Understanding and Applying Standards

As an educator I  need to develop the best lesson for their students; I need to be aware of all the aspects of planning a unit, how the students perceive it. How will students be able to retain the content? Will the lesson be relevant compared to the overall big picture in the curriculum? Teach-Now has been great over the last Unit in preparing me for the future lessons I will teach by helping me understand how to unpack standards, backward planning, and writing objectives.

First thing I learned this week is to figure out what standards I  need to focus. Depending on where you teach standards can change. For the school, I teach at we use the NCCAS standards. Once you have your standard, you choose to focus on you can start your backward planning. Backward planning isn't as strange as it sounds. It makes a lot of sense when it comes planning a lesson or a unit. It's saying to yourself "Once the students have learned essential content, what will they be able to do with it?" To look at what you want the end product to look like and say, "this is where I want my students to be, what path are we going to take to get here?"

Which takes me to objectives, I must say I love using objectives, especially objectives based on smart goals, standards, and with a little blooms taxonomy thrown in there. It's not enough to say "Students will learn" We need to make sure that our students will be able to know what they need to know. And using smart goals to measure out the objectives is just the thing. Smart goals help the student and teacher set goals that are very specific, able to be measured, able to be reached during an allotted amount of time, and re relevant to their future development. It makes me think twice before giving an objective to my student. Will this objective help the student meet the goals outlined in the unit and the standards? No? Then I should probably rewrite the smart goal.

Over the course of this Unit of Standards, I have been challenged to take a second look at the standards in my curriculum. To see if I truly understand the standards and if I am unpacking them in a way where it will benefit the students. My goal is to open up the student's minds to new concepts, new ideas, to help prepare them for the 21st century. And I will use the standards the best that I can to prepare the students for where I want them to be by the end of their time with me.  


Creating. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from http://www.nationalartsstandards.org/

Think Alouds: Unpacking the Standards. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/understanding-the-common-core-standards

McTighe, J. (2012). Common Core Big Idea 4: Map Backward From Intended Results. Retrieved December 09, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/common-core-map-backwards-jay-mctighe-grant-wiggins
SWBAT: Communicating Learning Goals. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/making-lesson-objectives-clear

Lesson Planning. (n.d.).