Georgia Performance Standards

Unit Planning inEnglish Language Arts

Standards-Based Education

1. Identify Desired Results (Learning Goals)

2. Develop an Assessment Plan(Evidence of Learning)

3. Make Instructional Decisions (Planned Learning Opportunities)

Collaborate with Colleagues to Determine a Course Plan

1. Block or traditional

2. Number of instructional units per semester/course

3. Focus of each unit (This may be a genre, a literary period, a theme, etc., but not a particular novel or resource.)

4. Order of units (may be the same or different)

Power Standards in HS ELA

RL1 Comprehension and Interpretation RL2 ThemeRL3 Contemporary context &/or historical

backgroundRL4 Demonstrates understanding through writingRL5 Contextual vocabulary

RC1 1,000,000 wordsRC2 Discusses topics related to content readingRC3 Content vocabularyRC4 Puts reading in context

Power Standard

Power Standards in HS ELAW1 Organization, structure, and context

W2 Competence in a variety of genres

W3 Research and technology to support writing

W4 Timed and process writing

C1 Usage and mechanics

C2 Manuscript form

LSV1 Verbal interactions: S-T; S-S; Group

LSV2 Media literacy

Power Standard

Power Standard

Determining Learning Goals for an Integrated ELA Unit

Unit

Listening, Speaking, and

ViewingWriting

Reading

VIPs—Very Important Points

• All planning directly connects to the standards, and the language of the standards should become familiar to all teachers.

• Standards are revisited continuously throughout the teaching/learning process.

• Planning takes place at the unit level, and units are usually 3 to 6 weeks in length, regardless of whether the course is block or traditional schedule.

• Although standards may or may not be posted, they must be pervasive in the classroom.

Group Work

• Group yourselves by grade level, unit, or course.

• Identify the focus of your instructional unit.

• Identify the learning goals included in your unit, classify the learning goals in the unit by GPS strand. Highlight those goals on the standards document.

• Determine the concepts that students should have deep understanding of as a result of this unit of instruction.

Assessment for Learning• Not all students learn at the same rate or in the

same way.

• Assessment guides instruction.

• Assessment provides evidence of student growth toward the learning goals.

• Almost everything a student does is assessed, but grades/evaluations come later rather than sooner in the learning process.

Assessment

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

--Albert Einstein

Determine an Assessment PlanDetermine an Assessment Plan

Info

rmal

Chec

ks Obs

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Dia

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& D

iscu

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Test

s & Q

uizz

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Acade

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pts

Perfor

man

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asks

adapted from Understanding by Design

Self-A

sses

smen

t

Teaching for Understanding• Some performance tasks are culminating

activities.

• In order to provide evidence of understanding,

students must be able to apply acquired knowledge and skills learned throughout the unit to new situations.

• Culminating performance tasks allow students to provide this evidence of understanding.

Culminating Performance Tasks . . . are created over time during the unit

. . . result in tangible products or observable performances

. . . usually involve multiple means of presentation (nonlinguistic,

written, spoken presentations)

. . . involve meaning-making

. . . encourage self-evaluation and revision

. . . require judgment to score

. . . are evaluated using predetermined criteria

. . . sometimes involve students working with others

-adapted from Marzano, Pickering, & McTighe

VIPs—Very Important Points• Assessment and grading are not the same thing.

• Students should be assessed on nearly everything they do, but it’s generally unwise to over-grade or to assign grades before the learning process is complete.

• Students do not all learn at the same rate or achieve the learning goals at the same time.

• Students need multiple opportunities in different formats and modalities to provide evidence of learning.

• Real learning results in growth.

• Conceptual understanding rather than discrete knowledge and facts is the goal of GPS.

• Students who learn conceptually perform significantly better on standardized tests.

Group Work

• Locate the performance task and the other assessments in your unit.

• Refer back to the important concepts and/or processes, as well as the standards you identified for your unit, to determine whether your assessments are designed to move students toward the conceptual understanding necessary to demonstrate deep understanding on the culminating performance task.

• Evaluate your performance task using the criteria for a performance task; if you don’t have a culminating performance task brainstorm to list some possibilities.

Group Work• Examine your overall assessment plan.

• Do students have multiple opportunities to provide evidence of learning?

• Do students have opportunities to provide evidence of learning in different formats and through different modalities (informal checks, observation/dialogue/discussion, tests/quizzes, academic prompts, performance tasks, self-assessment; AND nonlinguistic, written, spoken products)?

Making Instructional Decisions

According to Grant Wiggins:

"Good planning leaves room for the unplannable. You do not know what you'll be doing on April 11, and you're a fool if you think so. If you do, then the curriculum is more important to you than your students."

(Grant Wiggins, "Designing and Using Student Reflections and Self-Assessment," ASCD Summer Conference on Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design, June 2005)

Procedures for Making Instructional Decisions

1. Assessments should be scheduled on unit calendar first.

2. Next, the instruction necessary to equip students with everything they will need to provide evidence of learning on these scheduled assessments should be determined.

3. Third, the most appropriate instructional strategies for providing students access to learning should be selected.

4. Finally, these instructional activities should be scheduled on the unit calendar.

VIPs—Very Important Points

• All instructional and assessment activities should be designed to move students toward the learning goals—the GPS.

• Students need multiple opportunities to learn using a variety of instructional strategies that incorporate a number of different modalities.

• Instruction should focus on growth for all students. Often the students who come into a classroom knowing the most, learn the least.

More VIPs—Very Important Points

• Unit plans must be designed to allow assessment to guide instruction.

• In standards-based classrooms, teachers create student-centered learning environments.

• In student-centered learning environments, instruction takes place when students work independently, in pairs or small groups, one-on-one with the teacher, and in the class as a whole.

Group Work

• Look over the instructional plan (calendars and activities) in your unit.

• Do the instructional activities provide students with multiple opportunities to acquire the specific knowledge and skills they need in order to provide evidence of learning on your scheduled assessments?

• Does the unit include a variety of learning activities: individual, small group, large group? Is the focus student-centered learning? Do students have opportunities for practice and for trial and error?

• Have you included any activities that allow for differentiation by INTEREST, LEARNING PROFILE, and/or READINESS?

• Are the unit assessments designed to guide instruction? Are they assessments for learning?

Begin with what’s

doable!

Questions?

Contact Cynde Snidercdsnider@uga.edu