Page 110 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

82 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
Planning and preparation have been the objects of educational theory and research since the early 1950s, but dominant conceptions of teaching have shifted over the years. Today, with the increased pressures of standards and testing, there is heavy debate about whether planning is part of teachers’ professional practice or has been coopted by district or school administrators. We strongly support the professional approach. After you read this text and reflect on the key teaching/learning principles that we offer, we hope you too will adopt it as your standard of practice.
Principle 3: Curricular Alignment: All components of the curriculum are aligned to create a cohesive program for accomplishing instructional purposes and goals. Students are more likely to meet the goals of lessons and units they are taught if the goals are aligned with assessments and instructional activities. Moreover, students are more likely to appreciate and have life application of lessons that are aligned with students’ lives beyond school. In other words, students will be more motivated and will be more likely to retain knowledge, skills, and values that have meaning and relevancy to their daily lives. Please see Chapter 14 for a more in-depth description of the principle.
Curricular Alignment
“Backward” Planning and Alignment
How do teachers plan so that their students can develop a deep understanding of power- ful ideas? In what order do teachers plan goals, objectives, assessments, and instructional activities? In their widely used book Understanding by Design, Wiggins and McTighe (2005) present a framework for curriculum planning. They label the framework “back- ward” because it requires the teacher first to determine the goals students should achieve and then work toward developing assessments and finally the activities that will help students master the goals.
The first stage involves determining the desired results students will achieve as a result of the lesson or unit. These results include the overarching goals students will achieve; “enduring understandings” (similar to what we call powerful ideas); and the particular learning objectives. The second stage is assessment which involves determining what tasks students will perform to demonstrate achievement (understanding, appreciation, and appli- cation) of the desired results. The third stage is the learning plan, which involves selecting content, activities, and strategies that are aligned with the assessment and results (Wig- gins & McTighe, 2005, pp. 13–34).
You may wonder why this approach is called “backward.” You no doubt already understand the importance of goal setting before thinking about what resources you will use in a lesson or what activities you will have students do. In addition to being termed backward because the framework begins with the end outcome and moves backward to determine what will it take to help children reach those outcomes, it is also called backward because it contradicts how many teachers plan. Many teachers begin with an interesting topic or resource, and then they begin focusing on the actual tasks or activi- ties their students will do. We do not mean to state that this is always an ineffective way to plan; often a particular book or public issue in the community is a terrific source of
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