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InTASC Standard #7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context
Table of Contents
Introduction to Long-Term Planning
Introduction to Long-Term Planning
Long-term planning is important because it enables me to understand how my different units fit together over the arc of an entire school year. Rather than abruptly jumping from topic to topic, I want my 7th grade scientists to comprehend the connections between units in terms of skills, knowledge, understandings, and real world contexts. Students will understand the content as an interconnected story line, and will hopefully carry this learning along with specific tools and knowledge with them to 8th grade.
Connection to Community Context
Connection to Community Context
In order to create long-term plans that are specific to my individual students in my classroom, I need to understand the community context that my students come from. Even though my students come from similar neighborhoods within walking distance of the school, students' home lives are all very different. It is important that I understand my students' contexts each year and not make assumptions about them. Understanding the families, neighborhoods, and cultures my students come from enable me to create and adapt curriculum that is specific and relevant to my learners for the rest of the school year. Further, crafting curriculum that taps into student aspirations, not just day-to-day science knowledge, helps students visualize their potential and future in science careers.
Family Surveys
Family Surveys
Specifically, to understand my students' families and neighborhoods, I use family surveys and conversations at the beginning of the year. This data is then used for the remainder of the year as I plan units and lessons that are specific to my learners. Even though year to year, my students may come from similar locations near my school, I know that each students' home environment is unique. I conduct parent surveys and follow up phone calls in order to gain insight into what my learners' strengths are and their preferences for learning. For example, I ask questions of family members such as, How does your student learn best? Further, I ask about the languages spoken at home. I also ask parents what goals they have for their students in science class. In this way, these surveys provide me with valuable data that help me comprehend the skills and strengths my students bring into the class, such as, for example, various norms and expectations, and languages and science/engineering experiences they may have had exposure to. Further, parent surveys help me plan how I will support students in meeting the goals that their families have for them. For example, one parent shared that she wants her child to "focus on school" and not be distracted. This parent also shared that positive recognition works well in motivating her child. This data helped me figure out how to better support this student in staying focused during class and how to praise her to help empower her to reach science goals.
Family Letter and Survey
In order to understand students' familial and community contexts, I write a letter to all of the families that includes a survey for them to complete at the beginning of the year. This survey informs me of families' contact information, languages spoken at home, student needs and preferred contact type. This approach also helps me to show families that I want to partner with them for their students' long-term success over the entire year. Family data is important because it helps me understand specific student strengths as well as potential areas of improvement. Families know their students best and can thus accurately explain student needs and positive attributes, that I can work into my year-long plans. Further, the family survey allows me to understand specific goals families have for their students in science and at school more generally.
This data also positively impacts my long-term planning because I am able to effectively utilize this information to plan instruction that is catered to my individual students and their learning needs. For example, for the family survey below, I learned that one student enjoys praise and physical contact such as high fives. Given this information, I make sure to positively praise this student, and we even came up with our own handshake. Knowing my students enables me to plan long-term for their wants and needs. Further, creating connections with families gives me an opportunity to share my desire to collaborate with them and to help their children succeed over the course of the year. With a solid relationship and connection, it is easier to return to stated goals as touch points during later communications, such as conferences.
See "Student Driven Alterations of Unit Plans" in my Unit Planning section and "Supporting Every Student" in my Lesson Planning section for more detail about how I purposefully use survey data in my practice.
Year 3 parent letter (1).docxFamily Survey Example
Similar to my own content backwards planning, if I know where families want their students to end up, I can support them in reaching those goals. In this family survey example, I learned that this student's family has very high expectations for her and also, that this student works well when collaborating in groups. This data, combined with other survey data, enabled me to learn about this particular student; this data also showed me a class-wide pattern, specifically, that many of my students this year work well in groups. As such, I created long-term assessments and seating charts that emphasize group collaboration.
Note: The remainder of this family survey was omitted because it contains personal family and student information.
