Use Standards to Guide Every Learning Opportunity
“...in high performing schools, teachers use standards and curriculum guides as guideposts...”
Being mindful of guiding each learning opportunity in a classroom from standards, jumps out as an important touchstone of being demanding. Stephen L. Pruitt provides an insight on this in his article “The Next Generation Science Standards: Where are We Now and What Have We Learned?” He says, “Teaching science is about helping students understand the world around them, both natural and designed. Teaching topics like gas laws, volcanoes, or photosynthesis without connecting them to core ideas that help students explain the world provides no reason for them to learn or retain that information” (Pruitt, 2015, p17-19). This is also true of any other subject as well.
Teachers begin a lesson by unpacking the standards to find the important declarative and procedural knowledge that students will need to master that standard (Goodwin & Hubble, 2013). Then they can look for the larger ideas hiding below the surface of the standards. This is a great place for teachers to start incorporating essential questions that inspire deep thought.
Although well prepared lessons are already based in the standards, checking back to ensure that the core standards were addressed implicitly would be invaluable. After teaching the lesson, teachers could very easily check in and make sure they connected core standards to the task at hand. If they did miss some core aspect, it would be easier to note it and make sure that it was addressed in the next lesson.
Standards Resources
References
Goodwin, B., & Hubble, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. ASCD, McREL International.
Pruitt, S. (2015). The next generation science standards: where are we now and what have we learned?(Report). 82(5), 17–19.