Breaking Down Content Standards

The first step in running a competency based classroom is choosing the content standards that your course will explore. It can be a complicated process because one course does not stand alone. You must be fully aware of what standards the students entering your class will have mastered already and you need to know what you are preparing your students to do in the course that follows. Thus, choosing content standards requires an enormous amount of collaboration between teachers in your department and perhaps even across departments. (For example, at our school, we decided that the chemistry classes would be responsible for teaching and assessing significant figures, rather than the math department.)

One way to make sure that students graduate with the absolute essentials is to first identify your "power standards." These are standards that should be hit in multiple classes throughout the scope and sequence. From there, you can see which other standards fall naturally within a given course. If you teach at a public school, the process of choosing which standards should be explored within a given class are usually chosen for you so I won't discuss this too much more. However, I did want to point out that a lot of thought goes into the choice of standards. It should also be noted that it is nearly impossible to really master every single one of the common core standards in a high school career. There is a lot of research about this (Specific numbers can be found by reading any literature produced by Marzano about competency based education.) Because of this, it is important to prioritize those standards. Marzano suggests grouping standards into "measurement topics" which are essentially just categories of standards which can be taught and assessed at the same time. (More on this when I write about proficiency scales).

Once you have a list of standards, it's extremely important to start breaking them down and analyzing them. To figure out the content required to master the standard I like for nouns. To figure out the assessment method I look for verbs. Here's an example.

AERO.HSF.1F.4 For a function that models a relationship between two quantities, interpret key features of graphs and tables in terms of the quantities, and sketch graphs showing key features given a verbal description of the relationship. Key features include: intercepts; intervals where the function is increasing, decreasing, positive, or negative; relative maximums and minimums; symmetries; end behavior; and periodicity.

The important nouns are function, features, graphs, and tables. This indicates that the essential knowledge will be: definition of function, definitions and examples of various features of the graph (such as maxima, minima, intervals of increase and decrease, x-intercepts, y-intercepts, decreasing, increasing, interval, symmetry, end behavior, periodicity). These words also indicate that essential skills will involve both an understanding of graphs and tables. The important verbs here are interpret and sketch. These verbs help me to categorize this standard as one which will require reasoning and also a product in order to be fully assessed.

This categorization is the first step in a longer process which I will get deeper into in later posts. I generally go through each standard and open up a google sheets doc. I copy the standard into the first column, identify key vocabulary and key skills, I use this to determine the target type and then plan my class activities and assessments from that. I don't always stick to the spreadsheet that I make at the beginning of the year, but I like to use it to organize my thoughts and brainstorm activities and assessments that are aligned to the learning goal.

This is a great reference for me and I use it mainly for planning purposes. In later posts, I'll talk about how to craft assessments and activities after doing this brainstorming activity. Happy curriculum planning!