44: Project design: multiple entry points

1-sources

 

2-what

 

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3 Stages of Backwards Design:
  1. Identify Desired End Results:
    • study standards and learning goals
    • identify learning goals and desired enduring understandings
    • prioritize learning goals
  2. Determine Acceptable Evidence:
    • determine what evidence we will accept to show that students have achieved mastery of goal
  3. Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction:
    • what foundational skills will students need to reach goals?
    • purposefully design and analyze learning tasks: how will formative assessments be used to develop student learning? what tasks will help students develop a deep understanding of learning goals?
    • Avoid common errors (see pitfalls above)
 
NOTE:  These steps do not need to occur in the order above.  The models below will show other ways to design projects.

 

Begin with Content Standards:
  • Analyze nouns in standards and connect these big ideas

  • Identify key knowledge and skills in standard

  • What essential questions follow from standard?

  • Analyze verbs and connect these to performance assmts

  • List learning activities

  • Refine unit to insure alignment across all phases

 

Begin by considering real world applications:
  • Clarify larger purposes and connections between applications and content.

  • Identify specific real world tasks that embody goals

  • Determine enabling knowledge & skills needed for tasks

  • Sketch learning plan that enables practice to mastery

  • Infer questions learners need to frequently consider as they learn

  • Identify content standards that explicitly tie to tasks
  • Revise to align design elements as needed

 

Begin with an important skill:
  • What complex worthy task does this skill support? How does this skill connect to other relevant skills?

  • Identify related content standards

  • Determine what assessments are implied or explicit in standard

  • Identify strategies for using skills effectively

  • Identify big ideas and essential questions that undergird the skill

  • Devise learning activities.

  • Revise for alignment.

 

Begin with key resource or learning activity
  • Start with winning activity or sanctioned resource

  • Consider: Why does this activity matter?  What big ideas does this activity help us understand?

  • Clarify essential questions that will point to these big ideas

  • Identify the skills, facts, and understandings the activity is meant to yield

  • Tie activity to relevant standards and infer key concepts and skills in these
  • Revise assessments and learning activities as needed.

 

Begin with a key assessment
  • Clarify goals and levels of transferability built into assessment

  • Identify standards that address these goals

  • Infer relevant big ideas, understandings, essential questions required to pass assessment

  • Develop and refine performance assessment tasks that parallel the required assessment

  • Craft and modify learning activities to ensure effective and purposeful performance.

  • Revise to align design elements as needed

 

Begin with an existing unit
  • Place elements into template and look for alignment across 3 phases.  Do the goals match the assessments?

  • Do lessons relate to richest aspects of goals?

  • Clarify big ideas and long term performance goals related to standards

  • Ask often: What should students come away understanding?

  • Revise assessments and lessons to do justice to Stage 1 elements

  • Revise to align design elements as needed

 

3-sowhat
Because the inspiration for projects can be varied, it is helpful to see different processes for designing projects that start from different entry points.  The key thing about the 3 phases is not that they occur in order, but that a fully designed project addresses all the key points in ALL 3 phases, i.e. clear aligned picture of learning goals, valid assessments, and good scaffolding.  The color coding above illustrates how the 3 different phases arise in different models for designing projects.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation steps
  • Develop a Year at a Glance (Scope & Sequence)
  • Prioritize standards in scope and sequence
  • Use one of the strategies above to develop a project that goes with a unit cluster of standards
  • Use Understanding by Design template and related standards to guide and evaluate project development
Early implementation steps
  • Use design criteria to evaluate project elements as they are implemented in project
  • Document evaluations of projects and extract generalizable tips and ideas that can be applied to future project designs
Advanced implementation steps
  • Use the multiple entry point models to help students design their own investigations and projects
5-relatedstuff

One thought on “44: Project design: multiple entry points

  1. It’s really beautiful work. Thanks for this kind of stuff. I mean I am totally impressed. Hope to see more updated work here. I have to say, it is very informative.

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