Learning Design


Preparing lessons focused on competencies allows teachers to design with the end in mind as they integrate content and process skills, develop student-centered learning targets, and frame assessments and follow-up steps to guide the student learning process.  

Work Samples

Key questions in backward design and student-centered learning include

I designed this learning experience so that students could guide their own learning and connect real-life experience with classroom content and develop competencies such as learning interdependently, sustaining wellness for them and natural systems over time, and reasoning about connections. 

EXPERIMENTS IN THE FIELD OR LAB BUILD AGENCY WHEN STUDENTS:

I designed this learning experience to help students expand their understanding of ocean systems and challenge their beliefs about sharks and recognize the impermanence of reefs without action. Providing multiple avenues of choice allowed students to select learning experiences that spoke to their interests. 

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING BUILDS CONNECTIONS WHEN STUDENTS: 


I created these maps for each unit to help students ask big questions, make connections, and visualize the learning as they read and took notes. While this is traditional, it deepened the learning for many and built understanding of a tool for critical thinking about connections.

SIMPLE TECHNIQUES LIKE CONCEPT MAPS BUILD UNDERSTANDING WHEN STUDENTS: 

Framework to Build Student Agency

Lesson Plate Template
Assessment of student learning
Learning Target Development
INSTRUCTIONAL FRAMEWORK COMPONENTS
Next Steps for Student Learning Development

"Perhaps the most important difference of all between standards-based learning and competency-based learning is the commitment to the student." 

- Chris Sturgis of CompetencyWorks 

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