Understanding and Applying Standards

For this unit, I learned to unpack a common core standard, wrote SMART objectives for them and used backwards mapping to plan activities and assessments to help achieve these standards. All three of these processes helped me understand lesson planning and breaking down a standard in order to better understand it.  As teachers, we must use these strategies to help our students achieve the objectives set before them by simplifying the complex wording and ensuring that we have encompassed both the breadth and depth of each standard. Only by doing this can we begin to create effective lesson plans, assessments and goals.

Unpacking a standard was relatively easier than I first thought it would be considering the sophistication of some of the common core standards. The premise behind unpacking standards is to break them down to ensure that you know exactly what the standard is asking the student to do. Because some standard can be complex and lengthy, it’s important to simplify them. This makes it easier for the teacher to meet all of the goals in the standard. By identifying the verbs and nouns within each standard, it can easily be unpacked. The two main objectives are to identify what the students need to know and what they need to do to demonstrate that they are meeting the standard.

Backwards mapping is the concept of working backwards from the objectives of a standard. Instead of planning lessons around a particular topic, you should plan them around a particular end result.  By doing this, the outcomes are more likely to be met by students. Starting at the end and working your way backwards is an effective strategy for teachers when lesson planning. In backwards mapping, there are three main steps. The first step is to determine the desired result or objective. The second step is to determine the assessment that students will do in order to prove they are meeting the objective. The third and final step is planning activities that help student learn and meet the objectives.

Writing objectives for standards was a bit more difficult for me to fully understand. I don’t quit know the difference between unpacking a standard and writing an objective for it. It seemed to me that they were very similar and that objectives were basically already written into each standard. I had a hard time with this because of the similarities and I’m worried that I don’t know the distinction between the two besides the fact that objectives have the SMART guidelines.

Overall, I learned a lot about understanding and breaking down standards. These three processes will help me create better lesson plans and help ensure that my students are meeting the objectives. While the sheer volume and complexity of the common core standards can feel overwhelming, these are great methods for helping organize the perceived chaos.