teachers as curriculum designers thoughtful education

Teachers as Curriculum Designers

www.schoolofeducators.com

Thoughtful Education

Divergent Thinking

Fluency

Elaboration

Flexibility

Originality

Assumptions of Thoughtful Education

1. Improved instruction is the PRIME FACTOR in producing student achievement gains.

1. Professional Learning Communities are the SUREST and FASTEST path to instructional improvement.

2. Leadership begins with the recognition that we must eliminate the senseless things that divert time and attention away from the two elements most vital to school success—how we teach, which is best improved through focused teacher collaboration and what we teach—in Marzano’s words, “a guaranteed and viable curriculum.”

Think about a time you were involved in a creative process.

What was the process like?

What were your struggles?

What were your rewards?www.schoolofeducators.com

Creativity is a Mess---From a Mess to a Model

Generating Ideas

Forming Big Ideas/Concepts

Shaping Ideas

Refining and Polishing Finished Product

What are the parts of a thoughtful unit of study?

What is the difference between an activity planner and a curriculum designer?

What makes writing a unit challenging and how can we simplify the process?

How is a thoughtful unit of study like play dough?

As a teacher do you model questioning in four styles when working with your teachers?

Imagine a BOX.

In this box is a curriculum

that teachers love to teach

and students love to learn.

What would be in the box?

Attributes

Purpose

How would you improve on the design?

Knowledge by Design

David Perkins

Director Project Zero, Harvard University

The focus on learning becomes the leverage for improved teaching.

Look at the unit on evolution. What can you learn from the design?

Attributes

Purpose

Improvements

Standards Students

National

District

School

Learning Styles

Multiple Intelligences

Culture

Interests

Talents

Skills

Abilities

Varied AssessmentTask Rotation, Comprehensive Menus

Graduated Difficulty

Research Based Strategies and Tools

Learning Style Profiles

Hidden Skills

Library

Kitchen

Workroom Porch

Workroom

Creating a Thoughtful Statement of Purpose

Jigsaw

Resource:

Thoughtful Curriculum Guide

Unpacking the Standards

Parts of a Thoughtful Unit of Study

Be LikeAppreciation for the creative process and messiness of creativity.

Collaboration and Collegiality

Understand

Components of a design

SkillsUnpack the standards

Identify purpose

How is writing a thoughtful unit like play dough?

Think of a Time

Imagine a Box

Generating Ideas

Think Pair Share

Rank Order Ladder

Knowledge by Design

Library

Examining a Unit: Resource Evolution Unit

Thoughtful Curriculum Guide

Learning from Louie

Learning from Research

Learning from Examples

Principles

Five Easy Pieces

Planning Your Unit

Step 1: Identify Your Purpose

Unpacking Core Content 4.1

What can we learn from Louie?

StandardsSC-HS-3.5.1Students will:predict the impact on species of changes to 1) the potential for a species to increase its numbers, (2) the genetic variability of offspring due to mutation and recombination of genes, (3) a finite supply of the resources required for life, or (4) natural selection;propose solutions to real-world problems of endangered and extinct species.Species change over time. Biological change over time is the consequence of the interactions of (1) the potential for a species to increase its numbers, (2) the genetic variability of offspring due to mutation and recombination of genes, (3) a finite supply of the resources required for life and (4) natural selection. The consequences of change over time provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms and for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms. Changes in DNA (mutations) occur spontaneously at low rates. Some of these changes make no difference to the organism, whereas others can change cells and organisms. Only mutations in germ cells have the potential to create the variation that changes an organism’s future offspring. DOK 3

StandardsStudents will describe patterns of human settlement in regions of Kentucky and explain how these patterns were influenced by physical characteristics (e.g. climate, landforms, soils, vegetation, bodies of water.

Students will describe how the physical environment both promoted and restricted human activities during the early settlement of Kentucky.

Students will use a variety of tools to explain significant events in Kentucky’s history.

Students will give examples of why people explored and settled Kentucky.

Built to Last

Research Behind Effective Unit Design

Madeline Hunter

Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe

Benjamin Bloom

Five Easy Pieces

dentify the standards, big ideas, key details.

etermine your essential questions.

lign instruction/assessment to diversity, research based strategies, and hidden skills.

stablish your assessment task and criteria.

equence the learning events.

Components of Thoughtful Curriculum Design

Identify your Purpose

A statement of purpose defines what you want students to know, understand, do, and be like.

A statement of purpose includes a set of essential questions that last over time and frame the learning.

Knowledge

What specific facts, details, or vocabulary does the unit need to address?

Understanding

What big ideas and

themes need to

be covered?

Attitudes

What dispositions or attitudes does the unit instill in students?

Skills

What skills do students need to develop?

What Essential Questions will frame the learning?

Task DescriptionAssessment pulls together the various threads you have explored throughout the unit and provides students an equal opportunity to show what they know and apply what they have learned.

Clear expectations are defined through a rubric or scoring guide.

Components of Thoughtful Unit Design

Assessment: How will students’ understanding be measured?

Task Rotation

Comprehensive Menus

Graduated Difficulty

Project Learning

Standards Activity Strategy/Tool Product Learning Style

Now, it is your turn to frame your unit of study.

Knowledge

Understanding

Attitudes

Skills

Identify the framework for learning……

Workroom Porch

What essential questions will serve as the foundation for learning?

Library

Kitchen

Workroom Porch

Hook/Bridge

Resources

Assessment

Activities Reflection

Assessment: How will students’ understanding be measured?

How is a thoughtful curriculum like play dough?

Teaching, What Matters MostTeacher Impact on Learning

Teacher Student

PeersSchools Principals

What influences matter?www.schoolofeducators.com

1. Leadership, teaching, and adult actions matter.

While it is true that demographic variables are directly linked to student achievement, it is also true that adult variables, including the professional practices of teachers and the decisions leaders make, can be more important than demographic variables.

