EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing
0 “” School of Education, Liberty University Author Note I have no known conflict of interest to disclose. “” Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Email: Use this section to summarize the assigned article or e-chapter. This should include the main points of the article/chapter. Do not summarize any additional sources, just the assigned reading here. Make sure you properly cite the assigned reading in this section. This section should be 1-2 paragraphs max. It definitely should not exceed one page. No direct quotes. There shouldn’t be any other citations or sources in this section other than the assigned reading. You will need to follow all APA guidelines for citations. Citations should include the author’s last name, comma, and the year of publication. Example: (Smith, 2010). You do not need page numbers in the in-text citations. Compare In this section, you will compare the curriculum plan to what you learned in the required reading. What does the reading have in common with the curriculum plan? Focus on the content of the reading and see how the curriculum plan exhibits points from the reading. The very first sentence should explain how the two items are the same. You must use compare transition words in each sentence to ensure this is written clearly (Similar, Alike, The Same, Likewise, Similarly, etc.). Without transition words, it will be assumed that the two items are not compared to one another. Be sure to include in-text citations for the lesson and the reading, both are required. The two items are similar because they both have x (citation, year; citation, year). Another similarity is the text states x (citation, year) and the lesson includes this same practice by x (citation, year). Do not include any additional information that does not explain how the two items are similar. Please be concise. No direct quotes. No additional sources are needed. You are only focusing on the lesson and the required reading. Contrast In this section, you will show how the curriculum plan differs from the content of the required reading. What does the reading state that isn’t shown in the curriculum plan? Focus on the content of the reading and see how the curriculum plan differs from it. The very first sentence should explain how the two items differ. You must use contrast transition words in each sentence to ensure this is written clearly (In contrast, a key difference, unlike, while, on the other hand, etc.). Without transition words, it will be assumed that the two items haven’t been contrasted. In-text citations are needed for the lesson and the reading. The two items differ because x has x (citation, year), while x does not cover x (citation, year). Another key difference is x states x (citation, year), but the x document states x (citation, year), which doesn’t align with the reading. Do not include any information that does not explain how the two items are different. Please be concise. No direct quotes. No additional sources are needed. You are only focusing on the lesson and the required reading. Application You should provide one suggestion to improve the curriculum plan based upon what’s been learned in this course and/or the required reading. What could you add to the lesson to make it better? Provide an example. To be aligned more to the text, I would add a written component to the lesson because x. For example, students could write a paragraph about x to show x. Include in-text citations if you refer to any source, the text, or the lesson. This section should not be more than one paragraph. Do not include any additional information besides an answer to the one question above. Your paper should not exceed two pages of content (not counting the title page and reference page). References There should be citations for the lesson and the reading. Clickable working hyperlinks are required for web links per current APA guidelines.
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Grading Rubric Criteria  Levels of Achievement  Content 70%  Advanced Proficient Developing  Not present  Text Summary 14 to 15 points 13 points 1 to 12 points 0 points Key points from the article or e-chapter are concisely summarized with balance, clarity, and relevance. Most key points summarized with clarity and relevance. While some key points are addressed, there is a lack of focus, and important information is neglected. 10 points 9 points 1 to 8 points 0 points Critique of Plan Relevant and legitimate information clearly supports critique of the quality of the curriculum plan. It is thoughtful, focused, in depth analysis of the significant topic. Information provides reasonable support for a critique of the quality of the curriculum plan. It displays evidence of a basic analysis. Information supports a critique of the quality of the curriculum plan. Analysis is basic and general. Reader gains few insights. Practical Application 10 points 9 points 1 to 8 points 0 points Applies the information learned appropriately with good personal insight for application or future use. Applies most of the information learned appropriately with some personal insight for application or future use. Applies some of the information learned appropriately with little personal insight for application or future use. Structure 30%  Advanced Proficient Developing Not present  Sentence Structure 10 points 9 points 1 to 8 points 0 points Sentences are well-phrased and varied in length and structure. Writing displays concise, interesting and focused introductory and concluding sentences. Sentences are well-phrased, and there is some variety in length and structure. Writing displays clear introductory and concluding sentences. Some sentences are awkwardly constructed so that the reader is occasionally distracted. Writing displays vague introductory and concluding sentences. Mechanics, Word Count, and APA Format 5 points 4 points 1 to 3 points 0 points The writing is free of mechanical, grammatical, and formatting errors. The assignment is 400–500 words. There are 1–3 mechanical, grammatical, and/or formatting errors, but they do not represent a major distraction. The assignment is not 400–500 words. The writing has many errors. The assignment is not 400–500 words.
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing the strengths or weaknesses of the curriculum plan. You will evaluate and critique one curriculum plan three separate times using three different articles or e-chapters provided during the assigned module. Each article or e-chapter focuses on a single topic or portion of a lesson. You will only need to critique that topic or portion of the lesson through the assigned article or e-chapter. Instructions The paper will include a title page and be divided into two main sections. The first section shall have a 200-250 word summary of the assigned article or e-chapter. The second section, the critique, shall have 100-125 words comparing the article/e-chapter to the curriculum plan and 100-125 words contrasting the article/e-chapter to the curriculum plan. In your critique, you should provide suggestions to improve the curriculum plan based upon what’s been learned in this course. This assignment must include a title page, have a 400–500-word limit, and adhere to current APA format. Title page and citations are not included in the word limit. Articles or e-chapters must each be summarized and analyzed individually, followed by a comparison and contrasting between the article/e-chapter and the curriculum plan. A Curriculum Plan Critique Template has been provided to assist you with this assignment. For each Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment, please use the following curriculum plan provided by the Massachusetts Department of Education. (You are welcome to use your own lesson plan or unit to critique for these assignments instead of the one provided. If you decide to use your own lesson or unit to critique, please upload it with your assignment in Canvas). Sample Curriculum Plan: Plants Make Their Own Food: Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science, Grade 5 You will notice in the above sample plan that the Massachusetts Department of Education utilizes the Understanding by Design template which you will also use for your Curriculum Design Project in Module 7: Week 7. Below you will find the critique topic and the corresponding article or e-chapter assigned for each module that a Curriculum Plan Critique is due. You will only need to critique the portion of the sample curriculum plan based upon the assigned topic: Module 2: Week 2 – Topic: Standards Chapter 2: Alignment to Standards (Lalor, 2016) Module 3: Week 3 – Topic: Educational Objectives The Tyler Rationale (Kliebard, 1970) Module 5: Week 5 – Topic: Differentiation Good Curriculum as a Basis for Differentiation (Tomlinson, 2014)
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing
Plants Make Their Own Food Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science, Grade 5 (Revised July 2018) Standards addressed in unit: 5-ESS2-1. Use a model to describe the cycling of water through a watershed through evaporation, precipitation, absorption, surface runoff, and condensation. State Assessment Boundary: Transportation or explanations of mechanisms that drive the cycle are not expected in state assessment. 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment. 5-PS3-1. Use a model to describe that the food animals digest (a) contains energy that was once energy from the Sun, and (b) provides energy and nutrients for life processes, including body repair, growth, motion, body warmth, and reproduction. Clarification Statement: Examples of models could include diagrams and flow charts. State Assessment Boundary: Details of cellular respiration, ATP, or molecular details of the process of photosynthesis or respiration are not expected in state assessment. Using principles from Universal Design for Learning (UDL), this unit uses materials from the Concord Consortium to engage students in investigations about photosynthesis and plant growth. Students use the online environment to read a story, reflect on their understanding through writing, and use models and test variables. Students learn about where earth’s water comes from and goes to and produce and interpret data tables and graphs to show how a plant grows under different conditions. Students create a digital lab book where they collect snapshots of their investigations and activities and reflect on their understanding of concepts. This Model Curriculum Unit is designed to illustrate effective curriculum that lead to expectations outlined in the 2016 Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Frameworks (www.doe.mass.edu/STEM/STE) as well as the MA Curriculum Frameworks for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics. This unit includes lesson plans, a Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment (CEPA), and related resources. In using this unit it is important to consider the variability of learners in your class and make adaptations as necessary. Table of Contents Lesson 1: Pre-assessment and Introduction to Plants and Plant Growth 12 Lesson 2: How Plants Produce the Food We Eat 17 Lesson 3: Plants Role in the Water Cycle 24 Lesson 4: Interpreting and Producing Data Tables and Graphs 29 Lesson 1: Pre-assessment handout, A Plant Story (http://udl.concord.org/share/teacher-guides/Plants34_v7.pdf), and questions related to A Plant Story 40 Lesson 2: The Food-o-Meter: What do plants need to stay alive? handout 40 Lesson 3: Diagram of The Hydrologic Cycle from the Delaware Basin Commission: http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/water_cycle.pdf 40 Lesson 4: 40 Students will use the Lesson 4 Handout which is based on the Concord Consortium’s UDL Intermediate Plants Unit. (Note: The handout is not the same as the UDL Unit.) Students will produce and interpret data tables and graphs to show how a plant grows under different conditions. 40 Unit Assumptions and Comments on Sequence Assumed knowledge and skills that student should bring to the unit: Students will be able to construct an argument that plants have structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Students should know that plants need water and light to grow. Students should know that plants have different structures that perform different functions (they are not expected to know details). Students have learned how to use a science notebook. Students have interpreted and analyzed data from simple tables and graphs. Notes about the unit: In this unit, students are introduced to the concept of photosynthesis to the depth of how a plant acquires the materials it needs to provide for itself, grow, and store food for animals. It does not go deeply into identifying one of the main products of the process of photosynthesis, glucose, and in accordance with the standard for this grade level, 5-LS1-1, it does not go into its chemical equation. Although STE standard 5-ESS2-1 is addressed (in part), in this unit, it is not taught to its fullest intent or depth. We recommend that there be additional opportunities for students to fully learn the concepts embedded in this standard. Access to obtaining student and class data on the Concord Consortium website is limited. Therefore, teachers should not set up accounts for students until the unit is updated on the Concord Consortium website. Teachers (and students) can and should access the activities on the site, but the questions that follow in each of the sections, should not be completed online. Instead, these questions have been copied into handouts for the students to complete. This unit has online components for students to interact with, but it can also be adapted so that the teacher can use “paper and pencil” alternatives. Teachers may choose any of the following: each student has access to a computer to complete the unit; students can work in groups of 2-4 with each group having a computer; or a teacher may project the website to the class. Before implementing this unit, teachers should: Become familiar with the scope and parts of this unit. Teachers should access and review the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Beginning and Intermediate Plants Unit at http://udl.portal.concord.org/activities/. (This unit will have its own pop up window in Java.) Teachers should click on icons in the Java Plants Beginning Unit to become familiar with the following sections: Pre-Test, Story, Modeling and Post-Test. Teachers should click on icons in the Java Plants Intermediate Unit to become familiar with the following section: Math and Introduction. Sign up on the website so that they view the Teacher Resources. The Teacher Guide for this unit located at http://udl.concord.org/share/teacher-guides/TG_Plants-Beginning-2010-final.pdf. In addition, we also recommend that teachers: Collect seeds and plants to show the class (Lessons 1 and 3) Have each student use a ½ inch 3-ring binder serve as their science notebook. This will allow students to keep track of the handouts for this unit. Plan to build Biome in a Baggie days before you begin this unit so it will be ready to show with students during lesson 3. Review the video Biome in a Baggie for directions on how to build one. (http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.stru.baggiezoom/biome-in-a-baggie/). Throughout the unit, notes to the teacher are either noted as such or written in parentheses, and distinguished with red font. All handouts are located at the end of the unit. You may need to establish an account with PBSLearningMedia (http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/) to access the resources in this unit. It is free and enables you access to other PBSLearningMedia resources. See the Additional Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools (page 33) section at the end of this unit for resources that provide background information and support the teaching of this unit Unit Plan Stage 1 Desired Results ESTABLISHED GOALS G Science and Technology/Engineering: 5-ESS2-1. Use a model to describe the cycling of water through a watershed through evaporation, precipitation, absorption, surface runoff, and condensation. State Assessment Boundary: Transportation or explanations of mechanisms that drive the cycle are not expected in state assessment. 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment. 5-PS3-1. Use a model to describe that the food animals digest (a) contains energy that was once energy from the Sun, and (b) provides energy and nutrients for life processes, including body repair, growth, motion, body warmth, and reproduction. Clarification Statement: Examples of models could include diagrams and flow charts. State Assessment Boundary: Details of cellular respiration, ATP, or molecular details of the process of photosynthesis or respiration are not expected in state assessment. English Language Arts and Literacy: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas clearly. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.4. Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace. Mathematics: CCSS.Math.Content.5.G.A.2. Represent real-world and mathematical problems by graphing points in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane, and interpret coordinate values of points in the context of the situation. Transfer Students will be able to independently use their learning to… Engage in sustained, complex and successful scientific inquiry. Use appropriate evidence and reasoning to develop scientific claims and engage in discussions of scientific and technical topics. T Meaning UNDERSTANDINGS U Students will understand that… The materials that make up a plant come mostly from carbon dioxide in the air and from water, not from the soil. Plants get the materials they need for growth and reproduction mostly through a process called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis requires light energy (from the Sun) for a part of air (carbon dioxide) and water to combine to form sugar (glucose) and oxygen. The sugars can be immediately used or stored for growth or later use, such as flower and seed production. There is a relationship between environmental conditions and plant growth. The energy and materials that animals need for their bodies come from plants and can be traced back to the sun. Models can use symbols to represent parts and processes in scientific contexts. