Teaching demands a lot of creativity and being able to adapt to different situations and environments. However, in order to experience lasting success, more than pot luck, charisma and spontaneity are required. Planning is essential. Planning and preparation gives a certain level of confidence. Whether it is a single lesson or a whole course, planning allows you to design the learning journey you wish to take your students on. In designing, you can make sure that you are catering for all your learners’ needs. This includes sufficient differentiation; for SEN needs as well as your gifted and talented students. In planning you can ensure that your lessons have a definite beginning, middle and end and have clear aims and targets. At this stage you will also prepare and plan resources. Also, you must plan your assessments. How will you know when the students have learned what you set out to teach? How will they know? How are you going to prove that learning has taken place at the end of the course? All these points will be addressed in the planning stage of the teacher training cycle.
learning potential for the student. In other words, goals and objectives set the outline in
To remediate this, we contracted with the Achievement Network to help us connect the standards to a curriculum and plan for a more fluid instructional delivery that would improve the assessment outcomes. They provided us a structure that laid out the Common Core Standards of assessed skills that included a scripted curriculum and instructional activities outlined in their guidelines. Students are making growth towards attainment. However, only 9% of the student population have met grade-level proficiency targets. Teachers are feeling that they are harshly judged because 30% of their evaluation is based on students meeting proficiency.
Assessments for the standards allows teachers to monitor their student 's progress throughout the year. Through theses tests teachers can find our what a student knows, where they are currently at, and how to
In order to develop the understanding of a standard we must ask ourselves what “we expect all educated citizens, student, to have learned?” (Koonce, 2014, p. 117) If we start planning each lesson with the question, what do we want each student to learn and then ask what standard does this address? We as teachers will develop better lessons and the assessment will follow. If we start with the assessment, all we will be teaching is drill-based lessons to pass a test.
These standards are terrific guidelines with which teachers and students can use to mark progress. Some may seem daunting to a class at first, not to mention challenging from a teacher’s perspective, but with that comes a dedication to always strive for excellence and keep the highest expectations for teacher and student. Now, if a teacher is afforded the knowledge of these standards in advance, why shouldn’t their students be prepared for what’s to come as well? Given these guidelines, a teacher and his/her class can prepare as a team to include these standards while leaving room for their own interests.
“Objectives”, according to Gronlund and Linn, “represent smaller, more specific segments of learning” that lead to a goal (as cited in Fisher & Frey, 2011, p. 4). According to Dean et al. (2012), learning objectives should be “specific but not restrictive” and be communicated to both students and parents. When setting objectives, teachers should strive to make connections to students’ “previous and future learning” and while also encouraging them to set personal learning objectives (Dean et al., 2012). Teachers often create objectives
Teachers may or may not have experience in developing a website when they join the EISD, even with some experience, they may never have used the Schoolwires software or Office 365, it would therefore be unreasonable to expect prior knowledge of these two specific components. However, Schoolwires does have an interface that is similar to common word-processing applications that they will have used (e.g. Microsoft Word, Apple’s Pages or Google Docs). With Office 365 they will need to understand how to save files to or access files from OneDrive and/or a team site rather than a computer, network drive or external drive. The pre-requisite skills are therefore basic computer literacy skills
With the modern trend in student and teacher accountability, the art of teaching is slowly becoming lost. The primary objectives of the Department of Education, school districts, teachers and students today are to simply ace the end-of-the-year assessments. This current model of education abandons the beliefs of past educators where strengthening a teacher’s instructional strategies would surely outweigh the production line assembly of general curriculums and standardized
Schools throughout the nation are facing increased pressure to increase students knowledge and standardized testing scores. To reach those goals schools are looking to improve both teacher instruction and curriculum based assessments. Many districts are practicing developing standards based learning objectives, posting and communicating those objectives in order to assure instruction is congruent to their respective curriculum. Although, there is a wide range of research to show learning objectives can be effective in the classroom, many teachers do not use the targets daily or do not understand how to create meaningful objectives for daily instruction. Standards do not inform the students and parents of what they need to
It is very important for teachers to align their curriculum goals with state standards. Ideally, completing classroom assignments should lead students to meeting classroom objectives. Furthermore, classroom objectives should help a student develop and meet state standards. Using Pennsylvania academic standards, I clarified my instructional goals. I created classroom objectives that are reflective of the information in the Video Basics text. Then I used these objectives to develop my performance task assessment. Below is a table that highlights the alignment between Pennsylvania academic standards, classroom objectives, and the performance assessment.
Furthermore, as part of the overall lesson plan, an effective teacher will specify the objectives that are to be achieved, that is, what students should have learnt or be able to do with the information taught (Whitton et al., 2010). This ensures that the teacher can design their learning activities effectively, stay on-topic and control the momentum of the lesson – an important factor in effective classroom management according to Kounin (as cited by Hurst & Cooke, p.232).
Data drives my classroom instruction. I have learned over the years that assessments comes in various forms. When I began teaching, I thought assessments meant test, right or wrong, passing or failing, pre and post. I never consider assessing students throughout the lessons, using rubrics, creating portfolios in addition to formative and summative assessments. Once I learned to assess students continuously, my teaching changed drastically. I was able to make adjustments to student’s learning immediately and mastery was reached. To begin, reliability and validity in teacher-constructed assessments is crucial in assessing student achievement. Local and state test must be reliable and valid in order to effectively measure student achievement. One way to ensure if assessments are reliable and valid is a Table of Specification. The table of specification guides my decisions based on how many days were spent teaching certain objectives which are ultimately what is assessed. According to the Table of Specification, my instruction should align in a balanced assessment with six lower level and six higher level questions. Three of my higher level questions stem from one objective in which will be included into each daily lesson making this my most heavily weighted objective. Students need a balance in instruction as well as assessments. “Linking classroom assessments to tables of specifications also guarantees consistency and thoroughness” (Guskey, 2005, p. 38). In the end, when
8. Standards are learning goals that students should know at the end of the grade level they are in. Assessments should be used to ensure that all students are meeting each learning goal. During the assessment, if a student is struggling, the teacher may need to reteach some topics to the child. 9. Assessment is important because then the teacher knows if their students are excelling in some areas but need help in others. Assessment’s essentially tell teachers which areas they need to reteach or cover more. 10. Authentic Assessment in Kindergarten, is monitoring student progress using effective strategies, tools, and ideas. This type of assessment can be carried out in kindergarten by using checklists, rubrics, portfolios, and many other tools to help them monitor students’ progress.
My goal is for instruction to be aligned with assessments; thus students are able to apply their knowledge to solve problems and make reasonable applications through everyday issues. All students should be challenged in each standard at the highest level they are capable of mastering. Rigor exists in the standard and must be ingrained in the classroom daily. Rigor in assessment must align with instruction in the type of thinking (Chappuis, 2014). Rigor does not mean more work or harder assessments. I find it irritating when all standards are not completely addressed to the students, yet students are expected to reach mastery on the assessment. In the end teachers and students become frustrated with the outcome. Assessments along with instruction of the standard should be aligned. Students learn at different levels and at a different pace; therefore, differentiation plays a large role in student success. Providing additional support for diverse learners is crucial so that students are able to stay focused on their learning outcomes and reaching mastery on standard