Standards in Education
I didn't begin my teaching career the "traditional" way. I did not major in education at my university; I did not sit in other teacher's classes to learn from them; I didn't do any of the things teachers do to prepare for this career. My process was: Come to Asia and teach! That was my entire process.
I open this blog with this story in order for the reader to better understand where I am coming from when it comes to my thoughts on the process to become teacher certified. Ever since I started the Teach Now program, I have learned so much about this job that I do day in and day out every weekday (and a few weekends too, here and there).
I have been teaching for 8 years now. However, because of my lack of going "through the process," there are so many things I still don't know about being a teacher, but am currently in the process of learning. These things are either:
- Things I never knew about; so brand new things.
- Things I knew about, but never thought about them; thus never actually did anything about them.
- Things I knew about, but had no idea they were actual things teachers did, so I didn't know their names; I just thought about them and employed/did them in my class.
Unpacking a Standard
For this week's Teach Now homework, we are working on standards in education. Standards tell us what students should be studying/learning, but more importantly, they tell us what students should know by the end of the lesson/unit/semester/school year/etc.
This week we focused on "Unpacking a Standard." This means that we break the standard down into smaller components. Then from this we have a better understanding of what our students should be able to do at the end of the unit. One of the standards that I chose was from the Common Core State Standards in the U.S. I chose a standard from Common Core because it is the most used standard in the U.S.; 42 out of the 50 states use it. As for me working abroad, many American international schools also follow it. Therefore, it seems like the most useful set of standards to start to learn about. For this homework assignment, I chose the following standard to unpack:
Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
When I unpack this standard, I have to look for the nouns and verbs in the sentence. This helps me to see what my students will learn (the nouns) and what they should be able to do with that (the verbs). So for the above example, after unpacking it, I came up with:
To recognize all uppercase letters of the alphabet.
To recognize all lowercase letters of the alphabet.
To name all uppercase letters of the alphabet.
To name all lowercase letters of the alphabet.
Backwards Mapping
The second part of this week's homework was about "Backwards Mapping." This means that when creating lesson plans, teachers should start with the objectives (the desired goals or standards) first and then go "backwards" to create lessons. Instead of starting with the first lesson chronologically. By doing this, teachers can design lessons and assessments that "result in students achieving the academic goals of a course or unit- that is, actually learning what they were expected to learn" (edglossary.org). In other words, this process helps teachers create lessons that are "focused on the goal (learning) rather than on the process (teaching)" (edglossary.org).
Together
These two components compliment each other well. As a teacher, if I first break a standard down, I can better know what the goals for my students are. Then by mapping my lessons backwards, I can better make sure that I am helping my students achieve those goals.
References
Backward Design. (2013). The Glossary of Education Reform. Retrieved from http://edglossary.org/backward-design/
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Standards in your state. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/
Digital Chalkboard. (n.d.). How to Unpack a Standard. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.mydigitalchalkboard.org/portal/default/Content/Viewer/Content?action=2&scId=100028&sciId=829
No comments:
Post a Comment