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS Q How does a small seed turn into a large plant? How do plants get the material and energy required for growth? Acquisition Students will know… K Leaves have parts within them that perform photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is taken in by leaves and water is taken in by roots. Air (carbon dioxide) and water recombine inside the plant to form sugar (glucose). Sugar (glucose) is used by the plant as energy, or converted into other substances (such as starch) for storing energy, or converted into other substances (such as cellulose) for structures inside cells. Plants get the water they need as water cycles through the Earth’s systems (the geosphere (solid earth), the hydrosphere (the earth’s waters), and atmosphere (air surrounding the earth), and the biosphere (where plants and animals live) through the processes of evaporation, precipitation, condensation, transpiration, and runoff. Students will be skilled at… S Determining the meaning of symbols used in a specific scientific model. Using models to build conceptual understanding. Supporting their explanation using evidence from informational texts (data, graphs, texts, etc.) Analyzing plant growth using data tables and graphs. Drawing conclusions and defending their claims using data. Stage 2 – Evidence Evaluative Criteria Assessment Evidence See CEPA Rubric CURRICULUM EMBEDDED PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT (PERFORMANCE TASKS) PT Goal: Create a model for a new exhibit at Boston’s Children’s Museum that shows the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings. The challenge is to develop a model that shows how plants get the materials they need through the cycling of water on Earth and the process of photosynthesis to grow and store food-energy, and how animals acquire that food-energy. Your display should clearly show what is needed for photosynthesis to occur, why it is needed and what the products of photosynthesis are. You will also need to describe what happens to these materials. Role: Students are participating in a model-building challenge. Students will present their model to the class. Audience: Boston Children’s Museum staff and visitors to the Boston Children’s Museum. Visitors are mostly families with young children. Situation: The Boston Children’s Museum has challenged fifth grade students to help them design a new exhibit. The museum wants to find the most accurate and visually appealing display that highlights the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings to the visitors. Product and Purpose: Students will create a model (2D or 3D) that shows how plants acquire the water (through the cycling of water on Earth) and other materials they need to grow and store food-energy for animals. OTHER EVIDENCE: OE Pre-assessment Science notebooks with responses to posed questions and notes on observations Computer-based post assessment Interpreting and Producing Data Tables and Graphs handout Class discussions Homework- Food-o-Meter questions Stage 3 – Learning Plan Summary of Key Learning Events and Instruction Lesson 1: Pre-assessment and Introduction to Plants and Plant Growth In this lesson, the teacher introduces the unit to the students. Students come up with their own questions about how plants make food. Then they will take a pre-test to gauge their understanding of the basic functions of plant structures and what plants need to grow. Students will also read a story about how plants grow and be asked questions about the story. This lesson is an introduction to the unit and the questions should be used as formative tools. (90 minutes or 2 X 45-minute sessions) Lesson 2: How Plants Produce the Food We Eat In this lesson, students examine a model to determine how models in science help us understand phenomena and that models have limitations. In this lesson, students compare seeds to their corresponding plants to continue to build on their understanding of how plants grow. Students make predictions and engage with a computer model (Food-O-Meter) to show how varying exposure to water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide affect a plant’s growth. Students view a short photosynthesis video; discuss the limitations and benefits of using models; and follow with an interactive PBS video to understand Energy Flow. Students learn that the food animals (including humans) eat for the energy they need include plants or can be traced back to plants and ultimately the Sun. (90 minutes or 2 X 45-minute sessions) Lesson 3: Plants Role in the Water Cycle In this lesson, students learn about where Earth’s water comes from and goes to. They watch a video in which a plant that was grown in a sealed, self-contained system called a biome gets the water it needs to sustain its growth, partially demonstrating the cycling of water on Earth. (50 minutes) Lesson 4: Interpreting and Producing Data Tables and Graphs In this lesson, students will produce and interpret data tables and graphs to show how a plant grows under different conditions. Students will use the Lesson 4 Handout which is based on the Concord Consortium’s UDL Intermediate Plants Unit. (Note: The handout is not the same as the UDL Unit.). (45 minutes) Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment Students will work independently to complete the Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment (CEPA) for this unit. Students will participate in a mock competition by the Boston Children’s Museum to develop a model for a new exhibit that shows the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings. Each model must show how plants get the materials they need through the cycling of water on earth and the process of photosynthesis to grow and store food-energy, and how animals acquire that food-energy. Informative descriptions must accompany the model. The CEPA is the summative assessment for the unit. (180 minutes or 4 X 45 minute sessions) Adapted from Understanding by Design 2.0 © 2011 Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe Used with Permission Lesson 1: Pre-assessment and Introduction to Plants and Plant Growth Brief Overview of Lesson: In this lesson, the teacher introduces the unit to the students. Students come up with their own questions about how plants make food. Then they will take a pre-test to gauge their understanding of the basic functions of plant structures and what plants need to grow. Students will also read a story about how plants grow and be asked questions about the story. This lesson is an introduction to the unit and the questions should be used as formative tools. Prior Knowledge Required: 1-LS1-1. Use evidence to explain that (a) different animals use their body parts and senses in different ways to see, hear, grasp objects, protect themselves, move from place to place, and seek, find, and take in food, water, and air, and (b) plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in water, air, and other nutrients, and produce food for the plant. [Clarification Statement: Descriptions are not expected to include mechanisms such as the process of photosynthesis.] 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that animals and plants have internal and external structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. [Clarification Statements: Animal structures can include legs, wings, fins, feathers, trunks, claws, horns, antennae, eyes, ears, nose, heart, stomach, lung, brain, and skin. Plant structures can include leaves, roots, stems, bark, branches, flowers, fruits, and seeds.] [State Assessment Boundary: State assessment will be limited to macroscopic structures.] Estimated Time: 90 minutes Resources for Lesson: Chart paper and markers Computer(s) for each student, group of students, or teacher – loaded with technical requirements and UDL Beginning Plant Unit. Access the UDL Beginning Plant Unit on the Concord Consortium site http://udl.portal.concord.org/activities/. Handouts: Pre-assessment, A Plant Story (http://udl.concord.org/share/teacher-guides/Plants34_v7.pdf), and questions related to A Plant Story Science notebooks for each student Standard(s)/Unit Goal(s) to be addressed in this lesson: 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas clearly. Essential Question(s) addressed in this lesson: How does such a small seed turn into a much larger plant? How do plants get the material and energy required for growth? Objective: Students will be able to… use evidence from a module to explain that the materials that make up a plant come mostly from carbon dioxide in the air and from water, not from the soil. Make observations and ask questions about how plants use materials to grow. Targeted Academic Language: Scientific Language Academic Language Other Language for this Lesson fertilizer Function Radish light energy Transported mounds carbon dioxide Label sprouting sugar Describe x-ray oxygen Model Symbol What students should know and be able to do before starting this lesson: Use evidence to explain that plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in nutrients, water, and air, produce food (sugar), and make new plants. Construct an argument that plants have structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions Students may assume that plants get their materials from soil. They may have difficulty grasping the concept that the materials comes from the water and air. Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools Chart paper and markers Computer(s) for each student, group of students, or teacher – loaded with technical requirements and UDL Beginning Plant Unit. Access the UDL Beginning Plant Unit on the Concord Consortium site http://udl.portal.concord.org/activities/. Handouts: Pre-test, A Plant Story (http://udl.concord.org/share/teacher-guides/Plants34_v7.pdf), and questions related to A Plant Story Science notebooks for each student Instructional Tips/Strategies/Notes for Teacher Show students several different types of seeds (e.g., acorn, sunflower, fruit, vegetable) so they are familiar with what a plant starts out as. Also show them house plants or plants outside to show students what the seeds can become. Assessment Formative assessment questions during lesson. Lesson Details Lesson Opening (suggested time: 15 minutes): Introduce the unit and explain what students will be learning about plants. Introduce the essential questions and post them on chart paper. After explaining what they will be learning, ask students to come up with questions that they would want answered during the unit. Keep this list of questions and refer to it at the beginning of each unit to see if the questions are being answered. During Lesson Activity 1: Pre-test (suggested time: 30 minutes): Have students work individually or in pairs and answer the pre-test questions using Lesson 1: Pre-Test handout at the end of this unit. (Questions can also be viewed online). Activity 2: Plant Story (suggested time: 30 minutes) Have students read the Plant Story*. (This can be done as a class or individually. The story can be read on the computer or can be printed out. If using the computer set students up with computers and have them open the Concord Consortium UDL for Intermediate Plants Unit. http://udl.portal.concord.org/activities/) * Story goes beyond the limits of the standards for grade 5 (introduces vocabulary such as stomata, chloroplast and hydrogen.) Project the sunflower video from the Introduction section of the Intermediate Plants Unit. The video shows 24 hours in the life of a sunflower. Students watch how the leaves and the flowers follow the movement of the sun. Ask students to work in pairs and answer the questions at the end of the story. Tell them they will be collected and looked at by the teacher (but they will not be graded). (The story and questions can either be distributed as handouts or viewed online.) Closing Lesson (suggested time: 15 minutes): Ask students what they noticed and wondered during the sunflower story. Collect their observations on the board or on a piece of chart paper. (The wonderings students have are the questions used to guide the instruction of this unit.) Formative assessment: The list of questions generated by students will help guide instruction for the unit; save the list of student observations and wonderings so that you can revisit them. The pre-test and questions from the Plant Story will also serve as formative assessment tools. Preview outcomes for the next lesson: Share a brief overview of Lesson 2 with students. Lesson 2: How Plants Produce the Food We Eat Brief Overview of Lesson: Students examine a model to determine how models in science help us understand phenomena and that models have limitations. In this lesson, students compare seeds to their corresponding plants to continue to build on their understanding of how plants grow. Students make predictions and engage with a computer model (Food-O-Meter) to show how varying exposure to water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide affect a plant’s growth. Students view a short photosynthesis video; discuss the limitations and benefits of using models; and follow with an interactive PBS video to understand Energy Flow. Students learn that the food animals (including humans) eat for the energy they need include plants or can be traced back to plants and ultimately the Sun. Prior Knowledge Required: 1-LS1-1. Use evidence to explain that (a) different animals use their body parts and senses in different ways to see, hear, grasp objects, protect themselves, move from place to place, and seek, find, and take in food, water, and air, and (b) plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in water, air, and other nutrients, and produce food for the plant. Clarification Statement: Descriptions are not expected to include mechanisms such as the process of photosynthesis. 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that animals and plants have internal and external structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Clarification Statements: Animal structures can include legs, wings, fins, feathers, trunks, claws, horns, antennae, eyes, ears, nose, heart, stomach, lung, brain, and skin. Plant structures can include leaves, roots, stems, bark, branches, flowers, fruits, and seeds. State Assessment Boundary: State assessment will be limited to macroscopic structures. Concepts learned in Lesson 1 of this unit. Estimated Time: 90 minutes Resources for Lesson: Computer(s) for each student, group of students, or teacher – loaded with technical requirements and UDL Beginning Plant Unit. Access the UDL Beginning Plant Unit on the Concord Consortium site http://udl.portal.concord.org/activities/, the Illuminating Photosynthesis model: http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.stru.methusweb/illuminating-photosynthesis/, and the Food-O-Meter interactive: http://authoring.concord.org/sequences/56. An earth globe Science notebooks Handout: Food-o-Meter: What do plants need to stay alive? (All handouts are located at the end of the unit.) For background information and instructional support: Next Generation Science Standards’ description of the science and engineering practices, APPENDIX F – Science and Engineering Practices in NGSS, http://nextgenscience.org/sites/ngss/files/Appendix%20F%20%20Science%20and%20Engineering%20Practices%20in%20the%20NGSS%20-%20FINAL%20060513.pdf. See page 6 on Developing and Using Models. Photosynthesis Explained http://youtu.be/JJxZH_Y5D4s* * Video goes beyond the limits of the standards for grade 5 (introduces equation for photosynthesis. What students should know and be able to do before starting this lesson: Use evidence to explain that plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in nutrients, water, and air, produce food (sugar), and make new plants. Construct an argument that plants have structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions Students may think that: Plants get their mass from soil. They may have difficulty grasping the concept that the mass comes from water and air. Plants get food from their roots and the soil. Minerals in the soil, water and/or the soil provide food for plants All plants store their food in their leaves. Leaves are the only place where food is stored. Standard(s)/Unit Goal(s) to be addressed in this lesson: 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. [State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment.] 5-PS3-1. Use a model to describe that the food animals digest (a) contains energy that was once energy from the Sun, and (b) provides energy and nutrients for life processes, including body repair, growth, motion, body warmth, and reproduction. [Clarification Statement: Examples of models could include diagrams and flow charts.] [State Assessment Boundary: Details of cellular respiration, ATP, or molecular details of the process of photosynthesis or respiration are not expected in state assessment.] Essential Question(s) addressed in this lesson: How does such a small seed turn into a much larger plant? How do plants get the material and energy required for growth? Objectives Students will be able to… Determine the meaning of symbols used in a model about photosynthesis and plant growth Use observations from models and simulations to construct an explanation of how small seeds turn into larger plants, and how plants get the materials and energy required for plant growth Targeted Academic Language Scientific Language Academic Language Other Language for this Lesson photosynthesis function half a billionth (0.0000005%) light energy transported one-tenth (10%) calories label vaporized describe molecule model symbol What students should know and be able to do before starting this lesson: Use evidence to explain that plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in nutrients, water, and air, produce food (sugar), and make new plants. Construct an argument that plants have structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Concepts learned in Lesson 1 of this unit. Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions Students may think that: Plants get their mass from soil. They may have difficulty grasping the concept that the mass comes from the water and air. Plants get food from their roots and the soil. Minerals in the soil, water and/or the soil provide food for plants All plants store their food in their leaves. Leaves are the only place where food is stored. Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools Computer(s) for each student, group of students, or teacher – loaded with technical requirements and UDL Beginning Plant Unit. Access the UDL Beginning Plant Unit on the Concord Consortium site http://udl.portal.concord.org/activities/, the Illuminating Photosynthesis model: http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.stru.methusweb/illuminating-photosynthesis/, and the Food-O-Meter interactive: http://authoring.concord.org/sequences/56. An Earth globe Science notebooks Handout: Food-o-Meter: What do plants need to stay alive? For background information and instructional support: Next Generation Science Standards’ description of the science and engineering practices, APPENDIX F – Science and Engineering Practices in NGSS, http://nextgenscience.org/sites/ngss/files/Appendix%20F%20%20Science%20and%20Engineering%20Practices%20in%20the%20NGSS%20-%20FINAL%20060513.pdf. See page 6 on Developing and Using Models. Photosynthesis Explained http://youtu.be/JJxZH_Y5D4s* * Video goes beyond the limits of the standards for grade 5 (introduces equation for photosynthesis.) Instructional Tips/ Strategies/Notes for Teacher Review the posted list of student questions generated from Lesson 1 and note which items will be addressed in this lesson. Assessment Formative: Discussion questions on modeling; follow up questions for the Plant Food-O-Meter activity. Questions can be handed in for a grade. Lesson Details Opening Lesson: (suggested time: 20 minutes) Models: Engage students in the following display and discussion about models and their limitations. (Possibly give probe: Is It a Model? Uncovering Student Ideas in Science (Volume 4) – 25 NEW Formative Assessment Probes by Page Keeley and Joyce Tugel (2009)). Ask students, “What is a scientific model?” (This is brainstorming exercise to see what students know (or think they know) about models/modeling. It is okay if there are some wrong or inappropriate responses.) Holding the Earth Globe, ask students, “What is this a model of?” (Planet Earth) Ask and discuss, “What does this model represent well?” (Continents, shape of the earth, oceans, mountain ranges, equator, relative size, etc) Ask and discuss, “What does this model not represent?” (Size, place in space, individual states, small bodies of water) Ask, “Why?” Ask and discuss, “How does one know what is displayed on this model?” (Everything (or most everything) is labeled. There are also symbols to represent or identify things. Explain what the symbols mean and how to interpret them.) Ask and discuss, “Do all models look the same? Why or why not?” “What are some other types of models?” (See Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools for resource on modeling.) Ask and discuss, “What are some of the benefits and limitations of this model or models in general?” (See Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools for resource on modeling.) Revisit the question “What is a scientific model?” and discuss how students now define a model or modeling. Explain to students that we will be exploring a computer model that will demonstrate what happens inside a leaf, this model will be an animation (not the real object) and we will be able to select different variables to change that will affect the model. During Lesson: Part A. From Seed to Plant: Amassing Mass (suggested time: 10 minutes) Show students a picture or an actual seed (for a bean, grass, corn, herbs, nut, etc.) and its corresponding