Like a cornerstone anchors a building, these tasks are meant to anchor the curriculum around the most important performances that we want learners to be able to do (on their own) with acquired content knowledge and skills. The fourth category, Cornerstone Tasks, are curriculum-embedded tasks that are intended to engage students in applying their knowledge and skills in an authentic and relevant context. On the contrary, it is expected that they be addressed across the grades with application to varied topics, problems, texts and contexts. The term, overarching, conveys the idea that these understandings and questions are not limited to a single grade or topic. Here are examples for Mathematics and English Language Arts, respectively: The Understandings state what skilled performers will need in order to effectively transfer their learning to new situations, while explorations of the Essential Questions engage learners in making meaning and deepening their understandings. The second and third unpacking categories - Overarching Understandings and Essential Questions - are like two sides of a coin. Indeed, the College and Career Anchor Standards in ELA specify long-term transfer goals, while the Mathematics Standards strongly suggest a goal such as, Students will be able to use the mathematics they know to solve “messy,” never-seen-before problems using effective mathematical reasoning. Unlike earlier generations of standards where transfer goals were implicit at best, the Common Core Standards have made them more overt. They reflect the ultimate goals, the reason we teach specific knowledge and skills. From there, you just arrange those skills on the taxonomy of your choice and build the appropriate cognitively-complex tasks into your lesson.The first category, Transfer Goals, identifies the effective uses of content understanding, knowledge, and skill that we seek in the long run i.e., what we want students to be able to do when they confront new challenges - both in and outside of school. This can also help you form learning goals for the lesson/unit, as well as pre-, post-, and formative assessment. Compared to the essential knowledge, it’s easy to figure out where the essential skills are hiding in the standard: they are the phrases that start or contain a verb. In the same standard, students are also asked to perform new tasks that require practice, and exercising of those new facets of knowledge. Those help form your learning goals for the lesson. There is obviously some background knowledge that a student needs in order to be successful here, but the new ideas are the ability to identify and interpret remainders, to figure out a letter’s purpose in an equation, and assessing the reasonableness of a possible answer. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity.Īssess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding. Solve multistep word problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers using the four operations, including problems in which remainders must be interpreted. What does a student need to know to be successful in this standard? The key phrases are highlighted for you. Let’s say you’re looking at a fourth-grade Operations & Algebraic Thinking standard from Common Core State Standards. This type of knowledge includes the facts a student needs to know to master the standard. Many teachers know essential knowledge by its other name: declarative knowledge. Unpacking a standard means to analyze that language, extracting clues that describe two aspects of the standard that students need to know: essential knowledge and essential skills. They certainly don’t tell teachers what a lesson that features the standard looks like. Simply put, standards aren’t always written in the most accessible language. Some veterans may already be quite comfortable with it, but it’s time for those who aren’t to become familiar with this very important skill that should come into play whenever you plan a lesson. We have previously discussed the concept of unpacking a standard without going into much depth. Core Instruction and Formative Assessment.Virtual Instructional Leadership Institute.
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