Understanding and Applying Standards

Before we start talking about the three processes that have helped us to understand and apply standards in the lesson we teach; let me mention about the importance of a high-quality science education in providing the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. All students should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts, students should be encouraged to recognize and understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyze causes.

From what I have read; many of teachers do planning their lessons and then write their objectives to match whatever activities they are planning. After writing them, they never think about those objectives again. They write objectives, they even post them in their classrooms and review them at the beginning of the period with students. But Are they really doing so with their learning objectives in mind when they select which text they will use, what worksheets, homework, tests and quizzes will be given to the students.

I believe that our focuses should be on what students will be learning and help students to understand how and why they are doing those activities.

In this module the standards that I have used and planning to use are the AERO (NGSS) for General Science for secondary school level.

By unpacking the standards we start to think differently and more strategically about how we teach and the learning activities we use.

• It helps us think through the learning goal and figure out what is really important.
• It helps us find ways to differentiate instruction so that more of our students can achieve the learning goal.
• It helps us determine what knowledge or skills are required in order to help students to master a process of learning.

Unpacking the standards start by looking at the verbs and nouns that have been used in the standard or goals, such as "develop", "use", "compare", "provide", "apply" and "explain".

So for each goal we look to see what skills and content are required. The idea of unpacking process is to make sure that students know the required skills and contents before we expect them to using or develop learning goals, by having the big idea with its essential questions and enduring understanding we ensure that students will understand and learn the skills effectively. 

You can find more information about Unpacking standards for science in my following Prezi  

The second activity was Backward mapping; by backward mapping we start with the end in mind to ensure greater alignment of our goals by planning learning experiences and instructions starting from our goals which allow us to differentiate instruction both for students who are struggling and for students who need more challenge.

As I have mentioned in my Backward mapping blog; I believe that this strategy help us to get students more deeply interested in courses/units, more involved, more engaged and help us as teachers to create classes that are focused on the goal (learning) rather than the process (teaching) and preparing assessments, learning experiences or activities to be used to help students meet the standards to foster their critical thinking, reflection and creative thinking developing skills such as problem solving, team work and communication that students need them in Science classes.  

The third activity was about Objectives for standards

So after we have unpacked the AERO(NGSS) standards and done the backward mapping; Students should be able to do, by creating the SMART objectives to teach within our science lessons to help students building up their skills to achieve the learning outcomes.

Science learning objectives should communicate and describe intended learning outcomes. Objectives should be stated in terms of what the student will be able to do when the lesson is completed and help guide in selecting instructional strategies or materials and developing appropriate assessments.

In my future class I am planning to use SMART to introduce our science objectives; I have found it very helpful to create meaningful objectives that should include verbs to define specific, observable, and measurable student behavior.

One of my objectives that depends on SMART strategy is "Observe and describe (e.g., drawing, labeling) individual cells as seen through a microscope targeting cell membrane, cell wall, nucleus, and chloroplasts" that I have mentioned it in my infographic, which helped me to figure out what activities or learning assessment to be given to the students such as:

Having Cell Microscope Lab: Students observe cells and single celled organisms using a microscope; diagramming the cells and visible cellular structures.

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Using SMART to write objectives allows us to keep in our mind the different thinking levels of students' learning to be considered in our lesson planning to meet the standards.

  

References:

1. Never Work Harder Than Your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching by Robyn R. Jackson. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109001/chapters/Know-Where-Your-Students-Are-Going.aspx on December 8,2016.

2. AERO Next Generation Science Standards Progressions by Performance Expectations. Retrieved from  http://www.projectaero.org/aero_standards/science-standards/2016-Science/Progressions.pdf on December 8,2016.