Speak with a Scientist
Speak with a Scientist
Speak with a Scientist is an initiative I designed that helps me plan for and support learners in their long-term goals as well as comprehend students' community context better. Speak with a Scientist is a program I created in which I invite scientists to talk with my students about their profession. The scientists I invite to speak with my students are individuals who either look like my students or come from backgrounds similar to my students, as suggested by the data I collected from the student and family surveys. Research demonstrates that “socioeconomic barriers generally hinder individuals’ vocational development. Career barriers are significantly higher for those from poor backgrounds, people of color, women, those who are disabled, and LGBTIQ-identified individuals” (American Psychological Association, 2019). My students may not yet dream of scientific career goals because they do not have the knowledge of all of the potential careers that exist for them. Reducing the “career barrier” by introducing them to a multitude of individuals with unique science careers will open up their minds to potential future career opportunities. Further, making sure that the individuals within these roles look like my students or have similar backgrounds and communities to my students is important. My students have, in the past, shared that they believe scientists are older, white males. This imagery was demonstrated when I had students complete a writing assignment that asked them, What does a scientist look like? What does a scientist do? Not only did students describe scientists as white, older males (rather than themselves), they also described how scientists “do” only a small selection of activities, such as: “mix chemicals,” “help animals,” and “heal sick people.” I want my students to know that there are a myriad of important and exciting scientific careers and opportunities available to them. I also want my students to internalize the idea that, despite society’s preconceived notions and recognition of who can be a scientist, there are plenty of individuals who look like my students or have similar experiences to my students, who are doing incredible scientific work - and also, are from and working within students' own communities.
Planning to include opportunities over the course of the year to bring in scientists to speak with and inspire my students helps my students plan in a long-term meaningful way for their own future. Further, planning for scientists to come in and showcase or talk about scientific work that relates to content in science class helps students make meaningful connections between class content and their own lives.
Scientist of the Month
Scientist of the Month
In addition to family surveys and Speak with a Scientist, I purposefully include students' cultures, backgrounds, and community context in long-term plans through Scientist of the Month. Similar to Speak with a Scientist, I choose scientists of color who may be from the community or similar community contexts and have similar backgrounds and experiences for Scientist of the Month. For this initiative, each month, I share biographies of these scientists with students and talk about their accomplishments and contributions. Students have the opportunity several times throughout the year to choose one of our Scientists of the Month and to create a PowerPoint and present to the class about a chosen scientist for extra credit.
Scientist of the Month Examples
I share with students a number of famous scientists of color for Scientist of the Month. My hope is that students are inspired by these scientists and are able to think of long-term goals and plans for themselves based off of the exciting accomplishments of these recognized scientists who look like and have similar backgrounds to my students. Here are a few examples of some of the Scientists of the Month that I have shared with my students in the past. Every scientist I choose to share with my students performed work that connects directly with what students are currently learning in science class. This helps give context to their learning, allows students to see themselves in the learning, and helps students create long-term plans for themselves because they are inspired by these scientists.
Becky.Higgins.Historical Figures.pptxJohnson Middle School Science Context
Johnson Middle School Science Context
At Johnson, 7th grade is the first time that my students have a full science class. As such, not only am I charged with supporting students in the specific curriculum that I must cover over the course of the academic year, but I also support students in gaining crucial scientific skills (such as measuring, making observations, performing experiments, etc.) that they may have not explicitly been taught prior to this year, (or may need a review of these skills). This pattern of students entering 7th grade science with minimal content knowledge and science experience creates a unique opportunity for me in terms of long-term planning. I am in the unique position to support students in learning widely applicable skills and scientific tools, while also solidifying knowledge within this content. However, this scenario is also challenging in that I must play catch-up in terms of students' scientific classroom knowledge, while still helping them meet expectations for mastery on our 7th grade science units.
Scientific Inquiry Long-Term Planning
Scientific Inquiry Long-Term Planning
As a result of my unique situation, I begin my year by focusing on scientific inquiry. This mini unit allows me to gauge academic background knowledge for students in all three of my classes and of specific groups and their needs within classes. This first mini unit concludes with a specific targeted diagnostic that can reveal to me useful patterns that can help me plan my teaching. For example, Scientific Inquiry Diagnostic data showed me that all of my students were either in the category of "Needs Intervention" or "Approaching Mastery" regarding scientific inquiry skills. As a result of this data, I altered my long-term plan such that we now include opportunities for inquiry-based learning in every unit for the remainder of the year. For example, in my first unit, How can I make new stuff from old stuff?, I included several more student-led labs and experiments in which students have had to design experiments to answer inquiry questions such as, Do fat and soap have different melting points? where students designed a procedure to test the melting points of butter, fat, and soap.