The single greatest determinant of learning is NOT socioeconomic factors or funding levels---IT IS INSTRUCTION.

Mike Schmoker

Indisputable Evidence

What teachers do has six to ten times as much impact on achievement as all other factors combined.

Mortimer Simmons

The single greatest determinant of learning is

NOT socioeconomic factors or funding levels,

IT IS INSTRUCTION.

Mike Schmoker

Indisputable Evidence

Two teachers working with the same socio-economic population can achieve starkly

different results. Different Results

In one class 27% of the students pass a state assessment. In another 72% of the students

will pass a state assessment.

Three years of Effective Teaching accounts for an improvement of 35-60 percentile points.

William Sanders

The best teachers in a school,that is to say the top 1/3, have SIX TIMES more impact on student learning than the bottom 1/3.

Katie Haycock

Thoughtful EducationThere can be no improvement without the teacher.

A successful, face to face team is more than just collectively intelligent. It makes everyone work work harder, think smarter, and reach better conclusions than they would have own their own.

James Solowreck

Why Professional Learning Communities?

Instructional Learning Teams ensure follow up and reflection on instruction and its impact on learning.

Instructional Learning Teams are results driven. Instructional Learning Teams reinforce a focus

on common essential instructional standards. Instructional Learning Teams create the best

kind of accountability—a commitment to people we know.

Instructional Learning Teams honor

and empower the intelligence

of teachers.

Imagine you are on a Learning Walk in your school.

What would be the general quality of instruction throughout the building?

What would be the level of student engagement be?

What would you see and hear?

In an extensive research study conducted by 24/7, 2005 of 1,500 classrooms here is what was observed:

Behaviors Percentage

Evidence of clear learning goals/objectives 4%

Worksheets 52%

Lecture 31%

Monitoring with no feedback 22%

Use of high yield research based instructional strategies

Communication rich environments with writing and rubrics

Fewer than half the students engaged 82%

Bell to bell learning Less than 1%

What is going on in your school?

How does this compare to a Thoughtful Classroom?

Behaviors Percentage

Evidence of clear learning goals/objectives 4%

Worksheets 52%

Lecture 31%

Monitoring with no feedback 22%

Use of high yield research based instructional strategies

Communication rich environments with writing and rubrics

Fewer than half the students engaged 82%

Bell to bell learning Less than 1%

Moving from an Instructional Leader to a Learning Leader.

Rick DuFour

There are particular leadership actions that show demonstrable links to improved student achievement and educational equity.

•Inquiry: the degree to which school leaders analyze the underlying causes of deficiencies and successes in student achievement and equity.

•Successful inquiry attributes the causes to adults in the educational system—teachers, school leaders, and policymakers.

• Unsuccessful inquiry attributes causes to students. In other words, “blame the victim” is not only morally reprehensible but statistically untrue.

•Implementation: the degree to which the specific elements of school improvement processes are implemented at the student and classroom levels. Effective implementation is a continuous variable in which leaders recognize that there are degrees of successful implementation that are subject to quantitative and narrative description.

•Monitoring: the degree to which a school self assesses their own progress in reaching school goals. Plans without monitoring are little better than wishes upon stars. It is important to distinguish carefully between appropriate and insightful monitoring and monitoring that equates to a compliance drill for external authorities.

•Assessment and reflection is designed to improve teaching and learning, provide immediate feedback for students and teachers, and focus on specific objectives.

The focus on learning becomes the leverage for improved teaching.

What percentage of your students are academically successful?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Do you know the names, faces and stories of those who will not be successful at the end of the year?

What do Learning Profiles look like?

Are you using profile data to support student learning?

What Matters Most… From Planning to Performance

Planning

Implementation

Monitoring

tiativ

Number of Old, Continuing, Pending and New Initiatives

Low High

Frustration BurnoutLow Implementation No Implementation

Enthusiasm Overload

CommitmentHigh Implementation Little Implementation

Weeding the Garden

Every school has weeds.

The gardener must continuously remove the weeds in order to ensure a healthy garden.

Learning Leaders must be ever vigilant for persistent weeds with deep roots in the academic garden.

What is Leadership?

Leadership is the continuous engagement in moving individuals and organizations from their present state to an ideal state.

To lead learning means to model a “learner-centered” as opposed to “authority centered” approach to all problems, inside and outside the classroom.

Tools for Schools: A Learning SWEEP

Imagine a Box….not Pandora’s Box, but a box that would provide answers your school has been searching for in your quest for school improvement.

What would go in the box?www.schoolofeducators.com

Meet Dennis Mitchell, a

Learning Leader

Inquiry Focus:

What does reading instruction look like and sound like in our school?

How can we improve reading instruction and student learning?

Are students’ learning styles addressed so as to provide equal opportunity to learn?

elect a focus and collect three consecutive days of work.

Reading Classwww.schoolofeducators.com

ork on the work, analyze the work using criteria.

Reading Classwww.schoolofeducators.com

Task: After reading “Titanic Found” draw a picture and write a summary of the text.

Summarizing

Recall

Creating Visuals

Mastery Learning Style

.xamine teaching practices and students’ learning.

What patterns emerge?

What questions need answering?

What are our greatest needs?

What are the implications?

valuate and assess what is working, what is not.

What are we doing well?

What do we need to do MORE of?

lan a course of action for reaching school improvement goals.

Goal Action Dates Expected Outcome Results

What can a school learn from a SWEEP?

How might this information bring about improvement in teaching and learning?

How is this data different from the type of data you presently use?

teachers as curriculum designers thoughtful education

thoughtful education

thoughtful unit of study

unit step

research learning

standards students

species of changes

louie learning

design skills

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