plant/tree (and in some cases, fruit, bark, etc.), and write the following questions on the board: How does a seed get the materials it needs to grow into a plant come from? Where do the materials that make up a tree trunk come from? Have students write their explanations/responses in their science notebook. Have students then turn to a partner to discuss their responses or discuss students’ responses as a whole class. (Note to teacher: Students’ responses will reveal their preconceptions and possible misconceptions. Do not correct students’ responses at this point. You will revisit these questions later.) Part B. Photosynthesis (suggested time: 15 minutes) Let students know that they will now be interacting with a computer model that simulates the process by which plants acquire the materials they need to grow. Use the Illuminating Photosynthesis: http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.stru.methusweb/illuminating-photosynthesis/ model to demonstrate how plants take in sunlight, the air we breathe out (carbon dioxide), and water, and releases the air we breathe in (in part oxygen). (Note to teacher: If possible, allow students to interact with this model on their own. Or, you may display this model from your computer to the whole class.) Launch the program. Click on “The Cycle” tab. Follow the instructions on the interactive. Explain to students what is happening in the interactive model. Use the Discussion question at the bottom of the page to guide the students. Discuss the benefits, limitations, and need for using a model such as this. Part C. The Food-o-Meter: What do Plants Need to Stay Alive? (suggested time: 20 minutes) In this activity, students will use a computer model of a growing plant, called the Food-o-Meter. It will show the effect of water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide on the health of the plant. (Note to teacher: If possible, allow students to interact with this model on their own. Or, you may display this model from your computer to the whole class.) Introduce this activity to students and explain its purpose. Click on Food-O-Meter link, http://authoring.concord.org/sequences/56. Click on module 2 (Food-O-Meter: What plants need to…). Have students write responses to Questions 1, 2, and 3 in section 2 (Engage I) in their science notebooks. Have students interact with sections 3–7 (Engage II and III, and Explore I, II, and III). They are not to go beyond section 7! The questions in sections 8 and 9 (Explain and Elaborate) are for homework. (Questions are provided in handout section, What do plants need to stay alive?) Part D. Food/Energy for and from Plants and the Animals that Eat It (suggested time: 15 minutes) In this activity, the teacher walks students through an interactive cartoon which describes the process by which energy from the sun is captured by plants and then passed on to humans and other animals through the foods they eat. There are questions for students to answer throughout the cartoon. Introduce this activity to students and explain its purpose. To access the cartoon, go to PBS Learning Media Energy Flow online visual (http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/asset/tdc02_int_energyflow/) As you go through the cartoon with students, discuss what is happening. Closing Lesson: (suggested time: 10 minutes) Revisit the essential questions. Have students respond to these questions in light of what they have learned in this lesson. Review the posted list of student responses, questions, and ideas generated from Lesson 1 and have students answer/edit/add to any item that have been addressed in this lesson. Remind students to use evidence from their observations and interactions to support your explanation. Homework: Complete the handout with questions from the Food-O-Meter activity. Formative assessments: Discussion questions, Food-o-Meter worksheet, written responses in science notebook, and homework. Preview outcomes for the next lesson: Share a brief overview of Lesson 3 with students. Lesson 3: Plants Role in the Water Cycle Brief Overview of Lesson: In this lesson, students learn about where earth’s water comes from and goes to. They watch a video in which a plant that was grown in a sealed, self-contained system called a biome gets the water it needs to sustain its growth, partially demonstrating the cycling of water on earth. Prior Knowledge Required: 1-LS1-1. Use evidence to explain that (a) different animals use their body parts and senses in different ways to see, hear, grasp objects, protect themselves, move from place to place, and seek, find, and take in food, water, and air, and (b) plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in water, air, and other nutrients, and produce food for the plant. Clarification Statement: Descriptions are not expected to include mechanisms such as the process of photosynthesis. 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that animals and plants have internal and external structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Clarification Statements: Animal structures can include legs, wings, fins, feathers, trunks, claws, horns, antennae, eyes, ears, nose, heart, stomach, lung, brain, and skin. Plant structures can include leaves, roots, stems, bark, branches, flowers, fruits, and seeds. State Assessment Boundary: State assessment will be limited to macroscopic structures. Concepts learned in Lessons 1 and 2 of this unit. Estimated Time: 50 minutes Resources for Lesson: Handout: The Hydrologic Cycle http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/water_cycle.pdf Poster Paper Science notebooks Background information: Summary of the Water Cycle, U.S. Geological Survey, http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesummary.html Thirstin’s Water Cycle (cartoon), US Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/flash/flash_watercycle.html World Biomes, Kids do Ecology, http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/ A teacher-designed biome (like the one in the PBSLearningMedia video) for students to see in person. (This is suggested but not required.) Standard(s)/Unit Goal(s) to be addressed in this lesson: 5-ESS2-1. Use a model to describe the cycling of water through a watershed through evaporation, precipitation, absorption, surface runoff, and condensation. State Assessment Boundary: Transportation or explanations of mechanisms that drive the cycle are not expected in state assessment. 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment. Essential Question(s) addressed in this lesson: How does such a small seed turn into a much larger plant? How do plants get the material and energy required for growth? Objectives: Students will be able to… Evaluate a model of a biome to determine its strengths and limitations Revise an explanation of where plants obtain water from using evidence from investigations Targeted Academic Language: Scientific Language Academic Language Other Language for this Lesson geosphere runoff Cycle hydrosphere System system atmosphere Biome biosphere transpiration evaporation condensation precipitation What students should know and be able to do before starting this lesson: Use evidence to explain that plants have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits that are used to take in nutrients, water, and air, produce food (sugar), and make new plants. Construct an argument that plants have structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Concepts learned in Lessons 1 and 2 of this unit. Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions: Students may think that the water plants use to grow only comes from a pipe or from rain. Students may think that once water goes into the ground/soil is only either taken in by plants or just stays there. Students may think that water can be created once it is used up. Students may think that water that comes from the sky (in the form of rain, snow, etc.) originated in outer space. Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools Handout: The Hydrologic Cycle http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/water_cycle.pdf Poster Paper Science notebooks Background information: Summary of the Water Cycle, US Environmental Protection Agency, http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesummary.html Thirstin’s Water Cycle (cartoon), US Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/flash/flash_watercycle.html World Biomes, Kids do Ecology, http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/ A teacher-designed biome (like the one in the PBSLearningMedia video) for students to see in person. (This is suggested but not required.) Instructional Tips/Strategies/Notes for Teacher You may need to establish an account with PBSLearningMedia (http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/) to view the video in this lesson. It is free and enables you access to other PBSLearningMedia resources. Assessment Formative: Discussion questions. Lesson Details Lesson Opening: (suggested time: 15 minutes) Homework review: As a class, review the questions assigned for homework in Lesson 2 and students’ responses. Make corrections wherever necessary. Preconceptions about the water cycle: Post the following question on the board, “Where does the water plants need to grow come from?” Ask students to write a brief response to this question in their science notebooks. Discuss their responses as a whole class. Record their responses on poster paper that will stay posted for the remainder of this lesson. Note to teacher: Students’ answers may be limited to a few ways by which they have seen water accessed. For example, they may think that the water that waters plants only comes from a pipe (to and through a hose or to a water pot), or through rain. Challenge the students’ thinking by asking where the water they have identified comes from, and then where that water comes from and so on. Do no correct incorrect responses at this time. You will revisit this question and their responses at the end of the lesson. Let students know that they will be learning about where Earth’s water comes from and goes to. They will also observe a plant that was grown in a sealed, self-contained system called a biome, gets the water it needs to sustain its growth, partially demonstrating the cycling of water on Earth. During Lesson: A. A Model of the Earth’s Water Cycle (suggested time: 10 minutes) 1. Distribute the handout The Hydrologic Cycle (http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/water_cycle.pdf). Project the image as well for the whole class to see and for the teacher to reference. 2. Using the handout as a reference, review the process of the hydrologic cycle with students. 3. Identify the: geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. Write their definitions on the board for students to copy into their science notebooks. Also define the terms used to represent the processes that are a part of the Hydrologic Cycle. (Note to teacher: For the purposes of this unit, earth’s systems and the actual terms used to represent the processes that are a part of the Hydrologic Cycle are not important. Therefore, define but do not emphasize them or students’ remembering them. Do emphasize, however, where plants fit into this cycle.) 4. Discuss the benefits and limitations of this model of the hydrologic/water cycle. B. Biome in a Baggie (suggested time: 20 minutes) 1. Introduce this video and its purpose. Show the video Biome in a Baggie (http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.stru.baggiezoom/biome-in-a-baggie/). Pose and discuss with students the discussion questions posted at the bottom on the video’s website. (Optional – if available) Share your personally designed Biome in a Baggie with students to see up close. Lesson Closing: (suggested time: 5 minutes) As a class, revisit the lesson opening question – “Where does the water plants need to grow come from?” and review students’ responses. Ask students if their ideas have changed according to the evidence they saw in today’s lesson. Have students make corrections where there are mistakes or omissions. Formative assessment: Discussion questions: Is this a good model of a biome? What are its strengths? What are its weaknesses? Preview outcomes for the next lesson: Share a brief overview of Lesson 4 with students. Lesson 4: Interpreting and Producing Data Tables and Graphs Brief Overview of Lesson: Students will use the Lesson 4 handout which is based on the Concord Consortium’s UDL Intermediate Plants Unit. (Note: The handout is not the same as the UDL Unit.) Students will produce and interpret data tables and graphs to show how a plant grows under different conditions. Prior Knowledge Required: Students are expected to know how to interpret data tables and plot data points on graphs. Students are expected to know the general effects of watering and sunlight on plants. Concepts learned in Lessons 1, 2, and 3 of this unit. Estimated Time: 45 minutes Resources for Lesson: Chart paper and markers Handout: Student data tables and graphs worksheet and Teacher answer key Science notebooks Standard(s)/Unit Goal(s) to be addressed in this lesson: 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment. CCSS.Math.Content.5.G.A.2. Represent real-world and mathematical problems by graphing points in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane, and interpret coordinate values of points in the context of the situation. Essential Question(s) addressed in this lesson: How does a small seed turn into such a large plant? How do plants get the material and energy required for growth? Objectives: Students will be able to… Construct an explanation using data from an investigation Create and use data tables and graphs to support explanations Targeted Academic Language Scientific and Math Language Academic Language Other Language for this Lesson photosynthesis Conditions ivy line plots Shriveled vine centimeters Reasoning graphs Effect data points predict/prediction Correspond What students should know and be able to do before starting this lesson: Students are expected to know how to interpret data tables and plot data points on graphs. Students are expected to know the general effects of watering and sunlight on plants. Concepts learned in Lessons 1, 2, and 3 of this unit. Anticipated Student Preconceptions/Misconceptions: Students may have difficulty producing and interpreting tables and graphs. Students may have difficulty using appropriate data. Students may think that plants will die immediately without water or sunlight. Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools: Chart paper and markers Handout: data tables and graphs Science notebooks Instructional Tips/ Strategies/Notes for Teacher: As questions and issues on the chart paper are addressed throughout the lesson, be sure to call attention to them and have students edit and add information. The teacher may want to help students by graphing Plant 1 as an example so the students understand the expectations. Assessment There are both formative and interim assessment tools in this lesson. Teachers can use the questions, data table, and graphs in both ways, depending on the expectations of the class. It is suggested, at a minimum, that the questions on page 1 of the handout, the first data table on page 3, and the first graph on page 4 be used as formative assessment tools. It is suggested that page 5 be used as an interim assessment. This can be a homework assignment that can be graded. Lesson Details Lesson Opening: (suggested time: 5 minutes) Tell students they will be examining how water and sunlight affect plant growth. Address any relevant questions or comments on chart paper from Lesson 1 and add any questions or information, as necessary. Ask them what they have already learned about photosynthesis and tell them they are going to apply their knowledge and their math skills to real data. They will be making their own predictions, discussing them with the classmates and figuring out if the data supports their predictions. During Lesson: (suggested time: 30 minutes) Pass out the Data Tables and Graphs worksheet to each student and ask them to complete it. (Note to teacher: You can allow students to work individually or in groups of 2 or more to complete this worksheet. Students should add the worksheet to their science notebooks when completed.) As a class, review the questions and data. Closing Lesson: As a class, review the questions and data. Have students make corrections where there are mistakes or omissions. Formative assessment: There are both formative and interim assessment tools in this lesson. Teachers can use the questions, data table, and graphs in both ways, depending on the expectations of the class. It is suggested, at a minimum, that the questions on page 1 of the handout, the first data table on page 3, and the first graph on page 4 be used as formative assessment tools. It is suggested that page 5 be used as an interim assessment. This can be a homework assignment that can be graded. Preview outcomes for the next lesson: Share a brief overview of CEPA with students. Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment (CEPA) Plants Make Their Own Food Teacher Instructions Brief Overview of Lesson: Students will work independently to complete the Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment (CEPA) for this unit. Students will participate in a mock competition by the Boston Children’s Museum to develop a model for a new exhibit that shows the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings. Each model must show how plants get the materials they need through the cycling of water on earth and the process of photosynthesis to grow and store food-energy, and how animals acquire that food-energy. Informative descriptions must accompany the model. The CEPA is the summative assessment for the unit. Prior Knowledge Required: Concepts and skills learned in Lessons 1 – 4 of this unit. Estimated Time: 4×45-minute sessions Resources for Lesson (list resources and materials): Smart board or document camera or projector Computers for each student Science notebooks Plants Make Their Own Food CEPA – directions sheet For Students: Plants make Their Own Food CEPA Rubric Suggested Building Materials: Large paper Fabric Pictures of plants, leaves, roots, trees, sun, water, flowers etc. Markers Colored pencils Glue Modeling clay Scissors Toothpicks Colored paper Standard(s)/Unit Goal(s) to be addressed in this lesson: 5-ESS2-1. Use a model to describe the cycling of water through a watershed through evaporation, precipitation, absorption, surface runoff, and condensation. State Assessment Boundary: Transportation or explanations of mechanisms that drive the cycle are not expected in state assessment. 5-LS1-1. Ask testable questions about the process by which plants use air, water, and energy from sunlight to produce sugars and plant materials needed for growth and reproduction. State Assessment Boundary: The chemical formula or molecular details about the process of photosynthesis are not expected in state assessment. 5-PS3-1. Use a model to describe that the food animals digest (a) contains energy that was once energy from the Sun, and (b) provides energy and nutrients for life processes, including body repair, growth, motion, body warmth, and reproduction. Clarification Statement: Examples of models could include diagrams and flow charts. State Assessment Boundary: Details of cellular respiration, ATP, or molecular details of the process of photosynthesis or respiration are not expected in state assessment. CCSS.ELA-Literacy. CCSS.ELA-Literacy. W.5.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas clearly. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.4. Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace. Instructional Tips/ Strategies/Notes for Teacher: Have building materials and reading/internet resources readily available in several stations around room. Have students refer back to their science notebooks for additional information. Optional: Have students create a drawing of their model first before designing. Goal: Create a model for a new exhibit at Boston’s Children’s Museum that shows the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings. The challenge is to develop a model that shows how plants get the materials they need through the cycling of water on Earth and the process of photosynthesis to grow and store food-energy, and how animals acquire that food-energy. Your display should clearly show what is needed for photosynthesis to occur, why it is needed and what the products of photosynthesis are. You will also need to describe what happens to these materials. Role: Students are participating in a model-building challenge. Audience: Boston Children’s Museum staff and visitors to the Boston Children’s Museum. Visitors are mostly families with young children. Students will present their models to the class. Situation: The Boston Children’s Museum has challenged fifth grade students to help them design a new exhibit. The museum wants to find the most accurate and visually appealing display that highlights the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings to the visitors. Product and Purpose: Students will create a model (2D or 3D) that shows how plants acquire the water (through the cycling of water on Earth) and other materials they need to grow and store food-energy for animals. This display will also show animals acquiring the food-energy they need. Standards and Criteria for Success: See accompanying rubric Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment (CEPA) Plants Make Their Own Food Student Instructions Goal: The Boston Children’s Museum is opening a new exhibit about plants, animals, and their surroundings and they want input from students like you. The challenge is to develop a model that shows how plants get the materials they need through the cycling of water on earth and the process of photosynthesis to grow and store food-energy, and how animals acquire that food-energy. Your display should clearly show what is needed for photosynthesis to occur and why it is needed. Your model must introduce the public to key scientific vocabulary and include informative descriptions. Role: You will be participating in a model-building challenge. Audience: Boston Children’s Museum staff and visitors to the Boston Children’s Museum. Visitors are mostly families with young children. You will present your model to the class. Situation: The Boston Children’s Museum has challenged fifth grade students to help them design a new exhibit. The museum wants to find the most accurate and visually appealing display that highlights the connections between plants, animals, and their surroundings to the visitors. Product and Purpose: You will create a model (2D or 3D) that shows how plants acquire the water (through the cycling of water on Earth) and other materials they need to grow and store food-energy for animals. This display will also show animals acquiring the food-energy they need. Standards and Criteria for Success: See rubric for details. Directions: Now that you have learned all about photosynthesis and the water cycle, you will develop a model that is a visual representation of these processes. You will also write a summary of the model to describe your model to museum visitors. Create a model using one of the following media: 2D or 3D digital animation 2D diagram or drawing 3D model/ possible mediums could be paper, fabric, clay Be sure to include any necessary keys to symbols you use in your model. Your model must represent the following scientific concepts: Where do plants get the materials they need for growth and reproduction? What is needed for photosynthesis to occur and why? How water cycles on earth, and where plants fit into the cycle. How the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. Write a description for your model that will be presented to the class. Your descriptions should be informative and use scientific vocabulary that help museum visitors understand the science behind your model. The descriptions should include the following sections (see bullet points below): and should be approximately a paragraph long for each explanation. Where do plants get the materials they need for growth and reproduction? What is needed for photosynthesis to occur and why? How water cycles on earth, and where plants fit into the cycle. How the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. For Students: Plants Make Their Own Food CEPA Rubric Name: _____________________________________ Date: _____________________ Exceeds Expectations 4 Meets Expectations 3 Developing 2 Does Not Meet Expectations 1 Model Model clearly illustrates where plants get the materials needed for growth and reproduction. Display clearly shows the materials and, their source, needed for plants to grow and reproduce. Display mostly shows the materials and, their source, needed for plants to grow and reproduce. Display is missing some of the major materials and, their source, needed for plants to grow and reproduce. Display incorrectly shows the materials and, their source, needed for plants to grow and reproduce. Model clearly illustrates how plants get their materials needed for growth and reproduction. Display clearly illustrates how plants get their materials needed for growth and reproduction. Display mostly illustrates how plants get their materials needed for growth and reproduction. Display is missing pieces that illustrate how plants get their materials needed for growth and reproduction. Display incorrectly illustrates how plants get their materials needed for growth and reproduction. Model clearly illustrates how water cycles on earth, and where plants fit into the cycle. Water cycle is clearly represented accurately and model includes plants role in cycle. Water cycle representation is mostly correct and model includes plants role in cycle. Water cycle is mostly modeled correctly. Did not demonstrate plants role in water cycle. Water cycle is not represented correctly and/or plants role in water cycle in model. Model clearly illustrates how the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. Display clearly illustrates how the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. Display mostly illustrates how the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. Display is missing pieces that illustrate how the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. Display incorrectly illustrates how the food and energy animals need can be traced back to plants and the sun. Model Description All parts of the model are clearly labeled and keys to symbols used are included. All parts clearly labeled and keys are included All parts labeled and keys are mostly included. Missing parts to model. Missing some labels and keys. Many parts are missing from model. Missing many labels and keys. Writing: Uses grade appropriate scientific and academic language and clearly expresses the science behind the model (includes scientific vocabulary) Words are clear, precise, and accurate. All terms used correctly and in context. Words are mostly clear, precise, and accurate. Most of the terms are used correctly and in context. Two or more missing terms. Words are mostly clear, precise, and/or accurate. Most of the terms are used correctly and in context. Words are not clear, precise, and/or accurate. Terms are not used correctly or in context. Speaking: Topic is presented in a logical sequence, includes facts, and speaks clearly at an understandable pace. Topic is presented in a logical sequence, includes facts, and speaks clearly at an understandable pace. Topic is mostly presented in a logical sequence, includes facts, and speaks clearly at an understandable pace. Topic is presented in mostly logical sequence, includes facts, and speaks at a mostly understandable pace. Topic is not presented in a logical sequence, does not include facts, and speaks at a non-understandable pace. Total: _______________________________ Score: ______________________________ Unit Resources: Handouts and Additional Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools Lesson 1: Pre-assessment handout, A Plant Story (http://udl.concord.org/share/teacher-guides/Plants34_v7.pdf), and questions related to A Plant Story Lesson 2: The Food-o-Meter: What do plants need to stay alive? handout Lesson 3: Diagram of The Hydrologic Cycle from the Delaware Basin Commission: http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/water_cycle.pdf Lesson 4: Students will use the Lesson 4 Handout which is based on the Concord Consortium’s UDL Intermediate Plants Unit. (Note: The handout is not the same as the UDL Unit.) Students will produce and interpret data tables and graphs to show how a plant grows under different conditions. Data Tables and Graphs student worksheet Teacher answer key for graphs and tables Additional Instructional Materials/Resources/Tools Annenberg Learner (http://www.learner.org/workshops/privuniv/pup02.html), Workshop Two: Private Universe Project in Science: Why are some ideas so difficult? Photosynthesis is among the most widely taught of all concepts in biology. Why, then, do many people have difficulty grasping the central idea of photosynthesis-that most of the substance of plants comes from the air? MIT Blossoms (https://blossoms.mit.edu/videos/lessons/roots_shoots_and_wood), Lesson video: Roots, Shoots, and Wood, Taught by Kathleen Vandiver AAAS Science Assessment (http://assessment.aaas.org/topics/ME#/) – Topic: Matter and Energy in Living Systems – Includes: Sub-Ideas, Assessment Items, and Misconceptions related to this topic. Concord Consortium UDL Beginning Plants Unit Teacher Guide: http://udl.concord.org/share/teacher-guides/TG_Plants-Beginning-2010-final.pdf. (The Concord Consortium Teacher Guide is a slightly different unit than this unit but uses the same online components.) Lesson 1: Pre-Assessment (from Concord Consortium’s Online UDL Beginning Plants Unit) Name________________________________________________ Date________________________ Directions: Answer the following questions. Be prepared discuss your answers with your classmates. 1. Rebecca moved into a new house. She wants to grow plants in different areas of her garden.a) Rebecca knows that plants need light to grow. Why do plants need light to grow? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ b) Name one other thing plants need to grow well. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. What is the function of a plant’s leaves? To take in water To protect roots from the Sun To take in sunlight and carbon dioxide To attract insects 3. What is a function of a plant’s roots? To take in water To keep the plant cool To take in oxygen and carbon dioxide To attract worms 4. A girl has an idea that green plants need sand in the soil for healthy growth. In order to test her idea she uses two pots of plants. She sets up one pot of plants as shown. Which ONE of the following should she use for the second pot of plants? Circle the letter for where each of the following processes takes place in a plant. (You may use the letters more than once.) Water enters the plant. Sunlight energy enters the plant. Nutrients enter the plant. Water is transported from the roots to the leaves. 6. Here is a graph of the number of healthy leaves on a plant for ten days. A student watered the plant each day at first, but then stopped. The plant had lots of sunlight. Answer the following questions about the graph. a) What was the greatest number of healthy leaves? 15 20 25 30 b) On which day was the number of leaves unchanged? Day 3 Day 6 Day 9 Lesson 1: Plant Story Questions (from Concord Consortium’s Online UDL Beginning Plants Unit) Name_________________________________________________________ Date________________________ Describe something you learned from this story about growing plants. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Draw a picture of a plant from the story. Label the parts of the plant and describe their functions. Lesson 2: The Food-o-Meter: What do plants need to stay alive? Name_______________________________________________________ Date_______________________ Directions: Respond to the following questions reflecting on your observations in the Food-O-Meter activity. Include evidence from your observations in your responses. What happened to the plant when it was cloudy instead of sunny? What happened to the plant when it did not rain? What happened to the plant when there was less carbon dioxide in the air? What do plants need to stay alive? What does the plant produce when given enough water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide? Lesson 3: Water Cycle *Graphic from Delaware Basin Commission http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/hydrological/ Lesson 4 Handout: Data Tables and Graphs (adapted from the Concord Consortium’s Online UDL Intermediate Plants Unit) Name: ______________________________________________________ Date_______________________ Directions: For this lesson, you will study data for the growth of plants under different conditions of light and water. You will interpret data from a table and produce and interpret line plots. Read the information below and answer the questions that follow. Natasha and Marc were having a discussion. They were convinced that plants — sunflowers at least — use sunlight and water to make food. But Marc still wondered what would happen to a plant if these things were taken away. “I think it will shrivel up and die right away,” remarked Natasha, thinking about how she felt if she missed breakfast because she was late for school. “Well, I think the plant will just wait until the light and water come back again,” argued Marc. “After all, when I go to sleep at night, I wake up hungry, but I’m not shriveled!” “Well, maybe, but it certainly won’t grow if it doesn’t have light and water,” Natasha insisted. Predict what will happen to a plant if water and light are missing for 3-5 days? ____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Using your knowledge of photosynthesis, why do you think this? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ We will now look at data collected when ivy plants were growing in different conditions to see if your predictions are correct or if they need to be modified. How well do plants grow under different conditions? Four ivy plants were observed over 7 days under different conditions. The data for each plant is shown below. Ivy leaves and vine Plant 1: lots of sunlight and only water added Day Length of Vine (cm) Total number of leaves 27.3 18 28.6 18 29.2 20 29.8 21 30.5 24 31.1 25 31.8 28 Plant 2: lots of sunlight and no water added Day Length of Vine (cm) Total number of leaves 29.0 20 30.2 22 31.8 23 32.3 23 33.6 20 33.2 19 32.7 17 Plant 3: no sunlight and only water added Day Length of Vine (cm) Total number of leaves 31.0 18 31.5 18 31.8 18 31.3 18 31.0 18 31.0 18 30.5 18 Plant 4: no sunlight and no water added Day Length of Vine (cm) Total number of leaves 28.3 22 28.3 22 28.3 22 28.3 20 28.3 19 28.3 16 28.3 16 Directions: Using the data tables, answer the following questions. For each plant, what is the change in the number of leaves from day 1 to day 7? Explain or show your reasoning for how you got your numbers. Change in Number of Leaves Reasoning Plant 1 Plant 2 Plant 3 Plant 4 For each plant, how much did the length of the vine change from day 1 to day 7? Explain or show your reasoning for how you got your numbers. Change in Length of Vine Reasoning Plant 1 Plant 2 Plant 3 Plant 4 Based on the first table, which plant had the most change in the number of leaves? Which plant had the least change? Based on the first table, which plant had the most change in the length of the vine? Which plant had the least change? You should discuss your answers with your classmates before moving to the next section. Graphing – We will now compare the four plants using graphs. For each plant, plot the number of new leaves for each day on the graph below. Use different colored pencils to represent each plant. Connect the data points that were plotted by drawing a line for each plant. Use the same colored pencil that you used to make the data points. Be sure to label the color that corresponds (or goes with) each plant. Check with your teacher to make sure you are using the correct data to make the graph. For each plant, graph the length of the vine for each day on the graph below. Use different colored pencils to represent each plant. Connect the data points that were plotted by drawing a line for each plant. Use the same colored pencil that you used to make the data points. Be sure to label the color that corresponds (or goes with) each plant. Check with your teacher to make sure you are using the correct data to make the graph. Using the graphs you produced, answer the following questions. Which condition was the best for plant growth? Explain your reasoning using data from both graphs. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Which had a larger effect on the plants, having no sun or having no water added? Explain your reasoning using data from both graphs. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Summary Questions Do the results from the investigation support the prediction you made on page 1? Why or why not? Be sure to use both evidence from the investigation and your knowledge of photosynthesis to support your answer. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What is one benefit of using a data table instead of a graph? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What is one benefit of using a graph instead of a data table? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Teacher Answer Key Using the data tables, answer the following questions. For each plant, what is the change in the number of leaves from day 1 to day 7? Explain or show your reasoning for how you got your numbers. Change in Number of Leaves Reasoning Plant 1 +10 28-18=10 Plant 2 -3 17-20=-3* *Note: may want to discuss how number goes up to 23, but then back down again. Plant 3 0 18-18=0 Plant 4 -6 16-22=-6 For each plant, how much did the length of the vine change from day 1 to day 7? Include units in your answer. Explain or show your reasoning for how you got your numbers. Change in Length of Vine Reasoning Plant 1 +4.5 cm 31.8cm-27.3cm=4.5cm Plant 2 +3.7 cm 32.7cm-29cm=3.7cm Plant 3 -0.5 cm 30.5cm-31.0cm=-0.5cm Plant 4 28.3cm-28.3cm=0 Based on the first table, which plant had the most change in the number of leaves? Which plant had the least change? _Plant 1 had the most change and plant 4 had the least change. Discuss these numbers with the class and ask how they knew this. Based on the first table, which plant had the most change in the length of the vine? Which plant had the least change? Again, plant 1 had the most change and plant 4 had the least change. Discuss these numbers with the class and ask how they knew this. You should discuss your answers with your classmates before moving to the next section. Graphing Answers For each plant, plot the number of new leaves for each day on the graph below. Use different colored pencils to represent each plant. Connect the data points that were plotted by drawing a line for each plant. Use the same colored pencil that you used to make the data points. Be sure to label the color that corresponds (or goes with) each plant. Check with your teacher to make sure you are using the correct data to make the graph. For each plant, graph the length of the vine for each day on the graph below. Use different colored pencils to represent each plant. Connect the data points that were plotted by drawing a line for each plant. Use the same colored pencil that you used to make the data points. Be sure to label the color that corresponds (or goes with) each plant. Check with your teacher to make sure you are using the correct data to make the graph. This work is licensed by the MA Department of Elementary & Secondary Education under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). Educators may use, adapt, and/or share. Not for commercial use. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/     Page 0 of 60
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing
The Tyler Rationale Author(s): Herbert M. Kliebard Source: The School Review , Feb., 1970 , Vol. 78, No. 2 (Feb., 1970), pp. 259-272 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1084240 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1084240?seq=1&cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal The Tyler Rationale Herbert M. Kliebard, University of Wisconsin One of the disturbing characteristics of the curriculum field is its lack of historical perspective. New breakthroughs are solemnly proclaimed when in fact they represent minor modifications of early proposals, and, conversely, anachronistic dogmas and doctrines maintain a cur- rency and uncritical acceptance far beyond their present merit. The most persistent theoretical formulation in the field of curriculum has been Ralph Tyler’s syllabus for Education 360 at the University of Chicago, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, or, as it is widely known, the Tyler rationale.’ Tyler’s claims for his rationale are modest, but, over time, his proposal for rationally developing a curriculum has been raised almost to the status of revealed doctrine. In the recent issue of the Review of Educational Research devoted to curriculum, Goodlad, commenting on the state of the field, reports that “as far as the major questions to be answered in developing a curriculum are concerned, most of the authors in [the] 1960 and 1969 [curriculum issues of the Review] assume those set forth in 1950 by Ralph Tyler.” Later, he concludes with obvious disappointment, “General theory and conceptualization in curriculum appear to have advanced very little during the last decade.”2 Perhaps the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Tyler rationale is an appropri- ate time to reexamine and reevaluate some of its central features. Tyler’s rationale revolves around four central questions which Tyler feels need answers if the process of curriculum development is to proceed: 1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? February 1970 259 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal 2. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes? 3. How can these educational experiences be effectively organized? 4: How can we determine whether these purposes are being at- tained?3 These questions may be reformulated into the familiar four-step process by which a curriculum is developed: stating objectives, se- lecting “experiences,” organizing “experiences,” and evaluating.4 The Tyler rationale is essentially an elaboration and explication of these steps. The most crucial step in this doctrine is obviously the first since all the others proceed from and wait upon the statement of objectives. As Tyler puts it, “If we are to study an educational pro- gram systematically and intelligently we must first be sure as to the educational objectives aimed at.”5 The Selection of Educational Objectives Tyler’s section on educational objectives is a description of the three sources of objectives: studies of learners, studies of contempo- rary life, and suggestions from subject-matter specialists, as well as an account of how data derived from these “sources” are to be “fil- tered” through philosophical and psychological “screens.” The three sources of educational objectives encapsulate several traditional doc- trines in the curriculum field over which much ideological blood had been spilled in the previous several decades. The doctrines proceeded from different theoretical assumptions, and each of them had its own spokesmen, its own adherents, and its own rhetoric. Tyler’s proposal accepts them all, which probably accounts in part for its wide popu- larity. While we are aware that compromise is the recourse frequently taken in the fields of diplomatic or labor negotiation, simple eclecti- cism may not be the most efficacious way to proceed in theorizing. When Dewey, for example, identified the fundamental factors in the educative process as the child and the “values incarnate in the ma- tured experience of the adult,” the psychological and the logical, his solution was not to accept them both but “to discover a reality to which each belongs.”6 In other words, when faced with essentially the same problem of warring educational doctrines, Dewey’s ap- proach is to creatively reformulate the problem; Tyler’s is to lay them all out side by side. 260 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal Subject Matter as a Source of Objectives Of the three “sources”-studies of the learners themselves, studies of contemporary life, and suggestions about objectives from subject- matter specialists-the last one seems curiously distorted and out of place. Perhaps this is because Tyler begins the section by profoundly misconceiving the role and function of the Committee of Ten. He attributes to the Committee of Ten a set of objectives which, he claims, has subsequently been followed by thousands of secondary schools. In point of fact, the notion of objectives in the sense that Tyler defines the term was not used and probably had not even oc- curred to the members of the Committee of Ten. What they proposed were not objectives, but “four programmes”: Classical, Latin-Scien- tific, Modern Languages, and English. Under each of these rubrics is a listing of the subjects that constitute each of the four courses of study. This recommendation is followed by the reports of the various individual committees on what content should be included and what methods should be used in the various subject fields. Unless Tyler is using the term “objective” as being synonymous with “content” (in which case it would lose all its importance as a conceptyf W K H Q W K e use of the term “objectives” in the context of the report of the Com- mittee of Ten is erroneous. Probably the only sense in which the term “objective” is applicable to the Committee of Ten report is in connection with the broad objective of mental training to which it subscribes. An even more serious error follows: “It seems clear that the Com- mittee of Ten thought it was answering the question: What should be the elementary instruction for students who are later to carry on much more advanced work in the field. Hence, the report in His- tory, for example, seems to present objectives [sic] for the beginning courses for persons who are training to be historians. Similarly the report in Mathematics outlines objectives [sic] for the beginning courses in the training of a mathematician.”7 As a matter of fact, one of the central questions that the Committee of Ten considered was, “Should the subject be treated differently for pupils who are going to college, for those who are going to a scien- tific school, and for those, who, presumably, are going to neither?”8 The Committee decided unanimously in the negative. The subcom- mittee on history, civil government, and political economy, for ex- ample, reported that it was “unanimously against making such a February 1970 261 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal distinction”9 and passed a resolution that “instruction in history and related subjects ought to be precisely the same for pupils on their way to college or the scientific school, as for those who expect to stop at the end of grammar school, or at the end of the high school.”‘ Evidently, the Committee of Ten was acutely aware of the question of a differentiated curriculum based on probable destination. It sim- ply rejected the doctrine that makes a prediction about one’s future status or occupation a valid basis for the curriculum in general edu- cation. The objective of mental training, apparently, was conceived to be of such importance as to apply to all, regardless of destination. Tyler’s interpretation of the Committee of Ten report is more than a trivial historical misconception. It illustrates one of his fun- damental presuppositions about the subjects in the curriculum. Tyler conceives of subjects as performing certain “functions.” These func- tions may take the form of a kind of definition of the field of study itself such as when he sees a function of science to be enabling the student to obtain a “clearer understanding of the world as it is viewed by the scientist and man’s relation to it, and the place of the world in the larger universe”; or the subject may perform external func- tions such as the contribution of science to the improvement of indi- vidual or public health or to the conservation of natural resources. The first sense of function is essentially a way of characterizing a field of study; in the second sense of function, the subject field serves as an instrument for achieving objectives drawn from Tyler’s other two sources. Tyler’s apparent predisposition to the latter sense of function seems to be at the heart of his misreading of the Committee of Ten report. To Tyler, studying history or algebra (as was uni- versally recommended by the Committee of Tenyf L I W K H D U H Q R t meeting an obvious individual or social need, is a way of fulfilling the vocational needs of a budding historian or mathematician. Other- wise, how can one justify the existence of mathematics qua mathe- matics in the curriculum? As such, “suggestions from subject-matter specialists” is really not a source in the sense that the other two are. Subject matter is mainly one of several means by which one fulfills individual needs such as vocational aspirations or meets social ex- pectations. Needs of the Learner as a Source of Objectives The section on the “learners themselves as a source of educational objectives,” although it is less strained and more analytical than the 262 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal one on subject matter, is nevertheless elliptical. Tyler proceeds from the assumption that “education is a process of changing behavior patterns of people.””1 This notion, of course, is now widely popular in this country, but, even if one were to accept such a view, it would be important to know the ways in which education would be differ- ent from other means of changing behavior, such as, hypnosis, shock treatment, brainwashing, sensitivity training, indoctrination, drug therapy, and torture. Given such a definition, the differences be- tween education and these other ways of changing behavior are not obvious or simple. Tyler proceeds from his basic definition of education to a con- sideration of the reason for wanting to study the learner: “A study of the learners themselves would seek to identify needed changes in behavior patterns of the students which the educational institution should seek to produce.”’12 There follows an extended discussion of “needs,” how they are determined, and how they contribute to the determination of educational objectives. The notion of needs as a basis for curriculum development was not a new one when Tyler used it in 1950. It had been a stable element in the curriculum liter- ature for about three decades.13 When tied to the biological concept of homeostasis, the term “needs” seems to have a clear-cut meaning. Hunger, for example, may be conveniently translated into a need for food when one has in mind a physiological state of equilibrium. Need becomes a much trickier concept when one speaks of the “need of a haircut” or the “need for a good spanking.” These needs involve rather complex social norms on which good men and true may differ sharply. Tyler astutely recognized that the concept of need has no meaning without a set of norms, and he described the kind of study he envisioned essentially as a two-step process: “first, finding the present status of the students, and second, comparing this status to acceptable norms in order to identify the gaps or needs.”14 This formulation is virtually identical to what Bobbitt referred to as “shortcomings” in the first book written exclusively on the curricu- lum, published in 1918.15 The key term, in Tyler’s version, of course, is “acceptable norms.” They are neither self-evident nor easy to for- mulate. One of Tyler’s illustrations of the process he advocates is a case in point: A “discovery” is made that 60 percent of ninth-grade boys read only comic strips. The “unimaginative” teacher, Tyler says, might interpret this as suggesting the need for more attention to comic February 1970 263 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal strips in the classroom; the imaginative teacher uses the data as a justification “for setting up objectives gradually to broaden and deepen these reading interests.”‘6 What is the acceptable norm im- plicit in Tyler’s illustration? Apparently, it is not a statistical norm since this could imply that the 40 percent minority of boys should be encouraged to emulate the 60 percent majority. The norm seems to be the simple conviction that having broader and deeper reading interests is better than limiting oneself to the reading of comic strips. The question is what does the 60 percent figure contribute to the process of stating educational objectives. What difference would it have made if the figure were 80 percent or 40 percent? The key fac- tor seems to be the nature and strength of the teacher’s conviction as the acceptable norm, toward which the status study contributes very little. The whole notion of need has no meaning without an established norm, and, therefore, it is impossible even to identify “needs” with- out it. As Archambault put it, “An objective need can be discovered, but only within a completely defined context in which the normal level of attainment can be clarified.””7 Furthermore, even when a genuine need is identified, the role of the school as an institution for the remediation of that or other needs would have to be consid- ered. Even the course that remediation should take once the need and the responsibility have been established is an open question. These serious value questions associated with the identification and remediation of needs make the concept a deceptively complex one whose advantages are more apparent than real. Komisar, for example, has described this double use of need, “one to report deficiencies and another to prescribe for their alleviation,” as so vague and elusive as to constitute a “linguistic luxury.”‘” As already mentioned, Tyler is acutely aware of the difficulties of “deriving” educational objectives from studies of the child. His last word on the subject in this section is to suggest to his students that they compile some data and then try using those data as the basis for formulating objectives. He suggests this exercise in part to illustrate the difficulty of the process. Given the almost impossible complexity of the procedure and the crucial but perhaps arbitrary role of the interpreter’s value structure or “philosophy of life and of education,” one wonders whether the concept of need deserves any place in the process of formulating objectives. Certainly, the concept of need turns out to be of no help in so far as avoiding central value decisions as 264 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal the basis for the selection of educational objectives, and without that feature much of its appeal seems to disappear. As Dearden concluded in his analysis of the term: “The concept of ‘need’ is an attractive one in education because it seems to offer an escape from arguments about value by means of a straightforward appeal to the facts empiri- cally determined by the expert. But . . . it is false to suppose that judgments of value can thus be escaped. Such judgments may be as- sumed without any awareness that assumptions are being made, but they are not escaped.”19 Studies of Contemporary Life as a Source of Objectives Tyler’s section on studies of contemporary life as a source of cur- ricular objectives follows the pattern set by the section on the learner. His conception of the role that such studies play in determining objectives is also similar in many respects to that of his spiritual ancestor, Franklin Bobbitt, who stimulated the practice of activity analysis in the curriculum field. Like Bobbitt, Tyler urges that one “divide life” into a set of manageable categories and then proceed to collect data of various kinds which may be fitted into these cate- gories. One of Tyler’s illustrations is especially reminiscent of Bob- bitt: “Students in the school obtain[ed] from their parents for several days the problems they were having to solve that involved arithmetic. The collection and analysis of this set of problems suggested the arithmetic operations and the kinds of mathematical problems which are commonly encountered by adults, and became the basis of the arithmetic curriculum.”20 Tyler tends to be more explicitly aware than Bobbitt of the tra- ditional criticisms that have been directed against this approach. Bode, for example, once pointed out that “no scientific analysis known to man can determine the desirability or the need of any- thing.” The question of whether a community with a given burglary rate needs a larger police force or more burglars is entirely a question of what the community wants.21 Tyler’s implicit response to this and other traditional criticism of this approach is to argue that in his rationale studies of contemporary life do not constitute the sole basis for deriving objectives, and, of course, that such studies have to be checked against “an acceptable educational philosophy.”22 In this sense, the contemporary life source is just as dependent on the philo- sophical screen as is the learner source. February 1970 265 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal The Philosophical Screen Tyler’s treatment of the section on the learner and on contempo- rary life as sources of educational objectives are roughly parallel. In each case, Tyler is aware of the serious shortcomings of the source but assumes that they can be overcome, first, by not relying exclu- sively on any one of them-in a sense counting on his eclecticism to blunt the criticism. And second (and probably more importantyf K e appeals to philosophy as the means for covering any deficiencies. This suggests that it is philosophy after all that is the source of Tyler’s objectives and that the stipulated three sources are mere window dressing. It is Tyler’s use of the concept of a philosophical screen, then, that is most crucial in understanding his rationale, at least in so far as stating the objectives is concerned. Even if we were to grant that people go through life with some kind of primitive value structure spinning around in their heads, to say that educational objectives somehow flow out of such a value structure is to say practically nothing at all. Tyler’s proposal that educational objectives be filtered through a philosophical screen is not so much demonstrably false as it is trivial, almost vacuous. It simply does not address itself in any significant sense to the question of which objectives we leave in and which we throw out once we have committed ourselves to the task of stating them. Filtering educational objectives through a philosophical screen is simply another way of saying that one is forced to make choices from among the thousands or perhaps millions of objectives that one can draw from the sources that Tyler cites. (The number of objectives is a function of the level of specificity.yf % R E E L W W Z D V I D F H G Z L W K W K H V D P H S U H G L F D P H Q W Z K H Q K e was engaged in his massive curriculum project in Los Angeles in 1921-23. Bobbitt’s solution was to seek “the common judgment of thoughtful men and women,”23 an appeal to consensus. Tyler’s ap- peal is to divine philosophy, but the effect is equally arbitrary as long as we are still in the dark as to how one arrives at a philosophy and how one engages in the screening process. Take, for example, one of Tyler’s own illustrations of how a phi- losophy operates: “If the school believes that its primary function is to teach people to adjust to society it will strongly emphasize obedi- ence to present authorities, loyalty to the present forms and tradi- tions, skills in carrying on the present techniques of life; whereas if it emphasizes the revolutionary function of the school it will be more 266 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal concerned with critical analysis, ability to meet new problems, in- dependence and self-direction, freedom, and self-discipline. Again, it is clear that the nature of