Overall, as a result of this inquiry mini unit, I can adjust the essential questions, scientific concepts and principles, and the objectives for upcoming units such that I meet students where they are, while still remaining rigorous and content-based. Following their year in 7th grade, students should have rich content knowledge as well as a deep understanding of scientific inquiry and laboratory skills to take with them to 8th grade and beyond.
Scientific Inquiry Diagnostic Example
This inquiry diagnostic above (page 1), given to students at the beginning of the year, allows me to determine patterns of students' prior knowledge. I can purposefully utilize this data, as well as student survey data, to adjust unit plans and lesson plans to fit my individual students for the remainder of the year. Specifically, this scientific inquiry diagnostic assessment helps determine students' current knowledge of scientific vocabulary and of the scientific inquiry process itself, which is essential to all scientific processes. This assessment also helps to test students' ability to analyze informational texts and to use evidence to draw conclusions from data. Thus, this assessment gathers data on scientific understanding and does so in a way that requires cross-disciplinary skills, such as quantitative reasoning.
Based on this diagnostic data, all students were either in the category of "Needs Intervention" or "Approaching Mastery" regarding scientific inquiry skills on this diagnostic. As a result of this data, I altered my long-term plan such that we include opportunities for inquiry-based in every unit. I included more labs with supportive scaffolded worksheets to help students grasp rigorous science content while also improving their scientific inquiry skills. For example, in my first unit, How can I make new stuff from old stuff?, I included several more student-led labs and experiments in which students were tasked with designing experiments to answer specific inquiry questions such as, Is burning a chemical reaction? based on the phenomena of burning magnesium. Thus, these diagnostics helped me adjust my own plans to support student learning of specific content along with scientific processes for arriving at their own conclusions.
Scientific Inquiry Introduction
Above is one slide in the PowerPoint I use to frame the concept of scientific inquiry. In order to introduce the process of scientific inquiry, students perform experiments. Students create a question, form a hypothesis, perform an experiment, analyze data, and draw conclusions. In this way, the scientific inquiry process can form the basis of their own learning and can become the basis for ongoing learning and lesson planning.
Scientific Inquiry Practice
Students work collaboratively through the inquiry process to ask and answer testable questions, as seen above. In this way, students learn new skills through tactile exploration utilizing scientific vocabulary. Collaboration, like scientific inquiry, is essential to learning science and so, has become a constant in my plans. It fosters new ideas and builds other skills such as active listening and empathy that are critical to my students' long-term success beyond school.
Science in a Cross-Disciplinary Context
Science in a Cross-Disciplinary Context
In addition to purposefully utilizing scientific inquiry in order to effectively plan for the remainder of the year, I heavily lean on data taken from other core instructional areas and use this data to alter my practice for my students.
ELA Cross-Disciplinary Long-Term Planning
To create a year-long learning environment and curriculum that effectively supports scientific literacy and long-term planning, I utilize diagnostic data from English Language Arts. Specifically, at the beginning of the year, students take a standardized test, (the iReady test,) in order to determine students' reading levels. The ELA teacher and I then collaborate closely. She shares with me what reading level students are on as well as strategies to support them. As a result, I use this data to create collaborative groupings where students can support one another in their literacy levels. For example, a student on a relatively higher reading level (grades 6-7) would likely be paired with mid-readers (grades 3-5) as well as low readers (grades k-1). Unfortunately, in my current school context, many of my learners are on lower reading levels. However, I still utilize year-long groupings by reading level to promote scientific literacy and to create long-term plans for students. I also emphasize a plethora of literacy strategies, such as close reading and writing assignments, discussed further in my instructional strategies section.
