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Powerful Learning: From Rhetoric to Reality

Powerful Learning: From Rhetoric to Reality. Nancy Doda, Ph.D. and Mark Springer www.teacher-to-teacher.com http:// www.allianceforpowerfullearning.com. Start with the end in mind. Creating powerful learning for our young adolescents. What Are We After?.

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Powerful Learning: From Rhetoric to Reality

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  1. Powerful Learning: From Rhetoric to Reality Nancy Doda, Ph.D. and Mark Springer www.teacher-to-teacher.comhttp://www.allianceforpowerfullearning.com

  2. Start with the end in mind Creating powerful learning for our young adolescents

  3. What Are We After? • Learning That Feels Important To Students • Learning that Supports Student Mastery of the Standards • Learning that an Be Transferred to New Challenges and Contexts • Learning that Leads to Competence in Independence & Collaboration • Learning that Sticks; Endures

  4. Criteria for A Rigorous Curriculum • Has the Capacity to Engage Young Minds • Has Enduring Value Beyond the Classroom • Leans on Themes of Personal & Social Significance • Applies Knowledge & Skills to Real World Questions, Issues or Problems • Uncovers Misconceptions. Beane, From Rhetoric to Reality; Wiggins & McTighe, Understanding by Design

  5. Our Curriculum Choices

  6. CURRICULUM CONTINUUM INTERDISCIPLINARY ‘MULTI-DISCIPLINARY’ INTEGRATIVE INTEGRATED TRADITIONAL NO SEPARATE SUBJECTS, THEMES SELECTED BY TEACHER SEPARATE SUBJECTS, SEPARATE TOPICS NO SEPARATE SUBJECTS, STUDENTS AND TEACHERS NEGOTIATE THEMES SEPARATE SUBJECTS SHARE COMMON, TEACHER-SELECTED THEMES Brazee, Ed & Capelluti, Jody (1995). Dissolving Boundaries: Toward an Integrative Curriculum. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.

  7. A Sample Student’s Day • Order of Operations • Appropriate Prefixes • Narrative Writing/Heroes • Cells • Ancient Greece/Rome • What holds these disparate puzzle pieces together in the student’s mind? • What insures that students will be able retrieve and use this knowledge at some later point?

  8. “Almost everyone had had occasion to look back upon his school days and wonder what has become of the knowledge he was supposed to have amassed during his years of schooling … but it was so segregated when it was acquired and hence is so disconnected from the rest of experience that it is not available under the actual conditions of life.”Dewey (1938, 48)

  9. Perils of Separate Subject Approach • It’s Fragmented • It’s Randomly Redundant • It Leans Towards Content Details • It’s Fast & Furious Coverage • It Yields Short-Lived, Superficial Retention

  10. “…an integrated approach seems to hold the most promise of any curriculum design in preparing middle grades students for the global age”. (Andrews, G. Turning points, 2000)

  11. Benefits of An Interdisciplinary Approach • It’s Authentic: Life is Integrated • It’s Rigorous: Complex Problems Are Best Solved Using Multi-Discipline Approach • It’s Coherent: Connections Strengthen Retention (Fragmented Curriculum Disrupts Retention) • It’s Inviting: Leans on Big Ideas and Questions

  12. Watershed Themes

  13. A Sense of Place A Sense of Time A Sense of Quality

  14. Unit Theme-A Sense of Quality Understanding Systems that shape the Quality of our Life

  15. Art as a System Of Quality The Wyeths

  16. Systems of the Human Body

  17. The Systems in our Homes

  18. Systems in the Watershed Wastewater Treatment Power Generation Water Treatment Recycling

  19. Where are we now? Where do we hope to be?

  20. The Long View

  21. UNIT PLANNING STAGES • Stage 1-Identify Desired Understandings • Stage 2-Design Performance Assessment • Stage 3-Design Learning Activities

  22. A Sample Student’s Day • Order of Operations • Appropriate Prefixes • Narrative Writing • Cells • Ancient Greece/Rome • What holds these disparate puzzle pieces together in the student’s mind? • What will make this knowledge useful and meaningful?

