Standards and Backwards Mapping

Standards and Backwards Mapping

Six years ago, when I embarked on my personal and professional journey to move to the DC area, I was “forced” to create the science curriculum, scopes and sequence, and Understanding by Designs (UBDs) for my district in grades five to eighth. The school district adopted the Wiggins and McTighe ideology.

What is the infamous Wiggins and McTighe ideology?

It is the approach that the teacher starts with the classroom outcomes and then plans the curriculum; choose activities and materials that help determine the student ability and foster student learning.  This is the backward design approach that is in three stages.

Stage 1:

Educator identifies the desired results of their students by using the standards.

Stage 2:

Focuses on evidence of learning by assessment. Teachers create performance tasks and evidence of understanding.

Stage 3:

List the learning activities that will lead students to your desired results.

In addition to that, when I created the science objectives, I was to use the “5 E Instructional Model”.

What is the 5 E Instructional Model?

 It is based on the constructivist approach to learning, which allows students to build or construct new ideas based on the lessons.

Each of the 5 E's describes a phase of learning, and each phase begins with the letter "E": Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. The 5 E's allows students and teachers to experience common activities, to use and build on prior knowledge and experience, to construct meaning, and to continually assess their understanding of a concept.

You want the students to be able to synthesize new understanding from prior learning and new information.  That is why it is pivotal to have the real world connections components within your lessons.

I was told to researched different websites and to figured it out on my own.  I called this the “throwing the baby in the water” approach.  Consequently, I had to adapt to my situation and complete the task of creating my task.

Unpacking a Standard

It is important to think about the big scope when unpacking the standards.  Students will learn about the standard and as a teacher, what are the different teaching strategies that I can use to help generate an impactful understanding of the standard.  Additionally, it is important that the students are able to

Writing Lesson Objectives

Creating the lesson objectives should be the very last thing that I develop for my students.  At this point of the process, my assessments, student performances, and teaching strategies have already been created and the lessons will be able to flow easily.

For example,

RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

This is one of my favorite standards that I really enjoy teaching to my primary students because I can be creative with my teaching strategies and my objectives.  There are times that I will spend two to three weeks on this standard just to make sure that I have 100 percent mastery from all of my students.  Please keep in mind the higher order thinking verbs that teachers should use when creating the objectives.  Generally, I like to scaffold my objectives each day so that I can build my students to become critical thinkers.

Possible Objectives in I Can Statements (Child Friendly Objectives)

I can identify the who, what, where, when and why of the text.

I can use question words when asking questions.

I can answer questions about key details in a text.

I can develop my own questions about key details in a text.

I can answer peer-developed questions about key details in a text.

  

The Importance of the Three in Understanding Standards and Developing Lessons

 I learned that every educator should think about the end in mind and focus on the skill that I want my students to accomplish. Also, how my teaching approach to the standards will make impact on my student learning and subsequently, how they will remember the lesson in their lifetimes.