Academic Vertical Alignment Training and Renewal (AVATAR) Project

1. Academic Vertical Alignment Training and Renewal (AVATAR) Project Fall 2011 Pilot Project Module Six Secondary and Postsecondary Course Profiles

2. Student achievement is a product of rigor and relevance.

3. Secondary Course Profiles • Creation of secondary course profiles aligned to the • Enduring Understandings • Key Concepts • Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) • Texas College and Career Readiness Standards • STAAR End-of-Course • ACCUPLACER • Instructional Strategies • Assignments/Activities • Resources

4. Postsecondary Course Profiles • Creation of postsecondary course profiles aligned to the • Enduring Understandings • Student Learning Outcomes • Texas College and Career Readiness Standards • ACCUPLACER • Instructional Strategies • Assignments/Activities • Resources

5. Secondary ELA Course Profile Template

6. Secondary Science Course Profile Template

7. Postsecondary ELA Course Profile Template

8. Postsecondary Science Course Profile Template

9. AVATAR Course Profile Template Definitions Enduring Understanding Essential Question Concept Student Learning Outcome Instructional Strategy

10. Enduring Understandings • Statements summarizing important ideas and core processes that are central to a discipline and have lasting value beyond the classroom • Synthesize what students should understand—not just know or do—as a result of studying a particular content area • Articulate what students should “revisit” over the course of their lifetimes in relationship to the content area • Enduring understandings: • frame the big ideas that give meaning and lasting importance to such discrete curriculum elements as facts and skills • can transfer to other fields as well as adult life • “unpack” areas of the curriculum where students may struggle to gain understanding or demonstrate misunderstandings and misconceptions • provide a conceptual foundation for studying the content area and • are deliberately framed as declarative sentences that present major curriculum generalizations and recurrent ideas. • Enduring Understanding Example • Reading is a process by which we construct meaning about the information being communicated by an author within a print or non-print medium. • This is an Essential Question • How is reading a process of constructing meaning from text?

11. Essential Question • Essential questions • are important to argue about • are at the heart of the subject • recur - and should recur • raise more questions – provoking and sustaining engaged inquiry • must become habits of mind when we face real problems • often raise important conceptual or strategic issues in the subject • can provide organizing purpose for meaningful and connected learning

12. Key Concept • Concepts focus on principles or processes rather than discrete facts or skills. • Universal and timeless • Applies to more than one time or place or culture • Has many layers and nuances, not obvious to the naïve or inexperienced person • Yield great depth and breadth of insight into the subject • Used throughout K-12 • Dig deep to really understand its subtle meanings and implications even if anyone prone to misunderstanding as well as disagreement • Likely to change your mind about its meaning and importance over a lifetime • Reflect the core ideas in a field or in life, as judged by experts

13. Key Concept • Applicable to new situations within or beyond the content • Concept Examples: • conflict • change • migration • adaptation • place value • function • Equity

14. Key Concept • More Concept Examples • “Good triumphs over evil” • “the outsider” • “the more we learn the less we know” • “Nature vs. nurture” • “offense vs. defense” • America as seen by ourselves, our allies, and our foes; • Euclidean vs. non-euclidean geometry • freedom involves responsibility • no force is acting on a body moving at a fast constant speed • form follows function • you are what you eat • less is more • history as a march of human progress • anything can be measured if we can identify what it is we want to measure

15. Key Concept What are the concepts in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)? What are the concepts in the postsecondary courses?

16. Student Learning Outcome (SLOs) • Statements that specify what students will know, be able to do, or be able to demonstrate when they have completed or participated in a program/activity/course/project. • Outcomes are usually expressed as knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. • What are the characteristics of good SLOs? • Specify an action by the student that must be observable, measurable, and able to be demonstrated.

17. Student Learning Outcome (SLOs) • How can SLOs help students and organizations? • Help departments understand how to better facilitate student learning • Provide departments with feedback (e.g. Are your services providing what they are supposed to beyond customer satisfaction?) • What skills are students learning? Are these the skills we want them to learn? Are these the skills we are teaching them? • Enable students to articulate what they are learning and have learned from attending URI, inside and outside of the classroom • Help students be able to explain what they can do and what they know • Enable students to better understand where they can go to learn particular knowledge, skills, attitudes or values • Ultimately, provide students with a map of where various learning opportunities are available throughout the university

18. Instructional Strategy • Instructional strategies involve techniques, methods, materials, and other means that are used to assist a student to achieve an educational goal. • Examples: • activating prior knowledge • using appropriate reinforcement and practice • implementing cooperative learning • creating graphic organizers • applying efficient note-taking skills

19. Formative Assessment Formative assessment is assessment of how students are progressing in their learning, while summative assessment is a final assessment of learning. Provides checkpoints of student’s progress in meeting learning goals Conducted in individual, small group, or large group settings

20. Formative Assessment Examples Response cards Hand signals Response boards Oral responses Audience response systems Written summary statements (Exit Ticket) Self assessments Performance tasks Blogs Journals Visual representation Collaborative activities Graphic organizers

21. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys. -Dan Pink A Whole New Mind

22. Vertical Alignment Process(Writing a Course Profile - Not a Complete Curriculum Document) • Identify a common concept • Concept shared by secondary and postsecondary core learning • Define the concept depth and complexity • Secondary setting • Postsecondary setting • Identify the following critical attributes of the teaching of the concept • Prior Knowledge • Instructional Strategies • Activities/Assignments • Resources • Align concept to the • Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills • End-of-Course • College and Career Readiness Standards

23. Work Groups • Secondary and Postsecondary partners work groups • English III • English IV • Chemistry

24. Work Group Debrief Three things I learned today. Two ideas I want to know more about. One idea I will use in my teaching next week.

25. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.