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 standards, teachers face much the same problem as exists with sequencing the content. However, important to the task is the desire to present students with a logical sequence of increasingly challenging standards.
In the traditional approach, the teacher selects one of the larger content groups to drive the curriculum sequence. This is, in the case of this eighth-grade teacher, either literature (reading) or writing. Either will work. In the two previously mentioned descriptions, she chose literature as the “spine” around which the sequence of all content revolved. A teacher approaching the problem of sequencing in her own classroom might do much the same thing with the standards. She will choose one strand of standards to sequence for the year and align the other strands to it. For the purposes of this example, the teacher chooses reading.
There are two major reading strands in ELA: (1) reading of literature and (2) reading of informational text. This represents two choices: the teacher can (1) sequence the strands or (2) combine them. For example, consider the following two typical third-grade state standards for ELA—the first for literary texts and the second for informational texts—noting that they are exactly the same.
1. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
2. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
Although the teacher can apply the standards to different content, she knows the similarities within the standards far outweigh the differences. So, it is likely she would choose to work on both those strands simultaneously across the entire year. From the sequence of those standards, the teacher can connect writing standards, speaking and listening, language, and the rest to the reading strand. For example, as students build their knowledge and skills in reading texts, both literary and informational, teachers can infuse the development of writing, vocabulary, and grammar, as well as speaking and listening skills, within the activities and assessments for the development of reading skills. This means that, in the previous example involving similar literary reading and informational reading standards, the teacher would likely introduce both types of texts at the same time, working on the common reading skills with both. Thus, reading “drives” the curriculum sequence, but no standards are eliminated.
This now establishes the general sequence of the standards across the school year. Next, the teacher looks at what the standards ask of the teacher and of the student, and she looks for a more specific sequence that allows organization of the content. A review of the reading standards indicates that students will work over an extended period of time on reading and interpreting literary and informational texts. Students will work on the skills all year long even though they are challenging and involve a large amount of content knowledge. This means that the traditional sequence of literature—from less challenging to more challenging, from short story to poetry, or from informational text to persuasive passages—would serve the development of the knowledge and skills that the priority standards in reading require.
The specifics of this example are not that important. The more important issue is the analytical approach to developing the learning that the teacher engages to create the sequence of standards. The particular sequence of standards will vary depending on the content area. Some content areas, such as the ELA example, feature standards that are large and apply throughout the entire school year. Other content areas have standards that are more sequential. In this case, one standard is the basis of another, and instructors need to teach them in that sequence. Here there will be many more standards for the year, but only a few that will be in operation at any given time. When students reach proficiency on a certain standard, the teacher removes it from instruction and replaces it with the next standard in the sequence.
It is at this point that experience teaching the class (or grade level) is invaluable. A knowledge of the students involved in the class or grade level and the challenge the standards represent will allow an experienced teacher to accurately judge the proper sequence. Some schools,