the philosophy of the school can affect the selection of educational objectives.”24 Although Tyler appears else- where to have a personal predilection for the latter philosophy, we really have no criterion to appeal to in making a choice. We are urged only to make our educational objectives consistent with our educational philosophy, and this makes the choice of objectives pre- cisely as arbitrary as the choice of philosophy. One may, therefore, express a philosophy that conceives of human beings as instruments of the state and the function of the schools as programming the youth of the nation to react in a fixed manner when appropriate stimuli are presented. As long as we derive a set of objectives consistent with this philosophy (and perhaps make a brief pass at the three sourcesyf , we have developed our objectives in line with the Tyler rationale. The point is that, given the notion of educational objectives and the necessity of stating them explicitly and consistently with a philos- ophy, it makes all the difference in the world what one’s guiding phi- losophy is since that consistency can be as much a sin as a virtue. The rationale offers little by way of a guide for curriculum making be- cause it excludes so little. Popper’s dictum holds not only for science, but all intellectual endeavor: “Science does not aim, primarily, at high probabilities. It aims at high informative content, well backed by experience. But a hypothesis may be very probable simply because it tells us nothing or very little. A high degree of probability is there- fore not an indication of ‘goodness’-it may be merely a symptom of low informative content.”25 Tyler’s central hypothesis that a state- ment of objectives derives in some manner from a philosophy, while highly probable, tells us very little indeed. Selection and Organization of Learning Experiences Once the crucial first step of stating objectives is accomplished, the rationale proceeds relentlessly through the steps of the selection and organization of learning experiences as the means for achieving the ends and, finally, evaluating in terms of those ends. Typically, Tyler recognizes a crucial problem in connection with the concept of a learning experience but passes quickly over it: The problem is how can learning experiences be selected by a teacher or a curriculum maker when they are defined as the interaction between a student and February 1970 267 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal his environment. By definition, then, the learning experience is in some part a function of the perceptions, interests, and previous ex- perience of the student. At least this part of the learning experience is not within the power of the teacher to select. While Tyler is ex- plicitly aware of this, he nevertheless maintains that the teacher can control the learning experience through the “manipulation of the environment in such a way as to set up stimulating situations-situ- ations that will evoke the kind of behavior desired.”26 The Pavlovian overtones of such a solution are not discussed. Evaluation “The process of evaluation,” according to Tyler, “is essentially the process of determining to what extent the educational objectives are actually being realized by the program of curriculum and instruc- tion.”27 In other words, the statement of objectives not only serves as the basis for the selection and organization of learning experiences, but the standard against which the program is assessed. To Tyler, then, evaluation is a process by which one matches initial expecta- tions in the form of behavioral objectives with outcomes. Such a con- ception has a certain commonsensical appeal, and, especially when fortified with models from industry and systems analysis, it seems like a supremely wise and practical way to appraise the success of a venture. Actually, curriculum evaluation as a kind of product con- trol was set forth by Bobbitt as early as 1922,28 but product control when applied to curriculum presents certain difficulties. One of the difficulties lies in the nature of an aim or objective and whether it serves as the terminus for activity in the sense that the Tyler rationale implies. In other words, is an objective an end point or a turning point? Dewey argued for the latter: “Ends arise and function within action. They are not, as current theories too often imply, things lying outside activity at which the latter is directed. They are not ends or termini of action at all. They are terminals of deliberation, and so turning points in activity.”29 If ends arise only within activity it is not clear how one can state objectives before the activity (learning experienceyf E H J L Q V ‘ H Z H V S R V L W L R Q W K H Q K D V L P – portant consequences not just for Tyler’s process of evaluation but for the rationale as a whole. It would mean, for example, that the starting point for a model of curriculum and instruction is not the 268 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal statement of objectives but the activity (learning experienceyf D Q d whatever objectives do appear will arise within that activity as a way of adding a new dimension to it. Under these circumstances, the process of evaluation would not be seen as one of matching antici- pated consequences with actual outcomes, but as one of describing and of applying criteria of excellence to the activity itself. This view would recognize Dewey’s claim that “even the most important among all the consequences of an act is not necessarily its aim,”80 and it would be consistent with Merton’s important distinction between manifest and latent functions.31 The importance of description as a key element in the process of evaluation has also been emphasized by Cronbach: “When evalua- tion is carried out in the service of course improvement, the chief aim is to ascertain what effects the course has …. This is not to inquire merely whether the course is effective or ineffective. Outcomes of instruction are multidimensional, and a satisfactory investigation will map out the effects of the course along these dimensions sepa- rately.”32 The most significant dimensions of an educational activity or any activity may be those that are completely unplanned and wholly unanticipated. An evaluation procedure that ignores this fact is plainly unsatisfactory. Summary and Conclusion The crucial first step in the Tyler rationale on which all else hinges is the statement of objectives. The objectives are to be drawn from three sources: studies of the learner, studies of society, and sug- gestions from subject-matter specialists. Data drawn from these sources are to be filtered through philosophical and psychological screens. Upon examination, the last of the three sources turns out to be no source at all but a means of achieving objectives drawn from the other two. Studies of the learner and of society depend so heavily for their standing as sources on the philosophical screen that it is actually the philosophical screen that determines the nature and scope of the objectives. To say that educational objectives are drawn from one’s philosophy, in turn, is only to say that one must make choices about educational objectives in some way related to one’s value structure. This is to say so little about the process of selecting objectives as to be virtually meaningless. One wonders whether the long-standing insistence by curriculum theorists that the first step February 1970 269 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal in making a curriculum be the specification of objectives has any merit whatsoever. It is even questionable whether stating objectives at all, when they represent external goals allegedly reached through the manipulation of learning experiences, is a fruitful way to con- ceive of the process of curriculum planning. Certainly, the whole concept of a learning experience requires much more analysis than it has been given. Finally, the simplistic notion that evaluation is a process of matching objectives with outcomes leaves much to be desired. It ignores what may be the more significant latent outcomes in favor of the manifest and anticipated ones, and it minimizes the vital relationship between ends and means. One reason for the success of the Tyler rationale is its very ration- ality. It is an eminently reasonable framework for developing a cur- riculum; it duly compromises between warring extremes and skirts the pitfalls to which the doctrinaire are subject. In one sense, the Tyler rationale is imperishable. In some form, it will always stand as the model of curriculum development for those who conceive of the curriculum as a complex machinery for transforming the crude raw material that children bring with them to school into a finished and useful product. By definition, the production model of curriculum and instruction begins with a blueprint for how the student will turn out once we get through with him. Tyler’s version of the model avoids the patent absurdity of, let us say, Mager’s by drawing that blueprint in broad outline rather than in minute detail.33 For his moderation and his wisdom as well as his impact, Ralph Tyler deserves to be enshrined in whatever hall of fame the field of curriculum may wish to establish. But the field of curriculum, in its turn, must recognize the Tyler rationale for what it is: Ralph Tyler’s version of how a curriculum should be developed-not the universal model of curriculum development. Goodlad once claimed that “Tyler put the capstone on one epoch of curriculum inquiry.”84 The new epoch is long overdue. 270 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal NOTES 1. Ralph W. Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950yf 1 R W H G L I I H U H Q F H V L Q S D J L Q D W L R Q L Q S U L Q W L Q J . 2. John I. Goodlad, “Curriculum: State of the Field,” Review of Educational Research 39 (1969yf . 3. Tyler, pp. 1-2. 4. I have argued elsewhere that the characteristic mode of thought associated with the field of curriculum frequently manifests itself in enumeration and par- ticularization as a response to highly complex questions. Herbert M. Kliebard, “The Curriculum Field in Retrospect,” in Technology and the Curriculum, ed. Paul W. F. Witt (New York: Teachers College Press, 1968yf S S . 5. Tyler, p. 3. 6. John Dewey, “The Child and the Curriculum,” in John Dewey on Educa- tion, ed. Reginald D. Archambault (New York: Random House, 1964yf S S – 40. (Originally published by University of Chicago Press in 1902.yf 7. Tyler, p. 17. 8. National Education Association, Report of the Committee on Secondary School Studies (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1893yf S . 9. Ibid, p. 203. 10. Ibid, p. 165. 11. Tyler, p. 4. 12. Ibid, pp. 4-5. 13. See, e.g., H. H. Giles, S. P. McCutchen, and A. N. Zechiel, Exploring the Curriculum (New York: Harper &c Bros., 1942yf 9 7 7 K D H U & D U R O L Q H % = D F K U , and Ruth Kotinsky, Reorganizing Secondary Education (New York: Appleton Century, 1939yf 7 K H I R U P H U Z R U N Z D V R Q H R I W K H Y R O X P H V W R F R P H R X W R I W K H 3 U R – gressive Education Association’s Eight-Year Study. Tyler was closely associated with that research. The latter volume was published under the auspices of the Progressive Education Association’s Commission on Secondary School Curriculum. Tyler was also a member of the committee that prepared the NSSE yearbook on needs. Nelson B. Henry, ed., Adapting the Secondary School Program to the Needs of Youth, Fifty-second Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Educa- tion, pt. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953yf $ Q H D U O V W D W H P H Q W R f needs in relation to curriculum organization appeared in The Development of the High-School Curriculum, Sixth Yearbook of the Department of Superinten- dence (Washington, D.C.: Department of Superintendence, 1928yf 1 H H G V D V W K e basis for the curriculum in English was mentioned by E. L. Miller as early as 1922. North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1922yf S . 14. Tyler, p. 6. 15. Franklin Bobbitt, The Curriculum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918yf , p. 45 ff. 16. Tyler, p. 10. 17. Reginald D. Archambault, “The Concept of Need and Its Relation to Cer- tain Aspects of Educational Theory,” Harvard Educational Review 27 (1957yf . 18. B. Paul Komisar, “‘Need’ and the Needs Curriculum,” in Language and Concepts in Education, eds. B. O. Smith and Robert H. Ennis (Chicago: Rand McNally &8 Co., 1961yf S . 19. R. F. Dearden, ” ‘Needs’ in Education,” British Journal of Educational Studies 14 (1966yf . February 1970 271 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reappraisal 20. Tyler, pp. 16-17. 21. Boyd H. Bode, Modern Educational Theories (New York: Macmillan Co., 1927yf S S . 22. Tyler, p. 13. 23. Franklin Bobbitt, Curriculum-making in Los Angeles, Supplementary Edu- cational Monographs no. 20 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1922yf S . 24. Tyler, p. 23. 25. Karl Popper, “Degree of Confirmation,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 6 (1955yf R U L J L Q D O L W D O L F V f. 26. Tyler, p. 42. 27. Ibid., p. 69. 28. Franklin Bobbitt, “The Objectives of Secondary Education,” School Re- view 28 (1920yf . 29. John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Random House, 1922yf S 2 U L J L Q D O O S X E O L V K H G E + H Q U + R O W & R f 30. Ibid., p. 227. 31. Robert K. Merton, “Manifest and Latent Functions,” in Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957yf S S . 32. Lee J. Cronbach, “Evaluation for Course Improvement,” New Curricula, ed. Robert W. Heath (New York: Harper & Row, 1964yf S R U L J L Q D O L W D O L F V f. 33. Robert F. Mager, Preparing Instructional Objectives (Palo Alto, Calif.: Fearon Publishers, 1962yf . 34. John I. Goodlad, “The Development of a Conceptual System for Dealing with Problems of Curriculum and Instruction,” U.S. Department of Health, Edu- cation, and Welfare, Office of Education Cooperative Research Project no. 454 (Los Angeles: Institute for the Development of Educational Activities, UCLA, 1966yf S . 272 School Review This content downloaded from 208.95.48.49 on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:44:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
EDUC 872 Curriculum Plan Critique Assignment Instructions Overview The purpose of this assignment is for you to critique a curriculum plan based upon what you have learned in this course by describing
24 2 CONSIDERATION 2 Alignment to Standards Students sit in small groups reading diff erent versions of the story Stone Soup. At one table students are examining the 1947 version of Stone Soup by Marcia Brown. In this story, three hungry soldiers enter a village look- ing for something to eat. The villagers hide their food until the soldiers slowly convince them to share it as they create a soup from stones. At another table, students are examining the later version by Jon J. Muth, which tells the story of three monks in China who face a similar situation when passing through a small village. Simultaneously, students at the remaining tables work with other versions of the same tale. Regardless of the version, all the students are identifying and discussing key details of the text as those details unfold, and the lesson they learned as a result, in preparation for a class discussion on the central message of the story. Why are the students doing this? Their teacher has designed a learning experience to align to the Common Core standard for 3rd grade: RL.3.2 Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cul- tures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text. Is the task, however, truly aligned to the standard? After determining whether the curriculum is structured using orga- nizing centers that refl ect school values or focuses (the topic of Chapter 1), the next step in evaluating or creating a curriculum is to ensure that it EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 24EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 24 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 2 5 is strongly aligned to the standards the district uses to communicate its values and focuses and to guide instruction. In the classroom described here, if the students were simply asked to identify the main characters in the story, we could easily say that the task was not aligned to the standard. In most cases, examples and nonexamples of alignment are readily distin- guishable from each other, making it easy to spot a curriculum that is not aligned. However, the evaluation of alignment is often not about whether a task is aligned or not but rather to what degree. In this case the question is, to what degree did the students’ examination of the text align to the standard related to recounting key details from stories to determine the central message of the story? The answer is that the learning experience is strongly aligned to the standard. Students are completing work using the skills embedded in the standard. The focus of this chapter is to explore alignment and how to evaluate or create a curriculum that is strongly aligned to standards. Degrees of Alignment When examining a task that sits inside a learning experience or an assess- ment for degree of alignment, I suggest using a scale of weak, moderate, and strong. Weak alignment is evident when a task addresses only part of a standard or the underlying skills subsumed by the standard. For exam- ple, consider the following Common Core standard for 7th grade: RL.7.5 Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning. An example of a weakly aligned task would be one in which the students are asked to identify the pattern for the sonnet “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. One could argue that knowing that a sonnet is a 14-line poem divided into two sections—an 8-line stanza (octave) rhyming ABBAABBA, and a 6-line stanza (sestet) rhyming CDCDCD or CDEEDE—is helpful in identifying one. However, EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 25EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 25 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 26 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum the task certainly does not get to the heart of the standard, which is to analyze how structure contributes to meaning. It may serve as a stepping stone to arriving at the standard, but as a task by itself it does not accom- plish its goal. Consider a task in which students are asked to write the message of the sonnet in one sentence. In this case, the task moves closer to the standard because students are analyzing the poem for its meaning. The teacher who designed the task considered structure, in that a sonnet focuses on one thought or idea, hence the request that students write a sentence. However, the task only moderately aligns to the standard because the students are not asked to make the connection between the structure of a sonnet and its meaning. The teacher has done that for them. The task may be used as a learning experience to reinforce the idea that a sonnet focuses on one idea, but again, left as an isolated task it cannot be consid- ered strongly aligned to the standard. In a strongly aligned task, students are asked to examine several son- nets for their structure and uncover what distinguishes a sonnet from other types of poems. Their examination of the sonnets leads to the under- standing that a sonnet is a 14-line poem that focuses on a single thought or sentiment, and sonnets vary in that some are structured in two stanzas versus one and they may have diff erent rhyming patterns. Students use their criteria to then analyze “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” They work in groups to discuss how the structure aff ects the poem’s message. Students consolidate their thinking in a written response that analyzes the impact of the structure on the meaning of the poem. In this example, the task is strongly aligned; it is diffi cult to separate the task from the standard itself. The following scale can be used to determine the degree of alignment between a task and a standard: Strong Alignment: The task clearly aligns to the standard; the task and the standard are almost one and the same; the task addresses all parts and honors the intent of the standard. EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 26EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 26 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 2 7 Moderate Alignment: The task addresses the standard; the stan- dard is part of the task but is not the primary focus. Weak Alignment: The task touches on the standard; the standard may occur but is not guaranteed to be part of the task. A helpful activity, one that is useful in unpacking the scale and under- standing alignment, is to rate the alignment of diff erent tasks to a selected standard. Use the preceding scale to rate the degree of alignment between each task in Figure 2.1 and the following standard: RI.