Math Cross-Disciplinary Long-Term Planning
In addition to using ELA data to promote year-long scientific literacy in my plans, I also plan such that I emphasize mathematical computation and thinking. To understand where students are at the beginning of the year in terms of their mathematical skills, I talk to and collaborate with the math teacher. She shares with me patterns of strength and areas for improvement that she has seen in her own work with students. For example, based upon her own diagnostic data, she shared with me that students need additional support in fractions and decimals. From this data, I planned for opportunities for students to strengthen these skills in science class. Specifically in our first science unit, How can I make new stuff from old stuff?, students learned about and calculated density. To help students understand why we divide different components to arrive at density, I used the analogy of density as someone who is feeling down (because something that is dense sinks). Next, I shared that someone who is feeling down may have a broken heart. A heart broken in half looks like the letters m (for mass) over v (for volume). With this tool for remembering, students performed well on their density lab and improved in their ability to do fractions. Data given to me by the math teacher also told me that students needed support in mathematical units and decimals. Thus, I altered my plans in my first unit such that students could understand how to calculate their weight on different planets. Students used conversions with scientific units to gain an understanding of the concepts of mass versus weight; simultaneously, students improved their mathematical skills of decimals and units. I will continue to plan for opportunities for students to grow in mathematical computational skills, particularly in fractions and decimals, for the rest of the year. Working with other teachers and across disciplines to adjust my plans and to incorporate specific needs helps accelerate my students' learning.
ELA Planning Examples
Diagnostic ELA iReady scores from the beginning of the year that tell us the various reading levels of students, (far right image,) helps me better plan for purposeful collaborative groups to promote learning. With this data, I can more effectively plan out peer tutoring and collaborative scientific literacy work, (image to the right). Although the specific students who are grouped together change by unit, there will always be students grouped by diverse reading levels.
Math Planning Examples
To learn about density and test their knowledge of fractions, students were introduced to the topic when I explain that density can be thought of as sad or down, because when things are dense, they sink.
Next, students learned about how to calculate density. I explained that someone who is down may have a broken heart. I then drew a heart and split it in half (representing the division in density).
Finally, students learned that each half of the heart looks like the letter "m" and the letter "v," representing mass and volume. Students thus came to know what density is and, further, how to calculate it.
Year-Long Unit Arc
Year-Long Unit Arc
Given that the district moved to a new middle school science curriculum this year, it has been important for me to internalize the story arc of my units across the year. Every IQWST unit is student-inquiry based and centers around a driving question. Students continuously grapple with challenging driving questions and work to apply their learning to answer the unit-driving question. As the teacher facilitating discussions around each unit and each driving question, it is critical that I understand how the driving questions connect between units and build upon one another over the course of the year.
At first glance, the essential questions across the 7th grade year do not appear complementary to one another. This year's unit-driving questions are as follows: Intro to Chemistry, How can I make new stuff from old stuff? Physical Science, Why do some things stop while others keep going? Life Science, What is going on inside me? and Earth Science, What makes the weather change? Even though it is challenging, I work to effectively use my knowledge of engaging science content in order to plan a year-long arc that is rigorous and works in supporting all of my talented learners. I utilize the spiraling concepts of science and engineering practices, combined with my knowledge of students and their backgrounds and communities, (after I analyze parent and student survey data,) to create patterns and themes over the course of the academic year. Through spiraling and re-enforcing scientific patterns, (such as, for example, the importance of energy,) over the course of the year, NGSS hopes that students will be able to apply scientific principles, disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts to a variety of settings and real world scenarios. As such, I have assisted the district in creating plans that include a unit arc that allows middle school science teachers to understand how their unit driving questions build off of 6th grade driving questions and, further, how they build toward 8th grade unit objectives. I use this year-long arc and then revise it in developing my plans such that it fits my individual students' strengths, needs, and interests.
7th Grade Science Year-Long Unit Arc
The following image demonstrates the four units I cover throughout the year as the 7th grade science teacher. These units include (in sequential order): Intro to Chemistry, How can I make new stuff from old stuff? Physical Science, Why do some things stop while others keep going? Life Science, What is going on inside me? and Earth Science, What makes the weather change?
