Implementing Standards-Based Activities in Your Classroom

In schools across our nation, teachers face classrooms of students at varying levels of engagement. Some are interested in learning while some are not. Some enjoy school and some do not. Some are successful students. Others are not. All students have individualized needs and modalities for learning, and as educators we must constantly look for ways to engage learners in a standards-based curriculum. Standards-based learning and student engagement do not have to be an either/or scenario. We can align our lessons and assessments to standards and provide learning activities that motivate and engage learners.

Standards-based reform is a top-down approach to ensuring that academic expectations are clear and learner needs are met. Teachers have a bottom-up view of what their individual students need. It can be very difficult to align instruction to the standards. A teacher’s attempt to align to the standards may result in a dual curricula where part of the instruction focuses on students’ individual academic needs and part of the instruction is focused on the students’ general academic needs as defined by the standards.

For PA Educators and those interested in the PA Standards-Aligned System (SAS)

In Pennsylvania, assessments such as the PSSA exams are aligned to the academic standards. This alignment ensures that students taking the state exams are measured fairly against the standards for their grade level. Instruction should also align to the standards to ensure that students master the knowledge and skills that they need to be academically successful. For years, educators across the state have struggled with how to properly align the standards to the instruction that students receive in the classroom . Some districts have spent many hours aligning their curricula to the Pennsylvania Academic Standards.

Instead of having a top-down, bottom-up approach to aligning the standards, what if we determine the essential elements for students to be successful and then look for ways to align these individual elements? This is the premise behind the Standards-Aligned System. The Standards-Aligned System, as its name implies, is a standards-based educational system that is focused on helping teachers align their instruction to the standards and other elements which have been shown to support students’ academic success.

Did you know?

The primary function of standards is to provide teachers and students with information about what is expected of them and to yield information about how well students meet those expectations (Hamilton et al., 2008).

Every state in the nation has its own set of curriculum standards, at least in the core areas. There is broad variability among the states in the form and specificity in both content and performance standards (Beatty, 2008; Glidden, 2008).

Standards-based instruction has helped improve student achievement in some curricular areas (Lauer et al., 2005).

“Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.”
—John Caldwell Holt, author and educator

The information below is based on ideas in the PLS courses Student Engagement and Standards-Based Learning™ , SAS for Pennsylvania Educators™ , and SAS for Pennsylvania Educators™ Online .

Read on for two standards-based activities you can use immediately with your students

Activity No. 1: Turn and Talk

Students need to articulate their thinking, viewpoints, and opinions, verbally as well as in writing. This skill is used in everyday life to maintain relationships, in current events to discuss issues, and in the career world to facilitate business and innovation. In this discussion strategy, students turn “knee to knee” and “eye to eye” to discuss a given topic or question. Students are encouraged to bring out answers from their partner, take turns equally, and help each other think more deeply rather than just at the surface level. Students learn discussion encouragers and conversation add-ons such as those listed below:

• I wonder . . .
• One point that was not clear to me was . . .
• I was reminded of . . .
• Are you saying that . . .
• I noticed . . .
• I agree with . . .
• I disagree because . . .
• I feel . . .
• I have a problem with . . .
• Have you thought about . . .

Standard

CCSS.SL.3-12: Comprehension and Collaboration

1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, or teacher led) with diverse partners on topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Partnership for the 21st Century Skills

Communicating , Information Literacy , and Life and Career Skills

Activity No. 2: Frame and Reframe

Frame Directions:

Have students turn a sheet of paper the landscape direction and draw three rectangles in it. One rectangle should be large (the size of the paper), one should be medium size (centered on the paper), and the third can be fairly small (large enough to hold a word or two). The rectangles should “frame” one another.

In the smallest rectangle in the middle of the paper, have students print a topic upon which they will reflect, such as “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Speech,” “third person point of view,” or “slaveholders.”

Have them print a sentence starter within the middle rectangle. The starter should ask them to share their viewpoint about a certain topic: “My viewpoint about [topic] is…”

On the outside frame, have students identify why they believe as they do by writing specific personal examples or experiences.

Standard

NCSS 5: Individual, Groups, and Institutions Social Studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions.

Partnership for the 21st Century Skills

Critical Thinking and Communicating

Taking It Further

Pennsylvania Standards describe what students should know and be able to do; they increase in complexity and sophistication as students progress through school. Click here to locate specific standards, anchors, and eligible content based on subject area and grade level or course. Select the subject area and grade level, or select the course to view the related standards.

From this browse and search tool, you will find the New York State (NYS) Learning Standards statements for all seven standard areas across grades Pre-K through 12. The NYS Learning Standards provides the foundation for the NYS Assessments and the local core curriculum.

References

Beatty, A. (2008). Assessing the role of K–12 academic standards in states: Workshop summary. Committee on State Standards in Education: A Workshop Series, National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Glidden, H. (2008, Spring). Common ground: Clear, specific content holds teaching, texts, and tests together. American Educator, 13–19.

Hamilton, L. S., Stecher, B. M., & Yuan, K. (2008). Standards-based reform in the United States: History, research, and future directions. Washington, DC: RAND Corporation, Center on Education Policy.

Lauer, P. A., Snow, D., et al. (2005). The influence of standards on K–12 teaching and student learning: A research synthesis. Denver: CO: Mid-continental Research for Education and Learning (McREL). Retrieved April 18, 2011, from http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Synthesis/5052_RSInfluenceofStandards.pdf