  23. STAGE ONE If this is the knowledge my students should come to know, what is it I hope they will understand about that knowledge?

  24. Stage One • EQ: What are the limits of human capacity? • Students will understand that human capacities are many and varied.

  25. LANGUAGE ARTS SOCIAL STUDIES What are the limits of human capacity? LL SCIENCE MATH

  26. Stage One cont’d • Students will understand that cultures differ in their notions about human capacity. • Students will understand that humans can convey those notions through various media.

  27. Students will understand how the physical aspects of the human body effect our capacities. Students will understandhow our environment effect our human capacities?

  28. Connections • “Numbers”-Film • Math is a tool that human beings use expand our capacities.

  29. Task 1 Complete STAGE ONE for Quarter 1

  30. Task 1 • Finalize Subject Area essential Questions and Tie them to the Overarching Unit Question • Finalize all Subject Area Understandings • *This is where you will identify standards being taught.

  31. STAGE TWO If my students truly understand what I have taught, what will serve as performance evidence of their understanding?

  32. Title: “You are what you eat” EQ: What does it mean to lead a healthy life? Understanding 1: Students will understand elements of good nutrition. Understanding 2: Students will understand that a balanced diet contributes to a healthy life. Performance Tasks: Students analyze & improve on a hypothetical family’s diet for 1 week. Students plan a and defend a week’s menu for a healthy week.

  33. Examples of performance assessments include • projectsenabling a number of students to work together on a complex problem that requires planning, research, internal discussion, and group presentation • essays assessing students' understanding of a subject through a written description, analysis, explanation, or summary • experiments testing how well students understand scientific concepts and can carry out scientific processes. • demonstrations giving students opportunities to show their mastery of subject-area content and procedures. • portfolios allowing students to provide a broad portrait of their performance through files that contain collections of students' work, assembled over time.

  34. What are the content/skill standards that students might be demonstrating if they were to successfully each of these Performance Tasks?

  35. What does it mean to really understand? • Ability to explain • Ability to interpret • Ability to apply • Ability to have perspective • Ability to relate; empathize • Ability to know how we understand or fail to understand something (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998)

  36. The Two Question Test • Could students do well on this assessment but not really understand X.? • Could students do poorly on the assessment but really understand?

  37. Sample Performance Assessment • Individually or in small groups, students will create a new “human being” with well defined capacities. • They will write the script of conversations between the ‘God’s as they create the first human being.

  38. Possible Components • What are the physical capacities of your human being? (eg; cells…) • What will the environment be that will shape your new human being? (eg; plants, culture) • What images describe this human being? (eg; images) • Defend all choices.

  39. Task 2 Develop Performance Assessment (s)

  40. Unit Planning Plan Stage One and Two for Remaining Quarters

  41. Essential Questions What makes us who we are? How much can we control who we become? Which counts more in who we are: nature or nurture?

  42. Desired Understandings: Hard Won, Developed Over Time • Students will understand… • that each human being is unique • that human diversity is the product of genetics, lifestyle and experiences • that human beings have some control over who they are and can become • that human beings are resilient and can adapt and change

  43. Desired Understandings: Hard Won, Developed Over Time • Students will understand that: • the earth’s resources are not unlimited • how an individual behaves can impact the quality of life on the earth • if every person was responsible for his/ her actions and interactions there would be less strife and greater happiness in our lives

  44. STAGE THREE Given this is what my students will be asked to do with their Understanding, what learning activities will be most instructive?

  45. LANGUAGE ARTS SOCIAL STUDIES What are the limits of human capacity? LL SCIENCE MATH

  46. The Two Question Test • Could students do the activities but still fail to be ready for the my assessment? • Could students fail to do all the activities and be ready to do well on the my assessment?

  47. Cautions • Seek out Concepts, Processes, Questions, Ideas rather than Content Topics • Be willing to rotate subject area leads • Always Ask yourself: What will make sense to students? • Use a Planning Framework • Have a story line: notable beginning and end

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