Goals •Increase understanding of ‘big ideas’ in your curriculum •Increase understanding of learning progressions
Dec 31, 2015
Goals
•Increase understanding of ‘big ideas’ in your curriculum
•Increase understanding of learning progressions
Read What Is A Big Idea?
How do the ideas in the article agree with your initial ideas?
What would you add, delete, or change?
An idea is ‘big’ if it helps students make sense of lots of confusing ideas and experiences and seemingly isolated facts. It’s like the picture that connects the dots and reveals the image (big Idea) by connecting the component pieces (key concepts).
How did the Wiggins article impact your understanding of the importance of a ‘big idea’ for student understanding?
How can you organize your content in a way that allows students to build big ideas?
As a learner...
I need a helpful schema, a framework, a touchstone, a guidepost, a strategy for making sense of what I am learning. In other words, I need a framework for my new content: I need a way to order, categorize and prioritize what I am learning.
Grant Wiggins
Learning progressions that clearly articulate a progression of learning in a domain can provide the big picture of what is to be learned, support instructional planning, and act as a touchstone for formative assessment.
-Margaret Heritage
Building
Block
Knowledge
Know where we are going…
What does it look like?
How will I know?
Learning Progression
What are the criteria for success?
Gather
understanding
evidence of
11
Learning Progressions
“The reason we are digging into learning progressions with such zeal is that they can provide the framework for the sorts of formative assessment activities that will take place in the classroom.”- Popham
Building a learning progression will allow you to strategically and intentionally insert assessment opportunities into your lessons in order to make instructional decisions.
Clearly Identify the Big Ideas• What are the big
ideas in your unit?• What building
blocks make up those ideas?
• How can you make the big ideas clear for your students?
Insects have unique structures, behaviors, and basic needs. They are all related, yet have lots of variations and complex life cycles.
Insects share some common features, yet vary in other ways.
Building Block- True or False?
Insects have unique structures, behaviors, and basic needs. They are all related, yet have lots of variations and complex life cycles.
Insects belong to the Animal Kingdom.
Building Block- True or False?
Insects have unique structures, behaviors, and basic needs. They are all related, yet have lots of variations and complex life cycles.
All Insects have characteristics that perform certain functions.
Building Block- True or False?
Key Idea!•Keep a learning progression sufficiently lean so that it is likely to be used. The only building blocks to include are those for which you plan to collect assessment evidence. –Popham
Dylan WiliamWashington Educational Research Association workshop June 2009
• Good assessment tasks or questions cause thinking and provide data that informs teaching
Example:Jenna put a glass of cold water outside on a warm day. After a while, she could see small droplets on the outside of the glass. Why was this?
a) The air molecules around the glass condensed to form droplets of liquid.b) The water vapor in the air near the cold glass condensed to form droplets of liquid water.c) Water soaked through invisible holes in the glass to form droplets of water on the outside of the glass.d) The cold glass causes oxygen in the air to become water.