Since the implementation of the Common Core, standards have gotten quite a lot of bad press. Prior to beginning this program, I largely believed what I had heard from (mostly) frustrated parents and failing school districts: standards just don't work. Throughout this program, I have come to see the value of standards in setting up guidelines for lessons, grade levels, and desired achievement outcomes. Without standards, teachers are left to attempt to not only create their own curriculum, but also to set levels for their schools based only on the research they have done. This standardless curriculum leaves us with schools in some states that are outperforming Japan, while other schools fall hopelessly behind. The idea of the Common Core is to set a baseline achievement level where all schools need to be. Of course, schools can exceed Common Core by having a higher achievement goal. The idea is just to make sure that everyone gets at least a certain level of education.
This particular unit has taught me that standards are nothing unless they are broken down and understood. If taken at face value, it is easy to get off track of what the standard is actually trying to achieve. Although all of this week's activities were helpful to me, I think that the one I will use most often and with the most success will be backwards mapping.
Unpacking a Standard
This activity, while clearly meant to get us to understand what is in a standard, seemed like a bit of an odd place to start. While I understand why it was our first activity, I felt a little lost trying to unpack the standards until I started thinking about them in terms of activities, assessments, and overall goals. The one thing that really stuck with me from this activity is to focus on the verbs in a standard. For the standard that I worked with for most of the week, the verb was "identify." I had to keep coming back to that word to make sure I did not stray from the standard. Knowing how to unpack a standard will be especially helpful if I end up teaching subjects with which I am less familiar than, say, ELA.
Backwards Mapping
This activity was by far the most helpful for me. Because I am new to lesson planning and such, working backwards in very helpful. I find it very easy to get off track when I am planning a lesson because there are so many cool things that would be so much fun to teach. Backwards mapping will help me stay focused because it starts with what I wish to accomplish and forces me to stay within the confines of those proficiencies. I will definitely continue to use this method, especially on lessons where very specific objectives need to be met and I am having trouble working forwards to get there. In contrast to unpacking, I think this technique will actually be most helpful for me in ELA. I tend to get so excited about content and discussion that I forget what I was aiming for in the first place. I also liked that it forced me to think about assessments. Formative assessments are somewhat of a new concept for me, largely because of my own educational past. I am still working on learning how to incorporate less formal assessments into my lessons.
SMART Objectives
I found SMART objectives quite helpful in creating objectives that are actually measurable. The other parts of SMART all sort of work together to make sure that the objective hits on what it needs to, but the focus on the ability to measure is something that I think is especially important for me since I am most interested in ELA. Math teachers definitely have it a bit easier when it comes to measurement because answers are either right or wrong. Using SMART objectives makes it easier for me to find a more tangible way to measure understanding of topics that are more abstract than, say, 2+2=4. Overall, I see myself using SMART objectives in the future as a guideline for how to structure my objectives. I think it is something that will become second nature after some practice.
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