Training for the New Georgia Performance Standards

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Training for the New Georgia Performance
Standards

• Day 2 Unpacking the Standards

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Why Are We Here?

• Our mission is to develop an understanding of
  how to unpack and use the performance standards
  to improve student achievement. We want to build
  a common language and work together to create a
  working curriculum document for system wide
  implementation of the Georgia Performance
  Standards.

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Day Two Objectives

• Define and describe the rationale for identifying
  big ideas, enduring understandings, essential
  questions, and skills and knowledge for a
  standard.
• Develop, for a given standard, the big ideas,
  enduring understandings, essential questions, and
  skills and knowledge (unpack the standard).
• Discuss unpacking multiple standards to create
  cohesive units of study.

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GPS Training Day Two Agenda

• Introduction
• Define Backward Design
• How will Houston County utilize the Backward
  Design Model to unpack a standard?
• What are the steps of the Backward Design Model?
• Unpacking Standards

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Group Norms and Housekeeping

• Group Norms
• Participate and share
• Listen with an open mind
• Ask questions
• Work toward solutions
• Use time effectively

• Housekeeping
• Silence cell phones
• Rest rooms
• Breaks
• Lunch

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How Sure Are You?
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How Sure Are You?
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What is the Backward Design Process?
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Backward Design

To begin with the end in mind means to start with
a clear understanding of your destination. It
means to know where youre going so that you
better understand where you are now so that the
steps you take are always in the right direction.
-Stephen R. Covey
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Lets take a closer look
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How is the Backward Design Process used in
Standards-Based Teaching and Planning?
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Standards-Based Education

• The focus is on student learning.
• Expectations are the same for all students.
• Standards are expressed through essential
  questions and supporting skills and knowledge.
• Assessments are used to guide and modify
  instruction.
• The effectiveness of instruction is judged on
  whether students meet the standard.

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Standards-Based Education, cont.

• Curriculum maps are aligned to the standards
• Instructional strategies provide opportunities
  for students to learn expectations outlined in
  the standards
• Student interests, previous achievements, and
  developmental levels are considered in planning
  instructional methods
• Teachers work on building enduring
  understandings 

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The Process of Instructional Planning

• Traditional Practice
• QCC
• Select a topic from the curriculum
• Design instructional activities
• Design and give an assessment
• Give grade or feedback
• Move on to new topic

• Standards-based Practice
• GPS
• Select standards from among those
• students need to know
• Design an assessment through which
• students will have an opportunity to
• demonstrate those things
• Decide what learning opportunities
• students will need to learn those things and
• plan appropriate instruction to assure that
• each student has adequate opportunities to
• learn
• Use data from assessment to give
• feedback, reteach, or move to the next
• level

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What Are the Steps of The Backward Design Model?
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The Steps of Backward Design (pg. 9 K-3 pg. 7
4-5)

• Big Idea
• Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions
• Skills and Knowledge
• Evidence/Assessment

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Big Ideas (pg. 6 K-3 pg. 8-9 4-5)

• ELA3R3 The student uses a
• variety of strategies to gain
• meaning from grade-level text.

• What are the big ideas and core processes at the
  heart of this standard?
• What do I want to concentrate on and emphasize in
  this unit?
• NOTE This is just a stepping stone in the
  process once we have turned the BIG IDEAS into
  enduring understandings, we will no longer need
  to write them down!

Big Idea I must use a variety of reading
strategies in order to understand grade level
texts.
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Enduring Understanding (pg. 7 K-3 pg. 10-11 4-5)

• Transfer the big idea into enduring
  understandings.
• A full sentence declaration or generalization,
  specifying what we want students to come to
  understand about the Big Idea.
• Big Picture concepts
• A tool for teachers to help focus students on
  deeper understanding
• Enable teachers to have a shared understanding of
  the standard
• Use the format students will understand that

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Enduring Understandings Bad to Best

• Students will understand comprehension
  strategies.
• Bad what should they understand?
• Students will understand specific strategies for
  gaining meaning from grade-level text.
• Better narrows the focus but still does not
  state what insights we want students to leave
  with.
• Students will understand that effective readers
  use specific strategies to help them better
  understand the text (e.g., making predictions
  from text context, generating questions before,
  during, and after reading).
• Best Summarizes intended insight, helps students
  and teachers realize what types of learning
  activities are needed to support the
  understanding.

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Enduring Understandings Format

• NO Students will understand principles of
  persuasive speaking.
• NO Students will know how to speak
  persuasively.
• NO Speak persuasively in public.
• YES Students will understand that persuasion
  often involves an emotional appeal to the
  particular wishes, needs, hopes, and fears of an
  audience, irrespective of how logical and
  rational the argument.

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From the BIG IDEA to Enduring Understandings
Big Idea I must use a variety of reading
strategies in order to understand grade level
texts.
Enduring Understanding Students will understand
that effective readers use a variety of
strategies to better understand text (e.g.,
visualization, making connections, making
predictions, generating questions before, during,
and after reading).
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Essential Questions(pg. 8 K-3 pg. 12-13 4-5)

• Have no right answer
• Are meant to be argued
• Broad
• Answered by enduring understandings of the
  concepts

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Developing Essential Questions

• Create two to five per unit.
• Should be big, open-ended.
• Look at how (process) and why (cause and effect).
• Consider various levels in Blooms taxonomy.
• Use language appropriate to students.
• Sequence so they lead naturally from one to
  another.
• Use as organizers for the unit, making the
  content answer the questions.
• Share with other teachers.

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From Enduring Understandings to Essential
Questions

• Enduring Understandings
• Students will understand that effective readers
  use a variety of strategies to better understand
  text (e.g., visualizations, making connections,
  making predictions, generating questions before,
  during, and after reading).
• Essential Questions
• How do strategies help readers better understand
  text?
• How do effective readers know which strategy to
  use to help them understand?

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Skills and KnowledgeSupport the enduring
understandings

• Facts
• Concepts
• Generalizations
• Rules, laws, procedures

Skills Procedures Processes
SKILLS (Students will be able to do)
KNOWLEDGE (Students will know and can say)
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Creating a Graphic Representation

• Choose a metaphor to represent the terms in the
  GPS and in backward design.
• Create a graphic organizer, using the following
  terms (add more as needed)

• Content Standards
• Elements
• Performance Standards
• Student Work
• Tasks
• Teacher Commentary
• Enduring Understandings

• Big Ideas
• Essential Questions
• Skills and Knowledge Statements
• Stage 1 in Backward Design
• Stage 2 in Backward Design
• Stage 3 in Backward Design

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Matching Game

• There are 13 terms and 13 definitions.
• Work as a team to match each term to its
  definition.
• First team to correctly complete the task is the
  winner.

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Unpacking A Standard

• Using the backward design, lets
• unpack a Georgia Performance
• Standard
• Understanding By Design by Grant
• Wiggins and Jay McTighe

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Standards Based Education
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Food for Thought

• How can unpacking a standard enrich our
• assessment and instruction practices so
• that all students can reach mastery
• of the GPS?

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How Sure Are You?
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How Sure Are You?