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. The fi rst example in Figure 2.1, watching a video explaining the his- tory of fi lm, is weakly aligned to the standard; students are only viewing one source, without a specifi c purpose. The second example is a strongly Figure 2.1 DEGREE OF ALIGNMENT Task Description Degree of Alignment Students watch a video explaining the history of fi lm. Students read, watch, and analyze information and data to identify reasons for Latino immigration, challenges immigrants face, and immigrants’ quality of life after arrival in the United States. They critique the origin of their sources to determine their reliability. Students use this information to write the introduction to a student-selected collection of memoirs, short sto- ries, and poetry that illustrates the life of immigrants and answers the question Can history be told through a story ? Students use nonfi ction text, videos, and quantitative data as part of their research to complete a paper on an event recounted in a historical novel of their choice. EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 27EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 27 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 28 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum aligned task. Here students are reading, watching, and analyzing data, indicating the use of diverse media and formats—text, video, and charts and graphs. They evaluate the credibility of their sources as a means of determining the accuracy of their information. Students then use the information to answer the question Can history be told through a story? The last example is moderately aligned to the standard. It focuses on using a variety of sources, but it is unclear as to whether students are respond- ing to a specifi c question or problem. The goal is to ensure that the curriculum contains strongly aligned tasks. If we rely on the use of weakly aligned or moderately aligned tasks, students may not have the opportunity to engage in meaningful, relevant, and cognitively demanding tasks required by the school or district stan- dards. A recent study by the Education Trust illustrates this situation. The study found that only 4 in 10 assignments (38 percent) were aligned with a grade-appropriate Common Core standard. As a result, students were often given short, less challenging tasks with a great deal of support that undermined the intention of the standards and lessened the required thinking (Brookins, Santelises, & Dabrowski, 2015). All students should have the opportunity to engage in cognitively demanding texts with scaf- folds and supports dependent on need. A curriculum designed with this belief in mind allows teachers to make instructional decisions based on the needs of the students they are teaching. A quality curriculum designed with high-quality, strongly aligned tasks takes the fi rst step in ensuring that this happens. A task that is strongly aligned to a standard meets the following criteria: 1. The standard and the task are diffi cult to separate from each other. 2. The task requires students to fully engage in activities that align to all the skills embedded within the standard, usually requiring multiple steps. 3. The task refl ects the intent of the standard. Examine the standards and corresponding tasks in Figure 2.2. As you read through the tasks in Column 2, underline the part of the task description EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 28EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 28 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 2 9 Figure 2.2 TASK ALIGNMENT Standard Task Disposition of Practice: Commitment to Refl ection • Willingness to devote time and energy to think about decisions, learning, and work in ways that promote thoughtful- ness (Martin-Kniep, 2008).Students investigate different ways in which young people can “make a difference.” They fi nd examples of community service, fundrais- ers, and organizations that have been led by young people and have made a difference in the lives of others. Students write a summary of each example they fi nd and record their thoughts, questions, and connections. They work in small groups to determine a way they can make a difference. Students implement their plan and collect data during implemen- tation, altering their plan as necessary. Stu- dents write a refl ection on their experience and modify their plan in order to implement it again in the future. • Students make connections by relating ideas within the content or among content areas and select or devise one approach among many alternatives on how a situation can be solved (Webb’s Depth of Knowledge; Webb et al., 2005).Students pursue the questi on How healthy is the United States? by documenting their own nutrition and exercise habits over a six-week period using a health-journal app. After documenting their own health, they conduct research that pursues questions such as these: • What are the nutritional and exercise hab- its of Americans in different age groups? • Are all the research fi ndings regarding American health habits the same? How do they compare? • How does society refl ect these health habits? • How do American health habits affect other areas of American life, such as economics and government? Students use their own experience to analyze the current state of American health. They write an evaluation of their own health in light of their fi ndings, and prepare an action plan for pursuing a healthy life. EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 29EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 29 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 30 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum that refl ects the standard in Column 1. By underlining the task in the exam- ples, you can determine if the task meets the criteria for strong alignment. In the fi rst example, the multistep process of fi nding examples of community service, fundraisers, and organizations; writing a summary and recording thoughts, ideas, and questions; and creating, implement- ing, revising, and refl ecting on a plan is evidence of the willingness to devote time and energy to thinking about decisions, learning, and work in ways that promote thoughtfulness. The alignment can therefore be considered strong. In the second example, students document their own nutrition and exercise habits, conduct research, analyze the current state of American health, write an evaluation of their own health, and prepare an action plan for pursuing a healthy life. The task seamlessly intertwines health content with literacy skills, and it provides students with a personalized problem that could be solved in multiple ways, once again showing that when the task and standard are the same, alignment is strong. Once you can recognize the degree of alignment between a task and a standard, it becomes possible to revise a task so it strongly aligns to a standard. Returning to Figure 2.1, we can revise the weakly aligned task (students watch a video explaining the history of fi lm) to make it strong by expanding on the resources and focusing the research on a specifi c question. Now instead of watching a video explaining the history of fi lm, students read and analyze multimedia resources, articles, and commen- taries on the role of fi lm in society, and they examine data regarding fi lm development and usage. They consider the origin of the materials, not- ing the authors and website creators to determine the credibility of their sources. Students use this information to create a multimedia presenta- tion in which they analyze a fi lm of their choice and answer the question Does fi lm form or follow the norms and values of a society? We can also revise the moderately aligned task from Figure 2.1 for stronger alignment by adding a question to guide the reading of the diff er- ent sources. In the original task, students are using nonfi ction text, vid- eos, and quantitative data to complete a paper on an event recounted in EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 30EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 30 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 3 1 a historical novel of their choice. By adding the question Does literature refl ect life? the research and the resulting paper have a specifi c purpose. Content-Area Alignment The same criteria apply to alignment in the content areas. However, align- ment in the content areas often includes alignment to standards with dif- ferent focuses. For example, consider the following task. Students read three articles to learn about diff erent explanations of climate change, how it is caused, and the resulting impact of climate change on biodiversity. Students are asked to engage in this task in order to understand content identifi ed in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and apply lit- eracy skills to access the content, including those identifi ed in Common Core standard RST.9-10.6: Analyze the author’s purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, defi ning the question the author seeks to address. The task strongly aligns to the reading standard because it requires stu- dents to analyze the author’s explanation of climate change. However, when we examine the task for alignment to the science standard, we see that it is actually weakly aligned. The Next Generation Science Standards contain information about performance, science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. For the sake of this example, let’s work with one of the NGSS’s performance expectations and a corresponding core idea related to the topic of Interdependent Relationships in the Ecosystem. HS-LS4-6 Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity. [Clarifi cation Statement: Emphasis is on designing solutions for a proposed problem related to threatened or endangered species, or to genetic variation of organisms for multiple species.] EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 31EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 31 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 32 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans Humans depend on the living world for the resources and other benefi ts provided by biodiversity. But human activity is also having adverse impacts on biodiversity through overpopulation, overexploitation, habitat destruction, pollution, introduction of invasive species, and climate change. . . . Thus sustaining bio- diversity so that ecosystem functioning and productivity are maintained is essential to supporting and enhancing life on Earth. Sustaining biodiversity also aids humanity by preserving landscapes of recreational or inspirational value. Exploring the diff erent views on climate change is only one part of the core idea LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans, which is why the task is weakly aligned. To strongly align to the core idea, students would also need to examine • Speciation and extinction. • Adverse impacts of human behavior, including overpopulation, overexploitation, habitat destruction, pollution, introduction of invasive species, and climate change. • Biological extinction, because many species are unable to sur- vive in changed environments and die out. • The eff ects of biological extinction. • The importance of sustaining biodiversity. • Ways to sustain biodiversity. One of the challenges related to strong alignment to content stan- dards is making sure that all of the content included in the standard is also included in the curriculum, which may require more than one task. Addressing only one aspect of the content does not constitute alignment. For strong alignment to occur, the curriculum must include all the con- tent in the standards. By itself, the science core idea does not communicate how the students will acquire the information. This is why content standards are paired with literacy standards, as shown in the original example. Students are EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 32EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 32 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 3 3 learning about climate change through reading. Their next learning expe- rience may include a task that has them listening to a multimedia presen- tation to learn about the eff ects of biological distinction. Alignment becomes even more complex as more standards are added. In this extension of the example, the core idea is presented with a perfor- mance expectation. Now for strong alignment to occur, students would need to formulate and test a possible solution for addressing the negative human impact on biodiversity. This undertaking could include • Choosing an area of focus. • Creating or revising a simulation that includes mathematical and computational thinking. • Developing or evaluating a solution, taking into consideration cost, safety, reliability, and social, cultural, and environmental impacts. • Using physical models and computers. • Using empirical evidence to diff erentiate between cause and correlation and to make claims about specifi c causes and eff ects. Now the original reading task serves a small role in a big picture. Regardless of scope, however, the concept of alignment remains the same. In the content areas, it means examining alignment in terms of content to be taught, content-specifi ed skills such as the performance expectation, and the role of literacy in accessing and communicating the content. Implications for Evaluating, Creating, or Revising Curriculum Understanding that alignment occurs by degree rather than extremes is important to ensuring that students have opportunities to truly learn and practice the skills embedded in the standards. When evaluating curricu- lum, one way to check for strong alignment is to choose sample tasks from various units and determine the degree of alignment between the task and the standard identifi ed using the scale of weak, moderate, and strong, as previously described. The tasks you choose to evaluate should represent EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 33EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 33 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 34 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum those found in daily lessons, extended activities, and assessments. The chart in Figure 2.3 is a helpful tool for gathering and evaluating this infor- mation. An example at the top of the chart illustrates the process. You can add additional rows to the chart based on the number of tasks you are examining. It is advantageous to analyze multiple tasks of diff erent lengths and purposes. Determining the degree of alignment is particularly important when examining published curriculum and instructional materials. A report from the Brown Center on Education Figure 2.3 DETERMINING ALIGNMENT IN A CURRICULUM Task Description Standard Degree of AlignmentNotes for Revision Students read several documents related to the events that occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, including Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and a reprinted newspaper article from the New York Times in 1963. As they read the texts, they work with different-colored highlighters to show how the texts address the event in a similar fashion and any disconnect among the texts. RI.9-10.9 Analyze seminal U.S. docu- ments of historical and literary signifi – cance (e.g., Wash- ington’s Farewell Address, the Gettys- burg Address, Roos- evelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), including how they address related themes and concepts.Moderate • Include an additional reading such as “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall. • Provide opportu- nity for discussion on the ways the texts describe the same event, the reasons for the differences in their descriptions, and the impact on student under- standing of the events of Birming- ham as a result of reading the different accounts. Task 1: Task 2: EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 34EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 34 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 3 5 Policy at Brookings included this observation about publishing compa- nies’ initial responses to the Common Core State Standards: “Publishers of instructional materials are lining up to declare the alignment of their materials with the Common Core standards using the most superfi cial of defi nitions” (Chingos & Whitehurst, 2012, p. 1). Although publishers have made some improvements, those have not been enough; nor have they been consistent. Some companies have simply done a better job than others of aligning their materials, and with such inconsistencies, checking the degree of alignment is important. Addressed, Taught, and Assessed: Three Ways to Look at Standards When examining curriculum, we are looking for tasks that are strongly aligned to the standards. What will help or hamper this determination is the way in which the curriculum communicates information about the standards and their value or emphasis. We can view standards in diff erent ways: those that are addressed, those that are taught, and those that are taught and assessed. Standards that are addressed are those that are touched upon but not necessarily the primary focus of a unit within a curriculum. Standards that are taught are those that involve students engaging in activities that practice the skills embedded within the standards. Standards that are taught and assessed are the standards that are the focus of instruction and are evaluated during the unit of study. Let’s examine a 4th grade unit to determine the diff erence between standards that are addressed and those that are taught and assessed. In this unit, students are examining the essential question Is there more than one way to tell a story? They are reading collections of texts that are connected by theme and that include stories from cultures other than the United States, nonfi ction text, and dramas and stories that have been made into fi lms. As they read, they take note of how the texts approach similar themes, and the similarities and diff erences between texts and EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 35EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 35 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 36 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum their visual presentations. As a result of their examination, students write a proposal for a new movie based on a book of their choice. The Common Core reading literature standards for this unit include the following: RL.