Learning Outcome #8: Know State and National Standards, Integrate Curriculum across Disciplines, and Balance Historical and Contemporary Research, Theory, and Practice
All of the lessons that are taught to students need to be based on the state's standards. The standards contain the "big idea at the heart of each discipline - the key concepts underlying successful performance" (Wiggins and McTighe 63). State and national standards contain the skills and content that need to be covered throughout the year; teachers need to base their lessons on these generalized standards.
Wiggins and McTighe further discuss the necessity of "unpacking content standards" (63); standards need to be broken down into the tasks that need to be completed and the factual knowledge or "big ideas" that they need to know by the end of a specific grade. The specific facts that students need to learn will be taught by exploring the larger issues that the standards address. Wiggins and McTighe explain that "unpacking content standards" in the way that they describe comes from cognitive psychological research (65). According to numerous research studies, "Research has shown that organizing information into a conceptual framework allows for greater transfer" (Wiggins and McTighe 65).
The standards are designed to unify and codify the skills and information that students learn at each grade; the standardized tests are meant to depict which skills the students mastered. National standards intend to align the focus of every state towards the same goal; this would allow the standardized tests to have less of a validity error when comparing the results from all of the states.
All of my lesson plans are based on the state's standards. This framework has enough flexibility to allow me the opportunity to be creative in how I teach my lessons to the students, but it also ensures that my students will learn valued transferable skills.
Wiggins and McTighe further discuss the necessity of "unpacking content standards" (63); standards need to be broken down into the tasks that need to be completed and the factual knowledge or "big ideas" that they need to know by the end of a specific grade. The specific facts that students need to learn will be taught by exploring the larger issues that the standards address. Wiggins and McTighe explain that "unpacking content standards" in the way that they describe comes from cognitive psychological research (65). According to numerous research studies, "Research has shown that organizing information into a conceptual framework allows for greater transfer" (Wiggins and McTighe 65).
The standards are designed to unify and codify the skills and information that students learn at each grade; the standardized tests are meant to depict which skills the students mastered. National standards intend to align the focus of every state towards the same goal; this would allow the standardized tests to have less of a validity error when comparing the results from all of the states.
All of my lesson plans are based on the state's standards. This framework has enough flexibility to allow me the opportunity to be creative in how I teach my lessons to the students, but it also ensures that my students will learn valued transferable skills.
Works cited
Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2006. Print.
Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2006. Print.
Proficiencies in State Standards and contemporar/historical practice:
"The White Heron" lesson plan
The White Heron scholarly article that coincides with the lesson plan
Stations for Macbeth lesson plan