It's been awhile! As many of you that view my blog may know that I'm a master's student through Kent State Universities Master in Music Education program. I'm currently in my research course and am working toward my Capstone course. This course goes hand-in-hand with the Capstone course. I've decided that my project will be developing a program design where I will change all of my assessing the courses I teach to standards-based grading.
Today's reading was The Collaborative Teacher, Chapter 4 by Chris Jakicic entitled, "Too Much To Teach: How to Identify What Matters Most". Here Jakicic lays out some important aspects of the Professional Learning Community (PLC) and offers some guidance toward developing a curriculum's standards.
Robert Marzano found 2 factors for student achievement - having a guaranteed and viable curriculum. This means that there are two aspect s of viability - the opportunity to learn and is there time to teach? While reading I found the three types of of curriculum; they are the intended or what the district/state/national branches develop, the implemented or what the teacher actually teaches, and the attained curriculum which is what the student actually learns. I believe it's nice to look at this as a holistic approach to curriculum development. We take the intended curriculum and enhance/choose what's best for our classroom (implemented); that is followed by what our students are actually learning or what do we hope for them to learn? My question is - how do we make sure that these are all being met? A question I hope to answer in the near future.
Back to the title of the chapter, "Too Much To Teach", the chapter suggests finding five to seven essential understandings that I want every student entering my classroom to have? What are the five to seven I can guarantee that every student leaving my room will have? These are great questions. In the midst of standards-based assessment I continue to find myself merely treading water in a vast sea of standards. I think every standard is important to a meaningful music education, but where do we draw the line? How do we create a foundation that not every student will have access to?
The next step in creating our curriculum is making sure that we create Power Standards:
Endurance - those standards that will be important to students beyond the time they are being taught and will be remembered after the assessment. In music we are constantly building upon a skill set, consistently adding tools to a kit to be later used. This is very similar to every academic discipline... we build upon the previously taught material, to enhance it.
Leverage - those standards that identify knowledge and understanding across multiple subject areas
Readiness - those standards that are prerequisites to future learning
All of these ideas are important to a well-rounded and strong founded curriculum.
The last part of the section talks about Professional Learning Communities and how they choose and assess specific standards. In my district I am the middle school music teacher, the high school faculty do assist with a class here and there, but I think as a department the alignment should begin. This is my first year in the district and I am excited to see how we could build upon a skill set taught in elementary, enhance in middle school, and allow for the middle to feed into two different high school programs. The problem comes with assessing... Do we have basic standards? There is so much that goes into playing an instrument or singing a melody that I wonder if those are too broad? Where do we go... I'll keep you in the know, but for now I'm signing off. I intended to blog much more and ask for resources to help my school and myself create a standards-based assessment system.
Have an excellent week everyone!
Today's reading was The Collaborative Teacher, Chapter 4 by Chris Jakicic entitled, "Too Much To Teach: How to Identify What Matters Most". Here Jakicic lays out some important aspects of the Professional Learning Community (PLC) and offers some guidance toward developing a curriculum's standards.
Robert Marzano found 2 factors for student achievement - having a guaranteed and viable curriculum. This means that there are two aspect s of viability - the opportunity to learn and is there time to teach? While reading I found the three types of of curriculum; they are the intended or what the district/state/national branches develop, the implemented or what the teacher actually teaches, and the attained curriculum which is what the student actually learns. I believe it's nice to look at this as a holistic approach to curriculum development. We take the intended curriculum and enhance/choose what's best for our classroom (implemented); that is followed by what our students are actually learning or what do we hope for them to learn? My question is - how do we make sure that these are all being met? A question I hope to answer in the near future.
Back to the title of the chapter, "Too Much To Teach", the chapter suggests finding five to seven essential understandings that I want every student entering my classroom to have? What are the five to seven I can guarantee that every student leaving my room will have? These are great questions. In the midst of standards-based assessment I continue to find myself merely treading water in a vast sea of standards. I think every standard is important to a meaningful music education, but where do we draw the line? How do we create a foundation that not every student will have access to?
The next step in creating our curriculum is making sure that we create Power Standards:
Endurance - those standards that will be important to students beyond the time they are being taught and will be remembered after the assessment. In music we are constantly building upon a skill set, consistently adding tools to a kit to be later used. This is very similar to every academic discipline... we build upon the previously taught material, to enhance it.
Leverage - those standards that identify knowledge and understanding across multiple subject areas
Readiness - those standards that are prerequisites to future learning
All of these ideas are important to a well-rounded and strong founded curriculum.
The last part of the section talks about Professional Learning Communities and how they choose and assess specific standards. In my district I am the middle school music teacher, the high school faculty do assist with a class here and there, but I think as a department the alignment should begin. This is my first year in the district and I am excited to see how we could build upon a skill set taught in elementary, enhance in middle school, and allow for the middle to feed into two different high school programs. The problem comes with assessing... Do we have basic standards? There is so much that goes into playing an instrument or singing a melody that I wonder if those are too broad? Where do we go... I'll keep you in the know, but for now I'm signing off. I intended to blog much more and ask for resources to help my school and myself create a standards-based assessment system.
Have an excellent week everyone!
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