michigan standards of authentic instruction
| home | syllabus | standards | grades | webmail |
The guiding instructional standards for the Secondary Block are derived from the 1996 Michigan Curriculum Framework document, Section IV: Teaching and Learning, pp. 1-4. Currently, this guiding document for curriculum development in all Michigan schools is under revision. The following four standards are now being "imbedded" in four areas: Content Standards, Teaching and Learning Standards, Assessment Standards, and Professional Development Standards. ("Proposal for Revision of the Michigan Curriculum Framework, adopted June 13, 2002.)
So that you will be able to "metacognitively" become familiar with the foundational guiding standards, all of our work together in this course will be guided by the following four Standards of Authentic Instruction:
Higher Order Thinking: Instruction involves manipulating information and ideas by synthesizing, generalizing, explaining or arriving at conclusions that produce new meaning and understandings for them.
Students do at least one of the following:
| **** |
manipulate information in ways that transform their meanings and implications; |
| **** | combine facts or ideas in order to synthesize, generalize, explain, hypothesize, or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. |
Deep Knowledge: Instruction addresses central ideas of a topic or discipline with enough thoroughness to explore connections and relationships and to produce relatively complex understandings.
Students
do at least one of the following:
| **** sustain a focus on a significant topic; |
| **** demonstrate understanding of the problematic nature of information and/or ideas; |
| **** demonstrate complex understanding by arriving at a reasoned, supported conclusion; and |
| **** explain how they solved a complex problem. |
Substantive
Conversation: Students engage in extended conversational exchanges with
the teacher and/or their peers about subject matter in a way that builds an
improved and shared understanding of ideas or topics. C
Features:
| 1 | The
talk is about subject matter in the discipline [content area] and includes
higher order thinking, such as making distinctions, applying ideas, forming
generalizations, or raising questions; not just reporting of experiences,
facts, definitions, or procedures. |
| 2 | The
conversation involves sharing of ideas and is not completely scripted or
controlled by one party (as in teacher-led recitation). Sharing is best
illustrated when participants explain themselves or ask questions in complete
sentences, and when they respond directly to comments of previous speakers. |
| 3 |
The dialogue builds coherently on participants' ideas to promote improved collective understanding of a theme or topic (which does not necessarily require an explicit summary statement). |
Connections
to the World Beyond the Classroom: Students make connections between
substantive knowledge and either public problems or personal experiences.
Students do at least one of the following:
| **** | focus on understanding a real-world public problem of some contemporary significance; |
| **** | build upon students' personal experiences to teach important ideas in the discipline, or |
| **** | attempt to communicate their knowledge to others beyond the classroom, and to influence or assist others. |
research
base for these standards
from A Guide to Authentic Instruction and
Assessment: Vision, Standards, and Scoring (1995) by Newmann, Secada, and
Wehlage.
Each of the Secondary Block units will place an emphasis on at least one of the Michigan Teaching and Learning standards so that you might become self-conscious of how the standard guides the design and implementation of instruction and thereby influences student responses. "Effective implementation of the Standards for Teaching and Learning assumes that the classroom context is predicated on the belief that all students can and will learn. In order to be successful, instruction must not only incorporate the standards listed above, but it must also take place within an environment that provides sufficient social support to permit all students to learn no matter what their gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, English language proficiency, or preferred learning style."
Authentic instruction (AI) is meaningful instruction. It helps learners move beyond memorization by creating learning experiences which demand sustained, disciplined, and critical thought on topics that have relevance to life beyond school.
Research shows that when teachers and students engage in authentic instruction and learning, student achievement increases. Fred M. Newmann, Walter G. Secada, and Gary G. Wehlage at the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research have synthesized much of the research that relates to student achievement in A Guide to Authentic Instruction and Assessment: Vision, Standards, and Scoring (1995). They tell us that students are most successful when they use and apply the knowledge they are learning and the abilities they are developing to solve real-world problems and conduct relevant investigations. The four standards of authentic instruction described by Newmann, Secada, and Wehlage are integral to the content standards and benchmarks. Each standard/benchmark helps form a foundation from which increased learning and understanding stems.
In Unit 2 you will conduct a WWW search of the Content Standards and Benchmarks in your major and minor content areas, which have been formulated at both the national and state levels.
Making the AI standards a part of your everyday way of thinking about instruction helps you as the teacher--or as a member of an instructional team--ensure that you are providing students with authentic learning opportunities. Incorporating the standards into instructional decisions helps create effective experiences for learning the knowledge and abilities described in the content standards and benchmarks. The standards of authentic instruction are embedded in the content standards and benchmarks. They help teachers enhance student learning by providing them with instructional opportunities that move them past a superficial understanding to an in-depth application of the knowledge and skills they are learning.
critical importance of teacher attitude
An atmosphere of positive social support occurs when the teacher conveys high expectations for all students and encourages students to take learning risks and try hard to master challenging academic work.
The type of social support needed exists when the teacher's attitude and actions affirm the belief that all members of the class can learn important knowledge and skills.
Positive social support requires creating a climate of mutual respect among all members of the class so that students with less proficiency are treated in ways that encourage their efforts and value their contributions.