Standards-based classrooms are very different from traditional classrooms. Teachers follow a cycle of instruction – planning, teaching, assessing, and re-teaching – so all students meet specific, clearly stated and understood, high academic standards in each content area. In standards-based classrooms, teachers are responsible for teaching, assessing, and, based on assessment results, re-teaching those students who do not master the content. To teach in a standards-based classroom, the teacher must employ a repertoire of methods, use a variety of materials, and have the ability to divide the class into small groups for appropriate learning activities.
The major characteristics of standards-based classrooms are as follows:
- Teachers develop clear learning outcomes for each lesson based on the academic content standards they are teaching, and they communicate this information to their students and to students’ families.
- Student progress is measured against a clearly stated and understood standard.
- Time and support are varied depending on the needs of each student.
- Students know what is required to reach the standards, the rewards for meeting them, and the extra work necessary if they don’t meet standards.
- Students are guided in their work by models that meet the standard.
- Students see connections between their learning, their backgrounds, and the real world.
- Students know how they will be assessed and are assessed frequently.
- Students are provided with additional expert instruction when they don’t meet a learning outcome or a standard. That instruction may be in a small group or individually and may occur during the school day or beyond the bells.
Planning
The first step in the cycle of instruction is planning. Planning begins by determining the learning outcomes for the lesson: what do you want students to know and be able to do as a result of this lesson? The learning outcomes must build to meet one or more of the academic standards. Next, the teacher determines the activities and teaching strategies to be used to teach the outcomes. Activities should include connections to students’ background knowledge and past and future learning. Materials and resources need to be identified. Assessments to determine the extent to which each child meets the outcomes must be defined. Re-teaching and enrichment strategies to be used for students who did or did not meet the outcomes need to be determined.
Part of this process is planning the organization of the classroom. Establishing classroom routines and rituals, allocating time, and developing the culture and climate of the classroom must all be addressed in this phase of the cycle.
It is helpful to work with teachers with whom you share responsibility for the same group of children in the planning process.
Teaching
After the planning phase is concluded, the teacher moves into teaching the class. First and foremost, the teacher must know well the content to be taught and the specific pedagogies that are effective for and appropriate to teaching the content. The teacher must be able to make links between the content and the students’ knowledge, past and future learning, other content areas, and real-life situations. The teacher’s job is to make the content clear to the student and to present it in such a way that the student is motivated to learn it. The teacher must ask thought-provoking questions that expand students’ thinking and their knowledge of content, and must encourage students to question each other and the teacher. Students must be challenged to think creatively and critically about the content being taught.
Teachers must remember that to teach is to educate, which comes from the Latin word educere,
meaning “to lead forth.” We are leading our students to new life. There is not a better or more important job in the world!
Assessing
Assessing is determining the extent to which each student has met the learning outcomes of the lesson and the progress he or she is making toward meeting the standards. Assessments must match the learning outcomes for the lesson. Assessments take many forms from traditional paper and pencil quizzes and tests to performance-based measures that are evaluated using scoring guides or rubrics.
In a standards-based classroom, the teacher knows what each student has learned at any point in the year. Assessment is key to the re-teaching phase of the cycle.
Re-teaching
Once the lesson has been taught and the students have been assessed, the teacher must determine which students need to be re-taught. A student may not have mastered the content at all or only partially mastered it. This is the critical phase in the standards-based classroom that distinguishes it from the traditional classroom and the most difficult phase for teachers. Some teachers see their role as teaching, assessing, and grading the resulting student work, then moving to the next unit of instruction in order to “cover” the required content. In a standards-based classroom, the focus is on the learning of each student, not on the curriculum “covered.”
Re-teaching requires grouping and re-grouping students flexibly based on their needs, at times in homogeneous groups and other times in heterogeneous groups. Some students will need individual attention from the teacher; others might work in a group with peers; and others might be tutored by a volunteer . Some students may need enrichment activities as they have progressed beyond the lessons taught. At the same time, the class must move ahead. This is a challenge for most educators and is the focus of a variety of professional development opportunities offered at the Mayerson Academy. |
