powerful learning: from rhetoric to reality
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Powerful Learning: From Rhetoric to Reality. Nancy Doda, Ph.D. and Mark Springer www.teacher-to-teacher.com http:// www.allianceforpowerfullearning.com. Start with the end in mind. Creating powerful learning for our young adolescents. What Are We After?. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Powerful Learning: From Rhetoric to
RealityNancy Doda, Ph.D. and Mark
Springerwww.teacher-to-teacher.com
http://www.allianceforpowerfullearning.com
Start with the end in
mindCreating powerful learning for our young adolescents
What Are We After?• Learning That Feels Important To Students• Learning that Supports Student Mastery of
the Standards• Learning that an Be Transferred to New
Challenges and Contexts• Learning that Leads to Competence in
Independence & Collaboration• Learning that Sticks; Endures
Criteria for A Rigorous Curriculum
1. Has the Capacity to Engage Young Minds2. Has Enduring Value Beyond the
Classroom3. Leans on Themes of Personal & Social
Significance4. Applies Knowledge & Skills to Real World
Questions, Issues or Problems5. Uncovers Misconceptions.
Beane, From Rhetoric to Reality; Wiggins & McTighe, Understanding by Design
Our Curriculum Choices
CURRICULUM CONTINUUM
TRADITIONAL
INTERDISCIPLINARY‘MULTI-DISCIPLINARY’
INTEGRATED
INTEGRATIVE
SEPARATE SUBJECTS,SEPARATE TOPICS
SEPARATE SUBJECTS SHARE COMMON, TEACHER-SELECTED THEMES
NO SEPARATE SUBJECTS, THEMES SELECTED BY TEACHER NO SEPARATE
SUBJECTS,STUDENTS AND TEACHERS NEGOTIATE THEMES
Brazee, Ed & Capelluti, Jody (1995). Dissolving Boundaries: Toward an Integrative Curriculum. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
A Sample Student’s Day
1. Order of Operations2. Appropriate
Prefixes3. Narrative
Writing/Heroes4. Cells5. Ancient
Greece/Rome
• What holds these disparate puzzle pieces together in the student’s mind?
• What insures that students will be able retrieve and use this knowledge at some later point?
“Almost everyone had had occasion to look back upon his school days and wonder what has become of the knowledge he was supposed to have amassed during his years of schooling … but it was so segregated when it was acquired and hence is so disconnected from the rest of experience that it is not available under the actual conditions of life.”
Dewey (1938, 48)
Perils of Separate Subject Approach
• It’s Fragmented• It’s Randomly Redundant• It Leans Towards Content Details• It’s Fast & Furious Coverage• It Yields Short-Lived, Superficial
Retention
“…an integrated approach seems to hold the most promise of any curriculum design in preparing middle grades students for the global age”. (Andrews, G. Turning points, 2000)
Benefits of An Interdisciplinary
Approach• It’s Authentic: Life is Integrated• It’s Rigorous: Complex Problems Are Best
Solved Using Multi-Discipline Approach• It’s Coherent: Connections Strengthen
Retention (Fragmented Curriculum Disrupts Retention)
• It’s Inviting: Leans on Big Ideas and Questions
Themes
A Sense of Place
A Sense of Time
A Sense of Quality
Unit Theme-A Sense of Quality
Understanding Systems that shape the Quality of our Life
Art as a SystemOf Quality
The
Wyeths
Systems of the
Human Body
The Systems in our Homes
Systems in the Watershed
WastewaterTreatment
Water Treatment
Power Generation
Recycling
Where are we now?
Where do we hope to be?
The Long ViewTime Frame
SEPT OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY
SCI Cells
MATH Order Operat.
SOC STDS Greece and Rome
LANG ARTS &LIT LINKS
Narrativeheroes.Prefixes
UNIT PLANNING STAGES
• Stage 1-Identify Desired Understandings
• Stage 2-Design Performance Assessment
• Stage 3-Design Learning Activities
A Sample Student’s Day
1. Order of Operations
2. Appropriate Prefixes
3. Narrative Writing4. Cells5. Ancient
Greece/Rome
• What holds these disparate puzzle pieces together in the student’s mind?
