The scale in figure 1.2 defines a learning progression for the fifth-grade science topic of material properties. Score 3.0 describes the learning target that all students have to reach, score 2.0 describes foundational vocabulary and processes, and score 4.0 describes an advanced task. In some scales, score 4.0 may simply state that students will demonstrate in-depth inferences and applications, rather than specifying a task.
The scale in figure 1.2 also includes half-point scores. This helps teachers measure student knowledge more precisely and helps students see their progress and inspires them to keep working. Students who receive a half-point score have demonstrated knowledge that is between two levels. Score 3.5 means that a student has demonstrated proficiency and had partial success with advanced content, score 2.5 means that a student has mastered the simpler content and demonstrated some understanding of the target content, and so on.
In a standards-based learning environment, proficiency scales form the basis of instruction, assessment, feedback, and grading. Teachers deliver instruction based on the expectations and progressions that proficiency scales define. Assessments align with scales, and students receive feedback on their performance that clearly describes where they are on the scale. Teachers report grades on the four-point scale. The proficiency scale forms the foundation for a consistent system centered around student learning. Principal William Barnes describes proficiency scales and their impact in his school:
In our standards-based grading system, standards outline what students should learn, and our scales clearly define what students need to know and be able to do to achieve each level of knowledge. Since these standards and scales inform our grades and form the foundations of our courses, it is much easier to purposefully align our whole instructional system. The activities and assessments that represent the day-to-day work in our classes are aligned to the standards and scales, so teachers and students are able to communicate progress and learning in a clear and concise way. This results in a much richer understanding of where gaps in learning exist, while also providing an opportunity for teachers to push students who are more advanced in their learning. (Personal communication, January 19, 2018)
Since teachers share proficiency scales with students throughout instruction, these scales become the common language surrounding everything that happens in the classroom. This has the added advantage of connecting students and teachers with the learning that will occur across the unit, raising students’ ability to understand the relevance of each lesson, activity, assignment, and assessment in the unit. The scale becomes the centerpiece of communication and understanding in the classroom, as well as the common language for discussing learning between teacher and student (see figure 1.3).
Figure 1.3: The role of the proficiency scale in classroom communication and understanding.
Given this understanding of the proficiency scale and its role as the basis of instruction, assessment, feedback, and grading, we will now discuss how teachers can adapt the standards-based paradigm to their desired teaching framework. The following section will discuss how to plan standards-based instruction using The New Art and Science of Teaching framework and how this method can be adapted to other teaching frameworks the teacher may be using.
Planning Standards-Based Instruction
Teachers new to standards-based learning may find a focus on the standards rather than content to be uncomfortable at first. Traditionally, the sequence of presenting content to students has been the guide for instructional planning. As teachers consider the planning process for standards-based learning, the content moves into a secondary position. That content will still be there, and likely in much the same sequence. But the starting place for planning instruction will be the priority standards and their associated proficiency scales.
Further, no matter what instructional framework a teacher uses, he or she can adopt standards-based instruction to the framework requirements. There are multiple frameworks available to teachers, including:
• Danielson Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2007)
• ADDIE model (www.instructionaldesign.org/models/addie.html)
• The Dick and Carey Method (Kurt, n.d.)
• Madeline Hunter’s Instructional Theory Into Practice (Wilson, n.d.)
• Marzano’s (2017) The New Art and Science of Teaching framework
• The Framework for Intentional and Targeted Teaching (FIT Teaching™; Fisher, Frey, & Hite, 2016)
While some of these frameworks put the teacher’s focus more at the lesson level than the unit level, in a standards-based classroom, students make gains in knowledge and skills across large units of instruction. Thus, in a standards-based classroom, the focus of the teacher in matching an instructional framework to a set of priority standards is to design instruction that starts where the students’ knowledge and abilities are on the standard and ends with proficiency on those standards. For example, in the Danielson framework (Danielson, 2007), a teacher designing a standards-based unit will address the role of standards throughout Domain 1: Planning and Preparation, as well as specifically in Domain 3: Instruction. For the purposes of this book, we will use The New Art and Science of Teaching framework as the example, but the cognitive processes involved in designing standards-based learning work equally well within any applicable instructional framework.
Through the lens of The New Art and Science of Teaching framework, we will now discuss sequencing standards within the unit, creating the unit plan, and differentiating with response to intervention (RTI).
Sequencing Standards in the Unit
In the shift to standards-based learning, teachers discover quickly that unit plans are the focus of understanding the development of the priority standards’ knowledge and skills. While lesson planning remains important, and teachers use instructional strategies at the lesson level, the vision of student learning should start at the unit level.
Traditionally, units have been the logical way in which teachers break down content into small chunks that they can teach and assess. In a standards-based system, units function in the same way, though the purpose is to break down the development of the knowledge and skills that the standards require into smaller segments. An example may help clarify this idea.
Consider an English language arts (ELA) teacher planning the sequence of units for a year of eighth-grade ELA. Traditionally, there are large categories of content that she will teach, such as writing, reading, vocabulary, grammar, and perhaps some other important content. In a traditional approach, there are a number of ways in which to group this content. One effective way is to organize the content by theme, allowing the teacher to group works of literature by large thematic categories and to connect writing instruction and vocabulary to that literature study. Grammar will find its way in, perhaps with the literature or writing, or perhaps as a separate chunk of content done each week through the year. Another way to traditionally group the content is by genre. This has the advantage of sequencing the literature in terms of its challenge for students. In this case, the teacher would likely start with less challenging forms of literature, such as the short story, and then proceed to larger, more challenging works. Drama might follow, then the novel, and finally the most challenging form, poetry. Writing, vocabulary, and grammar would accompany this general sequence. Either approach, or another based on sequencing literature or writing, would be effective.
Turning to a standards-based approach, the first step the teacher would take is to start with the standards. ELA standards are grouped by strand, and these strands often include reading literary texts, reading informational texts, writing, speaking and listening, language instruction (including grammar), and, depending on the grade level, additional standards concerning research methods. In considering a logical sequencing of these