Middle School Science Year-Long Unit Arc
The document to the left demonstrates the year-long units that teachers are expected to follow for grades 6, 7, and 8. Unfortunately, given my school context, the 6th grade at my school is not departmentalized. In other words, 6th graders do not have a full science class and thus, do not receive the hours of science instruction NGSS assumes 6th graders will experience. Consequently, the majority of the NGSS spiraling in terms of scientific principles, disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts, happens solely in the 7th and 8th grades. Therefore, and as a result, I have to work to integrate rigorous content into my year-long 7th grade science plans that students should have learned in 6th grade. I do this so that there are no gaps in students' understanding, and such that I make sure all students are supported in reaching rigorous content and to have access to the knowledge and standards of the full middle school science curriculum.
In addition to the units and unit-driving questions listed here, every school supports students in developing their own inquiry-based science projects in a Science Fair. This endeavor is implemented during the second unit of the year because school-wide and district-wide science fair presentations and expositions occur in January. The Science Fair is a milestone in the curriculum and so, serves as a guidepost in our pedagogical planning as well as an opportunity for students to plan for themselves as they take charge of managing the process of creating a scientific project.
Year-Long Unit Storylines
Year-Long Unit Storylines
Before I create detailed unit plans, it is crucial that I understand how unit storylines build off of one another over the course of a year in terms of content as well as scientific skills. Curating all unit storylines together in one location helps me comprehend what investigations, learning goals, and anchoring phenomena are needed in order to support my students in reaching mastery over the course of the year. Further, I can recognize patterns of transferable skills and understandings that my students will be required to master as they work to meet objectives for all 7th grade science units.
Science Year-Long Content Storyline
Scroll through to view the curated unit storylines that make up my year-long unit storyline. These units include (in sequential order): Intro to Chemistry, How can I make new stuff from old stuff? Physical Science, Why do some things stop while others keep going? Life Science, What is going on inside me? and Earth Science, What makes the weather change?
Student-Driven Year-Long Planning
Student-Driven Year-Long Planning
Purposeful incorporation of students' strengths, needs, learning styles, and funds of knowledge are critical when making year-long plans that will best support my students in reaching content mastery and success in my science class. In order to ensure that my year-long plans are specific to my individual students and their community contexts, I utilize parent and student surveys at the beginning of the year. These surveys are extensive and request a number of details regarding students' interests, passions, and ambitions. The surveys also help me understand the type of learners that are in each of my classes; this information includes, how well do students work independently versus in groups, what types of learners are students, (tactile, auditory, visual, etc.) and when faced with conflict what students do to push through challenges. I distribute and collect this data within the first few weeks of school, when I am first meeting my students. This timeliness ensures that I can quickly implement adjustments both to the first unit plan as well as to the other unit plans that will better fit my students over the course of the year. It also serves as a benchmark for me and for my students in terms of goals and plans for science learning.
Student Survey Example
At the beginning of the year, students answer questions, (in the student survey to the right,) regarding their interests, passions, goals, and learning styles. Student survey data helps me to plan long-term in a way that accounts for the individual needs and strengths of my unique students.
Student Survey.doc
Above is an example of a student survey, filled in. Students are encouraged to answer all survey questions, if possible. This data provides me with information that I can utilize to alter my plans and make the scientific learning fit the needs and goals of my students. For example, many students, including this student, both expressed that they enjoy reading and that they want to learn about global warming and climate change. As a result, I altered my long-term plans such that many more current scientific news articles were included in my instruction, especially as they relate to climate change. In this way, by gathering this data, my students have opportunities to read and learn about things they care about, and I have a way of knowing how to plan for and tap into that potential for high-engagement in scientific issues and content.
Note: Some answers have been omitted because they contain personal student information.
See "Student Driven Alterations of Unit Plans" in my Unit Planning section and "Supporting Every Student" in my Lesson Planning section for more detail about how I purposefully use survey data in my practice.
Student survey data helps me to better understand my students' interests, activities, and goals at the beginning of the year and to plan my scientific activities and lessons accordingly. For example, this student above, similar to many of my students, expressed that they love Spanish and hip hop music. As a result, for each of my classes I created playlists of appropriate versions of their favorite songs. I use these playlists during collaborative group work time in order to help motivate and engage students.