• What will make this knowledge useful and meaningful?
STAGE ONEIf this is the knowledge
my students should come to know, what is it I hope they will understand about that
knowledge?
Stage One
• EQ: What are the limits of human capacity?
• Students will understand that human capacities are many and varied.
SOCIAL STUDIES
What are the limits of human capacity?
LANGUAGEARTS
MATH
SCIENCE
LL
Stage One cont’d
• Students will understand that cultures differ in their notions about human capacity.
• Students will understand that humans can convey those notions through various media.
• Students will understand how the physical aspects of the human body effect our capacities.
• Students will understand how our environment effect our human capacities?
Connections
• “Numbers”-Film• Math is a tool that human beings use expand our capacities.
Task 1Complete STAGE ONE for
Quarter 1
Task 1Finalize Subject Area essential
Questions and Tie them to the Overarching Unit Question
Finalize all Subject Area Understandings
• *This is where you will identify standards being taught.
STAGE TWOIf my students truly
understand what I have taught, what will serve as
performance evidence of their understanding?
EQ: What does it mean to lead a healthy life?Understanding 1: Students will
understand elements of good nutrition.
Understanding 2: Students will understand that a balanced diet contributes to a healthy life.
Title: “You are what you eat”
Performance Tasks: Students analyze & improve on a hypothetical family’s diet for 1 week. Students plan a and defend a week’s menu for a healthy week.
Examples of performance assessments include
• projects enabling a number of students to work together on a complex problem that requires planning, research, internal discussion, and group presentation
• essays assessing students' understanding of a subject through a written description, analysis, explanation, or summary
• experiments testing how well students understand scientific concepts and can carry out scientific processes.
• demonstrations giving students opportunities to show their mastery of subject-area content and procedures.
• portfolios allowing students to provide a broad portrait of their performance through files that contain collections of students' work, assembled over time.
What are the content/skill standards that students
might be demonstrating if they were to successfully
each of these Performance Tasks?
What does it mean to really understand?
• Ability to explain • Ability to interpret• Ability to apply• Ability to have perspective• Ability to relate; empathize• Ability to know how we understand or
fail to understand something(Wiggins and McTighe, 1998)
The Two Question Test1. Could students do well on this
assessment but not really understand X.?
2. Could students do poorly on the assessment but really understand?
Sample Performance Assessment
• Individually or in small groups, students will create a new “human being” with well defined capacities.
• They will write the script of conversations between the ‘God’s as they create the first human being.
Possible Components• What are the physical capacities of
your human being? (eg; cells…)• What will the environment be that
will shape your new human being? (eg; plants, culture)
• What images describe this human being? (eg; images)
• Defend all choices.
Task 2Develop Performance
Assessment (s)
Unit PlanningPlan Stage One and Two for
Remaining Quarters
Essential Questions•What makes us who we
are?•How much can we control
who we become?•Which counts more in who we are: nature or nurture?
Desired Understandings: Hard Won, Developed Over Time
• Students will understand…• that each human being is unique• that human diversity is the product of genetics, lifestyle and experiences
• that human beings have some control over who they are and can become
• that human beings are resilient and can adapt and change
Desired Understandings: Hard Won, Developed Over Time
• Students will understand that:• the earth’s resources are not unlimited• how an individual behaves can impact the quality of life on the earth
• if every person was responsible for his/ her actions and interactions there would be less strife and greater happiness in our lives
STAGE THREEGiven this is what my students will be asked to do with their Understanding, what learning
activities will be most instructive?
SOCIAL STUDIES
What are the limits of human capacity?
LANGUAGEARTS
MATH
SCIENCE
LL
The Two Question Test1. Could students do the
activities but still fail to be ready for the my assessment?
2. Could students fail to do all the activities and be ready to do well on the my assessment?
Cautions• Seek out Concepts, Processes, Questions,
Ideas rather than Content Topics
• Be willing to rotate subject area leads• Always Ask yourself: What will make
sense to students?• Use a Planning Framework• Have a story line: notable beginning and
end