessments • Diagnostic Assessments: Pre-assessments to provide information that aid in planning instruction. A check of prior knowledge is an example. • Formative assessments: ongoing assessments that provide information to guide instruction.

42. Differentiation • Directions for tailoring instruction to student needs. • Provides resources and strategies for differentiation aligned to the learning goal.

43. Troubleshooting Guides • Advice and tips for addressing predictable learning related problems • Provides assistance for novice teachers based on the experience of veterans

45. Learning Plans • Backward design of classroom lessons based on the learning goals. • Stage 1: Goals, Understanding, Essential Questions • Stage 2: Evidence/Assessments • Stage 3: Activities

47. Summary • Review the handout: 10 Curriculum Components. • How could a curriculum based on some or all of these provide a blueprint for learning? • What would be the benefits to a design such as this?

48. Common Curriculum • What topics/units of study do we have in common? • What should we design for next fall? • See unit questions • Answer the questions collaboratively

49. Communication • Skype • Wikispaces • K-1 Cohort Wiki • Documents • Unit questions

50. Work Time