Discover the Alternative to the Modern-Day Textbook
Extracting a standard means taking a deep dive into the learning standard and identifying what the students need to know and what should be taught. The extraction will allow for a systemic designing of the instruction allowing for a primary focus on assessment. More specifically, the standard extraction will allow for the identification of skills needed to be secured deeply embedded within the standard.
Featured standards are from the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Mathematics Grade 6: Expressions and Equations
A learning target describes in language that students understand the instructional lesson sized chunk of information, skills and reasoning processes that they will come to know deeply and thoroughly. The most effective teaching and most meaningful learning happens when the instructional design identifies the right learning target and uses it to assess understanding.
The following learning targets were developed from the identified embedded skills extracted from the standards.
Learning targets are essential in the instructional design process because they provide clear, specific goals for both educators and students. Here’s why they are important:
Guidance for Instruction
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Learning targets help instructors design lessons that align with desired outcomes, ensuring that all activities, materials, and assessments are purposefully structured.
Student-Centered Learning
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Clear targets help students understand what they need to learn and achieve, promoting engagement, motivation, and self-directed learning.
Alignment with Standards
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Well-defined learning targets ensure that instruction aligns with curriculum standards, ensuring consistency and coherence in education.
Assessment and Feedback
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Learning targets serve as a benchmark for measuring student progress, allowing educators to provide targeted feedback and adjust instruction as needed.
Differentiation and Personalization
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With clear learning targets, educators can tailor instruction to meet diverse student needs, ensuring that all learners progress at their own pace.
Promotes Metacognition
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When students know the learning targets, they can reflect on their progress, identify areas for improvement, and take ownership of their learning.
Enhances Collaboration
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Learning targets provide a common language for teachers, students, and parents, facilitating communication about learning goals and expectations.
By establishing clear learning targets, instructional design becomes more effective, ensuring meaningful and measurable learning experiences.
The Quick Assessments are designed to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used to improve instructional practices and improve student learning. Plain and simple, the assessments are a means to check for understanding. It also allows for students to focus and understand the goal of ascertaining a performance level of “Meeting” or “Exceeding”. The Quick Assessments are developed to align with the identified learning targets in each instructional unit. Each assessment consists of five questions.
This sample Quick Assessment is from “It’s in the Design” Expressions and Equations
The quick assessment was introduced in my 7th grade mathematics class during the 2022-2023 school year. Although it is limited data, it helped me ascertain a SGP of 3.6. The 7th grade as a whole demonstrated the highest growth in mathematics among grade levels on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment in the Pitman Boro School District.
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The diagram is from the Student Growth section of the Pitman Boro School District NJ School Performance Report published by the New Jersey Department of Education.
The performance data from the quick assessments should be interpreted with caution. They can tell you that the students are not fundamentally confused at the moment and allow teachers to address any confusion. The quick assessments help make more accurate inferences about whether students are learning due to repeatedly returning to prior concepts from the instructional unit. It is crucial to be thoughtful about the data collected and how it is interpreted.
A minimum of two rounds of quick assessments is required per instructional unit. Following each round, a mean score will be calculated for each student. Once the mean scores are calculated, a performance level can be assigned.
At its core, remediation is simply reteaching material. Once a teacher has determined exactly what the misconceptions or gaps are, they must quickly remediate instruction (reteach material) to prevent students from needing more targeted intervention in the future.
Based on the data collected from the quick assessments, a rewind and try again with some of the identified skills may be necessary. The quick assessments can show you exactly what needs to be reviewed and practiced more. This can lead to more efficient and effective learning overall.
