Backing Into Success, by Sandra Feldman
Working backward from a standard can lead to real learning for every child in your classroom
If you believe that all students can learn, and if you think it's important to set high academic expectations for all students, then you're ready for standards-based instruction, which can make a tremendous difference in student achievement.
Finding the right equation
The differences between standards-based instruction and traditional instruction can be significant. Alice Gill, director of AFT's "Thinking Math" initiative, illustrates the differences with a basic math lesson – teaching students to add fractions with unlike denominators, such as 7/8 and 4/5. Traditionally, teachers might state the rule about finding a common denominator and work through examples. Then they would assign homework, hand out worksheets and give a test.
Many good teachers got excellent results with this system. But, Gill notes, the system itself wasn't designed to teach every child to master the material.
Working backward from a standard
In contrast, standards-based instruction begins with a high standard for all students, usually determined by the state. We then determine how students can demonstrate that they've gained the knowledge and skills for meeting the standard. Standards-based instruction requires us to think first about the standards and assessments – and then work backward.
In a standards-based setting, students are taught to understand how the skills they're acquiring are useful in the real world. In the fraction example I gave earlier, for instance, a teacher might develop the lesson by having students measure and add lengths of cloth for a costume-making problem, quantities of sugar for a recipe, or pieces of wood for a building project. This connection to real life provides a way to build knowledge and it teaches students that many of the standards for different subjects are connected. Math students need language skills to explain their reasoning. A social studies lesson requires math concepts to explain economics or the environment.
Learning for life
In a standards-based classroom, students memorize important facts and rules, but they also learn to reason and make sense of the facts they learn. If students forget a rule, they can work toward the answer by using critical thinking skills.
Many of these elements will sound familiar – they've been used by good teachers for years. But standards-based instruction brings these elements together in a formal system that can work for every teacher. If we keep the standards at the forefront and make sure students understand what they're working toward, they're more likely to catch misconceptions and correct them. And if students fail to grasp the concept, the standards-based approach allows and encourages us to look for more examples and strategies to help students who didn't "get it" the first time.
This is just a quick overview of standards-based instruction. Putting standards at the center of the classroom every day is a lot of work, but the payoff is big: a classroom in which each student meets high academic standards.
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Traditional practice • Select a topic from the curriculum • Design instructional activities • Design and give an assessment • Give grade or feedback • Move on to new topic |
Standards-based practice • Select standards from among those students need to meet • Design an assessment that allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skills that meet the standards • Identify the learning opportunities students will need to acquire the knowledge and skills • Plan instruction so each student has adequate opportunities to learn |
Sandra Feldman, former President of the American Federation of Teachers.
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