InTASC Standard 7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
Long Term Planning
Creating a long-term plan is an essential component in staying true to the “backwards by design” approach that ensures the identified essential learning standards are prioritized. Long term planning allows me to be intentional with my instruction, spiraling critical strands of learning throughout our units of study, as students progress in their depth of understanding and closer to their annual goals. In order to develop a workable scope and sequence, I build off of students’ background knowledge, calendar out developmental standards, and integrate thematic cross-curricular content to create a balance between critical foundational skills and engaging matter.
Pre-kindergarten, more often than not, is my students’ first experience with a formal school setting, and while they each have a unique culture to share, the academic readiness skills measured by the standards can be challenging and new to them. Therefore, scaffolding is key to effective long-term planning. In collaboration with my grade-level team during summer planning, I identify key standards and related objectives in both core subjects of math and English.
Using the examples illustrated by Teaching Strategies Gold (TSG) developmental age bands, I create criteria for the selected “power” standards. Criteria consists of qualitative behaviors or description of the work that the student will demonstrate/produce in order to master the standard. This set of criteria helps me answer the question, “how will I know when my students have ‘got it’?”, and is a critical step in scaffolding a skill over time. It also determines the amount of emphasis during daily instruction.
After criteria has been established for a number of crucial standards, I design a year-long calendar that serves as an overview of the standards covered, how much time is allotted to each, and where the standards spiral back. However, because standards can be dense and need to be unpacked, I then identify which TSG objectives align to the selected standards. This practice serves two major purposes. First, it allows me to break down specific indicators in the standard, and address them in a logical sequence so that they ultimately become layered as students build their understanding. Additionally, this practice keeps me accountable for collecting and documenting evidence of student growth using the TSG tool. Each student has a digital portfolio that catalogs their growth over time, using documented photos, videos, and anecdotal notes. Using a scope and sequence of TSG objectives ensures that I cover all indicators at least once a quarter.
Finally, I then divide the calendar into thematic units, given the time of year and relevant current events or happenings. Planning my themes long-term helps me prepare in advance, if there are any significant additives to anticipate, for instance a virtual field trip, or a guest speaker. It also helps me utilize my paraprofessionals in creating materials, selecting texts, or adjusting the classroom environment to match the learning objectives.
Scope & Sequence-TSG
Below is the scope and sequence created by my team and I that indicates when and which TSG objectives align with the state standard we are covering. The calendar also indicates school holidays, professional development days, and other conflicts that we must account for in our planning.
Specifically, the calendar keeps me on track to meet the mandated TSG checkpoint, which occurs once every quarter. The checkpoint requires an assessment rating on each of the 36 objectives and sub-objectives for each student, based on the evidence I’ve collected on the child for that particular period.
These checkpoints are crucial points of instruction, as they determine my instructional next steps, as well as grade and school level field-testing needs. The more data and evidence I have on a student, the more informed decision I can make in regards to their checkpoint ratings, and I have a clearer picture of the “whole” child.
As seen in the document to the left, the calendar accounts for all TSG objectives/sub-objectives in the categories of language, cognitive, mathematics, and literacy. This document provides a framework for my grade-level team and I to ensure compliance with checkpoint deadlines and accountability for skill instruction. However, the scope and sequence is a "living" document, and is adjusted based on student and teacher need, as appropriate.
Teaching Strategies GOLD Objectives & Age Bands
The Teaching Strategies GOLD system illustrates a set of 36 objectives and sub-objectives in several categories, including social-emotional, physical, cognitive, language, literacy, and mathematics. Each indicator is represented on a spectrum of chronological age bands, with each band color-coded to signify the age change. The bands provide a quick visual of how particular foundational skills develop as the child ages.
For every objective, there are descriptors for each age band and rating level. These descriptors assert behaviors and skills that are typical for a given age or grade level. They serve to help educators and parents identify a student’s current level of performance, and pinpoint the student’s strengths and weakness.
In pre-kindergarten, our standards are written in alignment with the four-year old age band, seen in the document below as the Blue Band. Many students, particularly those with exceptionalities, or first time-at-school students, fall within the green or yellow bands when school starts in August.
These bands are a crucial document to the development of my assessment and instruction throughout the year. Firstly, the descriptors and bands help me draft developmentally appropriate, realistic goals for my students, especially IEP goals and objectives. Using the bands helps me pinpoint a student’s current level in a given skill or behavior, and plan expectations according to their specific needs, not simply grade-level expectations.
In addition, this document closely guides the development of criteria for the identified essential standards. Criteria for mastery describes behaviors, products, or responses that a student will demonstrate, which often comes directly from the age-band descriptors.
The document to the left first outlines all learning objectives and sub-objectives in each category. The subsequent pages then illustrate each objective's descriptors and corresponding age bands.
Theme Calendar
Once a scope and sequence has been collaboratively sketched out, I create a calendar for the thematic units for the course of the year. While the calendar is tentative, and leaves room for flexibility, it does account for major school interruptions and TSG Checkpoints. The calendar allows me to expand each theme, indicating not only which dates the unit will be covered, but also for how long (i.e. given amount of weeks). When used side by side with the Scope & Sequence, this calendar ensures the essential skills are scaffolded in a logical, meaningful sequence and provides for students' ability to access their prior learning.
The document to the left provides a tentative framework for the sequencing of thematic units. This document helps guide me when it comes time to plan my units more in depth, and is an essential companion document to the Scope and Sequence I develop with my grade-level PLC. The calendar accounts for significant school events, while still providing flexibility for changes in themes or timing.
Once I have a strong framework for my long term plan using these documents, I can shift my focus to more specific unit planning and the design of the classroom environment.