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing infer- ences from the text. RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text. RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specifi c details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions). RL.4.5 Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage direc- tions) when writing or speaking about a text. RL.4.6 Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between fi rst- and third-person narrations. RL.4.7 Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version refl ects specifi c descriptions and directions in the text. RL.4.9 Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and pat- terns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures. At fi rst glance, it is easy to see why these standards were chosen; it is possible for students to use the skills that are embedded in all of these standards. However, potential does not mean the task is aligned, nor that the standard should be listed as a unit outcome. The question goes back to EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 36EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 36 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 3 7 alignment and to what degree the tasks within the unit align to the stan- dards. Based on this understanding, some of these standards are really just being addressed in the unit. The students are using the skills, but those skills are not the central focus of the unit. Further examination will reveal which standards are being addressed and which are being taught and assessed. Throughout the unit, students read a variety of diff erent text and fi lm collections that may include the following: • The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, the fi lm of the same title, and Toys! Amazing Stories Behind Some Great Inventions by Don Wulff son • The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, the fi lm of the same title, a nonfi ction text on protecting the environment, and a folktale • The poem “Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf ” by Roald Dahl, a picture book of Little Red Riding Hood, and Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young Students complete various activities and participate in discussions about the texts and fi lms, referring to details and examples that support their thinking. These activities allow students to identify and examine com- mon themes within the collections of texts, and to examine the unique structures of the diff erent types of texts. They also provide students with the opportunity to generate criteria to use when comparing texts and their fi lm versions. At diff erent points in the unit, students complete written responses in which they summarize the text and respond to the following questions, using specifi c evidence from the text: • What is the theme of the story? How do the details in the text reveal the theme? • How is the text structured? How does the structure aff ect the story? • In what ways does the fi lm refl ect the descriptions and direc- tions in the text? EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 37EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 37 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 38 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum • How do the text and the fi lm diff er? How do these diff erences aff ect the story? • How do the texts and fi lms treat the same theme? Given what we know about strong alignment, we can identify the stan- dards that are taught and assessed when the task directions and the stan- dards are placed next to each other, as in Figure 2.4. The standards that strongly align with the tasks—meaning the tasks and standard are diffi – cult to separate from each other, and the intent of the standard remains intact—fall into either the category of “taught” or “taught and assessed.” What is the diff erence? When a standard is taught, the task occurs during instruction. We see this in the 4th grade unit when students complete activities and participate in discussions. Students have the opportunity to practice the skills embedded in the standard with teacher guidance and feedback. When standards are taught and assessed, this still occurs, but there is also an assessment opportunity that allows the teacher to check and monitor student understanding. The reader-response journals serve this purpose in the 4th grade example. Figure 2.4 shows which tasks and standards are aligned and also reveals that two of the standards identifi ed are not aligned to a specifi c task in the unit: • RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specifi c details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions). • RL.4.6 Compare and contrast the point of view from which diff erent stories are narrated, including the diff erence between fi rst- and third-person narrations. Some may argue that students will need to describe the characters, set- ting, and events of the story when they use key details from the text to identify the theme. It is also possible for students to compare and contrast the point of view from which diff erent stories are narrated by examining point of view in the diff erent collections of stories. However, although these things may occur, the unit has not been designed with the explicit intent to allow students to practice these skills and the teacher to assess EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 38EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 38 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 3 9 Figure 2.4 ANALYZING TASKS Standard Tasks RL.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.Students complete activities, participate in discussions, and respond to questions using details, examples, and evidence from text. RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.Students identify common themes. Students summarize the text. Reader Response: What is the theme of the story? How do the details in the text reveal the theme? RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specifi c details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions). RL.4.5 Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.Students examine the unique structure of the different type of texts. Reader Response: How is the text structured? How does the structure affect the story? RL.4.6 Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between fi rst- and third-person narrations. RL.4.7 Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version refl ects specifi c descriptions and directions in the text.Students identify criteria to use when com- paring text and fi lm. Reader Response: In what ways does the fi lm refl ect the descriptions and directions in the text? How does it differ? How do these differences affect the story? RL.4.9 Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and patterns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures.Students identify and examine common themes within the collections of texts. Reader Response: How do the texts in the collection treat the same theme? EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 39EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 39 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 40 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum them. We can consider these standards to be addressed only. The teacher may ask students to draw upon these skills or the skills may inadvertently occur, but they are not explicitly at the center of instruction and assess- ment in this unit. Why is it important to distinguish between standards that are addressed, taught, and taught and assessed? Why not just include all the standards? One reason is practicality. The 4th grade example just presented describes in depth the reading literature portion of the unit. Students are also reading informational texts, writing, and speaking and listening within the unit. Including all standards from all areas would create a massive and unmanageable unit that could potentially go on for several months, therefore defeating the intent of organizing curriculum into units. The other reason is focus. Educational researchers such as Rick Stig- gins, W. James Popham, Robert Marzano, and Susan Brookhart have repeatedly discussed the impact of clear learning targets on students (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001; Moss & Brookhart, 2012; Popham, 1999; Stiggins, 1997). Prioritizing the standards within units will help teachers to identify learning targets, share those targets with their stu- dents, and develop and use appropriate learning activities. Students will be aware of what they need to know and be able to do, have plenty of opportunities to practice the skills within the standards, and receive appropriate feedback and guidance from their teachers. Prioritizing a set of standards in one unit is not done at the expense of other standards. When standards are carefully organized throughout the year, students will have the opportunity to practice the skills related to all standards, which is the focus of Chapter 3. Taught and Assessed Standards in the Content Areas The same concept of taught and assessed standards applies to the content areas as well. The diff erence, however, will depend on the specifi city of the EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 40EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 40 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 4 1 content-area standards or content understandings. In many cases, these standards or content understandings are vague and open to interpretation. For example, consider the following content understandings from across the United States. According to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, the student is expected to understand “the domestic and international impact of U.S. participation in World War II. The student is expected to identify reasons for U.S. involvement in World War II, including Italian, German, and Japanese dictatorships and their aggression, especially the attack on Pearl Harbor” (Texas Education Agency, 2010). In California, students are expected to “analyze Ameri- ca’s participation in World War II. They examine the origins of American involvement in the war, with an emphasis on the events that precipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor” (California Academic Content Standards Commission [CACSC], 2000). In New York State, the following concep- tual understandings describe what students need to know: 11.10 The United States participated in World War II as part of an Allied force to prevent military conquests by Ger- many, Italy, and Japan. United States policies during and immediately after World War II had a signifi cant impact on American political, economic, and social life. 11.10.a Multiple factors contributed to a rise in authoritarian forms of government and ideologies such as fascism, communism, and socialism after World War I. 11.10.b The United States and the international community did not respond with force to aggressive German and Japa- nese actions that violated international treaties agreed to following World War I. 11.10.c In the 1930s, public opinion slowly moved toward supporting a more active United States involvement in world affairs. 11.10.d United States involvement moved from a policy of neu- trality at the beginning of World War II and evolved into a pro-Allied position, culminating in direct and active United States involvement. (New York State, 2013) EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 41EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 41 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 42 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum Each of these documents provides information about what students should know about the United States entry into World War II, but none of them—regardless of the length of the description—off er specifi cs as to exactly what needs to be taught, what students need to be able to do with that knowledge, or how they can demonstrate that knowledge. For the concept of taught and assessed to apply to these content stan- dards, teachers fi rst have to identify the “nonnegotiable.” What exactly will students need to know, for example, about German, Italian, and Japa- nese aggression before the start of World War II? What should they know about the attack on Pearl Harbor? I have sat through many conversations in which teachers have discussed what they teach and what they do not teach in a unit of study, and there is rarely unanimous agreement. It is through these conversations, however, that teachers unpack the curric- ulum documents and identify the specifi cs about what needs to be taught and assessed. Additional Implications for Evaluating, Creating, or Revising Curriculum Certain indicators show that all the standards identifi ed within the unit have been given equal weight. One is when all or most of the standards have been listed in a unit, as in the 4th grade example. Possibility does not indicate alignment. There need to be suffi cient and focused practice and assessment opportunities within the unit for a standard to be considered taught and assessed. Including all standards in one unit does not allow for the necessary time to practice the embedded skills. Even with the identi- fi cation of taught and assessed standards, standards will need to be revis- ited throughout the year to provide opportunities for reinforcement and attainment. A second indication that careful thought has not been given to the iden- tifi cation of standards is when the standards identifi ed in the overview or introduction to the unit are not the same as those identifi ed in individual lessons. This mismatch suggests that the standards being taught are not EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 42EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 42 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 4 3 necessarily those being assessed. Unfortunately, I have found this to be a common problem with textbooks and other learning materials. So the following question arises: What do you do if you are working with a curriculum in which it is diffi cult to determine the focus standards? The task then becomes to prioritize the standards by clearly identifying and labeling those that are taught and assessed, and distinguishing them from those that are addressed. For existing or published curriculums, this may mean reviewing existing tasks to determine which standards are truly being taught and assessed. Although this eff ort may take some time, it is time well spent. Without such distinction, the unit will not be cohe- sive, and it will be very diffi cult to ensure that all users of the curriculum will understand the focus of instruction and assessment. An additional strategy for ensuring that the standards identifi ed are those that are taught and assessed is to actually code the standard into the document and create a unit blueprint. For example, if the original 4th grade document were coded with the standards, it would look like this: Throughout the unit, students read a variety of different text and fi lm collections [RL.4.5, RL.4.9]. They complete different activities and participate in discussions about the texts and fi lms, refer- ring to details and examples that support their thinking [RL.4.1]. These activities allow students to identify and examine common themes [RL.4.2, RL.4.9] within the collections of texts, and exam- ine the unique structures of the different types of texts, including folktales, stories, nonfi ction, drama, and poems [RL.4.5]. They also provide students with the opportunity to identify criteria to use when comparing texts and their fi lm versions [RL.4.7]. At different points in the unit, students complete written responses in which they summarize the text [RL.4.2] and respond to the following questions, using specifi c evidence from the text [RL.4.1]: • What is the theme of the story? How do the details in the text reveal the theme? [RL.4.2] • How is the text structured? How does the structure affect the story? [RL.4.5] EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 43EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 43 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. 44 Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum • In what ways does the fi lm refl ect the descriptions and direc- tions in the text? [RL.4.7] • How do the text and the fi lm differ? How do these differences affect the story? [RL.4.7] • How do the texts or fi lms treat the same theme? [RL.4.9] A benefi t to coding the standards as the unit is created is that it ensures that the tasks within the unit are strongly aligned and can be taught and assessed. Teachers can make decisions about the type of texts, activities, and assessments as they draft the unit. The process also reveals areas where alignment between a task and a standard is weak so that that area can be revised and made stronger, or when a standard selected for a unit early in the design process no longer makes sense and should be removed from the unit. Summary: Alignment to Standards Two critical areas to examine when evaluating or designing curriculum for standards alignment are (1) degree of alignment and (2) communi- cation of standards that are taught and assessed. Although curriculum documents may claim alignment, the degree to which the curriculum is aligned may vary. Tasks can be weakly, moderately, or strongly aligned to standards. A quality curriculum will ensure strong alignment, meaning the tasks and standard are diffi cult to distinguish from each other and the intent of the standard remains intact. Listing a standard in a unit of study is not enough to claim that it is suffi ciently emphasized throughout the unit. Standards that are addressed, taught, and taught and assessed may all be included in one unit. A high-quality curriculum document will communicate the diff er- ence between these standards or include only those that are taught and assessed, allowing teachers to make purposeful decisions about what to teach and how to teach it and to share learning targets with their students. Students should be given the opportunity to practice the skills embedded in the standards and receive guidance and feedback from their teachers before being assessed. EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 44EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 44 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. Alignment to Standards 4 5 Understanding degree of alignment can help educators identify those tasks in need of revision and revise them to increase the degree of align- ment between the task and the standards. In addition, it can help them to analyze the standards to reveal those that are taught and assessed, as well as those that are simply addressed. The coding of standards will ensure both alignment and the inclusion of standards that are taught and assessed in a unit of study. Tools and Activities for Evaluation, Design, and Revision • Degree of Alignment—This activity is helpful in establishing a common understanding of the degree of alignment between tasks and standards (see Figure 2.1 for an example). With this understanding, edu- cators can evaluate tasks in an existing curriculum to determine their degree of alignment and, when necessary, revise them so they strongly align to the standards. Educators can also use this understanding to design strongly aligned tasks. • Analyzing Tasks for Strong Alignment—This activity allows educators to see the connection between what students are asked to do and the standard itself (see Figure 2.2 for an example). It is helpful in clarifying the criteria for a strongly aligned task. • Determining Alignment in a Curriculum—A chart like the one in Figure 2.3 can be used for sampling tasks within a curriculum to ensure that they are strongly aligned and revise those that are not. • Coding Standards—Coding of standards into tasks ensures strong alignment and identifi es weakly or moderately aligned tasks in need of revision (see example on pp. 43–44). Checklist for Evaluation, Design, and Revision The tasks are strongly aligned to the standards. It is diffi cult to distinguish between the task and the standard, all skills identifi ed in the standard are included in the task, and the task honors the intent of the standard. The standards that are taught and assessed are clearly identifi ed and distinguished from those that are addressed. EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 45EnsuringHighQualityCurr.indd 45 10/4/16 2:46 PM10/4/16 2:46 PMLalor, A. D. M. (2016). Ensuring high-quality curriculum : How to design, revise, or adopt curriculum aligned to student success. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Created from liberty on 2021-11-14 22:39:02. Copyright © 2016. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. All rights reserved.