Reflection: How to Approach Standards

This past week my Teach Now cohort worked on various assignments relating to school standards. I’d like to reflect on a few of the things I’ve learned and the value in some of these activities.

First, I will say that I found the way we approached this unit to be constructive and valuable to me personally. In 2008 I received my Masters in Education and at that time we worked on a unit relating to standards. We spent a good deal of time researching standards, reading about them, and discussing theory. What effectively happened was we got in numerous class discussion about the value of standards and the struggles we as teachers were having in meeting them. There was a high degree of frustration and I went away from that unit feeling like standards were a “necessary evil.”

On the contrary, this unit concentrated on three activities that approached standards constructively, looking at several ways of working with standards to really get the most out of them and extract their value. These activities included:

1. Unpacking a standard: We went in-depth with getting to the heart of a standard. Everything down to dissecting the words used helps me as a teacher get a real feel for the meat of a standard.

For example, the standard I chose was related to eighth grade mathematics based on the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. It includes being able to understand the origins of math and being able to describe their cultural origins. This in itself is something that can be baffling for students and teachers alike. However, the “Unpacking” activity had us pulling out the verbs and really getting to the core of the one “big idea” meant by the standard, in order to really make sense of it and work with it.

2. Backwards Mapping: We have often been taught to look at things step by step: we read from left to right, each word one by one. Likewise, this is how we plan lessons a lot of the time too: from one textbook page to the next. Backwards mapping really sets a goal and makes sure everything maps back to it.

This was my favorite of the three activities. It also appeals to me personally in that we look first to understand the “Big Idea.” In my house the words “End in Mind” are used commonly, popularized from Steven Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Starting with the Big Idea follows along this theory, that understanding the end keeps the process going.

3. SMART objectives: This activity really focuses on student outcomes. It is a nice step after backward mapping, because it gets real goals set within the activities. While goals are already a normal thing, creating SMART objectives makes sure they are really targeted on the right outcomes.

One thing I found interesting about this activity is that, when I was working alongside a friend who works in the business world, he mentioned that SMART is used as a framework in his company for goal setting. They do it to make sure everyone is on the same page with goals and what they mean. When a standard says “understanding,” that is not very specific. Making it “smart” means everyone is on the same page.

In conclusion, this unit brought me some value, particularly in my relationship with standards. It added a positive way to approach standards and really get to the core of why they are there, while doing my best to work with them.