Individualized Student Support
Individualized Student Support
To create the most effective long-term plans, I need to make sure that individual students' needs as well as areas of interest are purposefully included in my instruction and in my classroom environment. Students' interests, from student survey data, are tracked and calculated. For example, I used data to create a library full of books that my students would enjoy in my classroom as well as provide opportunities for students to use math in science. Supporting every student and planning in a way that is intentional and thoughtful requires knowing my students' interests and needs.
Student Survey Tracker
Student Survey Tracker
Following the collection of student survey data, I curate an excel sheet in which I track important student information such as student interests, learning strengths and challenges, how students like to be praised, and favorite classes. As I learn more about my students over the course of the school year, I can adapt and create better plans and assessments centered on my individual students.
For example, for students in the class depicted to the right, I learned that many of them enjoy math and various forms of art. As such, I have included long-term plans that allow students to differentiate their work by product such that they can draw to explain their answers, rather than simply write their answers. Further, I include challenging computational questions in their Do Nows and in worksheets such as, How many atoms do you think are on Earth? Show math to back up your guess!
This data also provided me with crucial information about how to create opportunities for student growth. In this particular class, only one student said they enjoyed reading. Thus, to increase literacy, I searched for and created a library of books that I my students would enjoy on topics that align with their stated interests. Thus, initial student survey data provides me with crucial information that I could use to plan meaningful, long-term content and engaging scientific material.
Note: Student names have been replaced with letters for privacy.
See "Student Driven Alterations of Unit Plans" in my Unit Planning section and "Supporting Every Student" in my Lesson Planning section for more detail about how I purposefully use survey data in my practice.
Examples of Learning from Student Feedback
Examples of Learning from Student Feedback
In addition to collecting student survey data and tracking that information, I utilize surveys to understand my impact of students. As a result of survey data, I am able to make alterations in the way I deliver content and in the plans I make such that students are continuously engaged and excited about science class. Their emotional connection to the work and their engagement in science class is critical to their own motivation to learn and so, I take time to learn about both what and how they might learn science more effectively. Student feedback is taken in informational ways through exit tickets which ask questions such as, What did you learn from this project? How could I have supported you more? etc. Student feedback is also taken in formal ways through TriPod data and Google forms. Tripod data allows me to understand student feelings of community and support in the classroom whereas Google forms allows me to receive student feedback on specific assessments, projects, and labs - the way I deliver curriculum and science content. This data allows me to adjust my long-term plans such that the content, curriculum, and learning environment fully supports all of my incredible learners.
Tripod Survey Results - Fall 2017
Here are the survey results from my students in Fall 2017, which was my first semester of teaching. Students answered a variety of questions, which were then collated into the 7Cs of Effective teaching: classroom management, care, confer, captivate, clarify, consolidate, and challenge. My lowest score was classroom management. Thus, I worked for the remainder of the year on this category and saw significant improvements by the end of the year.
Tripod Survey Results - Spring 2019
Here are the survey results from my students in Spring 2019, which was my most recent semester of teaching. It is clear from this data that I grew in my teaching abilities, particularly in my ability to deliver effective content to students. I am able to look at survey data across the year and between years in order to understand my efficacy as a teacher and to alter my plans such that I am improving in these categories. This data gives me a snapshot of how students feel in my classroom and, over time, provides me with insights into how to improve.
Google Forms
Every student in my class completes the survey to the right based on their experiences with every activity and assessment we do in class. I can purposefully use this data for my long-term plans for the following year to create more effective plans and assignments that fit my students. I use similar google forms throughout the year to get student feedback during the year so that I can adjust assessment structures for the units that follow.
Connection to Teaching Pedagogy
Connection to Teaching Pedagogy
Long-term planning aligns to my goal of creating meaningful content that is relevant for students and incorporates their unique backgrounds, experiences and interests. I want all of my students to see themselves in the learning that I design and implement. Further, by planning in advance for the entirety of the year, I am able to purposefully include culturally relevant practices into my long-term plans, unit plans, and lesson plans. Additionally, through long-term planning, I am able to actively reflect on my practice in order to continually improve for my students. When I am better able to understand students' own strengths and interests, I can create opportunities that build off of their own strengths and motivation to learn.
References
References
American Psychological Association. (2019). Education and socioeconomic status. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education.aspx
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