I find myself always
caught in the middle of trying to be interesting and covering my content when
it comes to creating lesson plans and units. Since history has such expansive
material I get lost in finding ways to maintain academic standards to my students.
They either become too vague or too specific in terms of what I am looking for.
I end up asking questions that don’t involve higher order thinking but
something rather more like recall. Or I make so specific that it leaves no room
for student analysis and creativity.
Ultimately, it’s combing big ideas and essential question
into one that is the problem. By gathering big ideas and combining them with
essential questions such as the who’s, what’s, how’s, there will then be more
content taught to the students. This Erickson’s idea of “Power Standards” where
there is the focus of transferable concepts and processes.
Here’s a working example (I saw working because I think I
could still develop it. If any of you have any suggestions on how I can
improve, please share!)
Instead of: What is race in the United States?
I tried: How does race relate to individuals across the
United States?
In order to see if this is effective or not, I’ve decided to
test it through the Backward Design process.
The first step of the Backward Design is to identify a
desired result that you would like to get from your students, something of
which you’d like them to understand.
For my
essential question, I’m hoping that it doesn’t involve just one answer and that it enables my
students to look further into the definition of race and
the socio-economic implications which follow.
The second step is to find acceptable evidence that
demonstrates that students have achieved understanding of the question.
This is
where I begin to struggle. I think I would be looking for my students to
To be able
to articulate their understanding of what race is and how it varies
across the
nation, by providing different examples and case studies.
The final step is planning and instruction of which enables
knowledge and skills that students will need to perform effectively and achieve
desired results. At this stage, the activities are introduced.
Keeping my
goal for students to understand race in America, I’d have
a primary
source gallery, where students would work in small groups
analyzing
different pictures depicting an opinion on race in America
throughout
time. I would gage their success through the analysis of each
photograph,
the language they use, the references they make, and their group
collaboration.
Although this is very raw in terms of development, I find
that this process has set me up to think more critically about what I am asking
of my students. I’m not sure if what I have so far is effective, but
nonetheless it’s a work in progress for me.
What do you think of my example? What would you change and
why? How effective is this setup so far?
Saarah Mohammed
Saarah Mohammed
Hi Saarah,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andrew that this is a great idea. I love how you used your blog to develop a work-in-progress lesson.
I think what you said at the end- "I find that this process has set me up to think more critically about what I am asking of my students. I’m not sure if what I have so far is effective, but nonetheless it’s a work in progress for me" - is exactly the point of backward design. We need to think critically about it, get confused, frustrated, inspired and thoughtful. And to understand that it will always be a work in progress- it won't be perfect and we will constantly be questioning ourselves. But that's a good thing.
You would need to get more specific with your unit/lesson, I think. For example, how would you assess them, exactly? A research paper about what they have found/learned? A show and tell kind of thing with their resources? There is so much you can do with the concept of race, you would really have to narrow down your direction(s).
Thanks!
Hi Saarah,
ReplyDeleteI like your thinking and think you are headed in the right direction with this lesson. You are asking yourself good questions and challenging yourself to come up with meaningful questions that go beyond recitation for students. Giving students to make connections and think deeper, and allow for teaching to diverse groups of students and learner types. The thing that stood out to me about your lesson was the question. As a student I wouldn't be sure what you were asking, and it might be unclear to me what you are asking for in a response, I'd be very frustrated as a student. You mention that you are looking for students to look at race and the socio economic implications, but I don't see that in the question, as a student they might talk about race, racism, culture, traditions, nationalism, slavery, identity, etc. maybe even a smart ass student that simply states 'biologically race doesn't exist, so no relation', and that'd be their whole answer. I think you got the right idea for your lesson, but the question you ask will determine the response you get, as paul wrote in his blog this week he pointed out that he watched students interpret a bell ringer two different ways before the third class finally met the intended goal of the bell ringer. If you can get to match the question to your intention I think you'd be set.
Hey Saarah,
ReplyDeleteI think you are off to a good start with this exercise. Having used this method of backwards design before, I have found that I prefer to take the long view, and ask even bigger questions first, beginning with "What do I want my students to know about this in 10-20-30 years down the road?"
With your topic of race, the answer might be "I want my students to understand race, and how it affects the people living in the US today." That might be a big topic to cover in one class, but you now have a basis for what you want them to know.
You say that you want your students to articulate their understanding of race, by providing different examples and case studies. I think this might need a bit more refinement, as you do not say what type of examples would be acceptable, or what kind of case studies might demonstrate to you that they have learned. Perhaps a more specific assessment tool would be better. You can have the students write out a movie script, and then act part of it out. Essay questions are the bane of a child's existence, but they might give you a better picture.
Your classroom activity is a great idea. Maybe even just showing students pictures of different people, and asking them to write down what they think about what they see would be a place to start, and then based on their reactions, you can guide the discussion and activities based on that.
Race is an important, but touchy subject, but it is worthy of exploration and discussion. Just tread carefully! You are on the right track here. A bit more refining, and I think you have a lesson plan!
Monte
Saarah, I too believe this is a very good way to use the blog. Regarding your work in progress about teaching race I think is important to keep things clear. This is such a broad subject with current implications that I consider one way to approach it is to really ensure that students of history understand that race is a social and historic construction, an ideology we keep teaching to future generations.
ReplyDeleteHi Saarah,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the way you used the blog this week. We could all benefit from workshopping our lessons.
I think the way to avoid the concerns you outline, “I end up asking questions that don’t involve higher order thinking but something rather more like recall. Or I make it so specific that it leaves no room for student analysis and creativity” are concerns that can be mitigated by backwards design, but perhaps more so, by cultivating an ethos of questioning in the classroom. Last semester when my English classmates and I were teaching mock lessons to each other, my teacher pointed out that while we were all keen to “open up the class for discussion,” we were all inclined to follow-up student comments with a “good” (I won’t get into the politics of that word now.) and move on. Instead, we should have been synthesizing the comment with the text or another student’s opinion or a movie or asking for clarification. Better, we should have been asking other students what they thought, creating the space for the talking and working through of ideas that is so crucial to learning.
And though I usually find this text to be mind-numbingly corporate in tone and so generalized that the sharpness begins to resemble that of a hand-me-down butter knife, the authors (cyborgs?) do get some things right. Figure 7.1 offers practical and useful ways to cultivate and PRACTICE the questioning that yields a classroom based upon discovery, co-constructed knowledge, and a healthy limit to the teacher talk that is so stultifying to a student’s learning.
The first one about wait time after posing questions is really important. Do not be afraid when they stare up at you. They might be thinking! If no one answers and the silence is becoming awkward, call on a student and ask what they’re “thinking.” They might feel more comfortable working out an opinion as a draft (note the –ing of “think”) than as a volunteered fact. I like following up student opinions with “show me in the text.” It grounds opinion in evidence, brings us all back to the same document, and is soooo Common Core.
And you’re right. Backwards design is a crucial piece. Doing good questioning alone can get us off track and frustrate your department chair and your students’ very real concerns of “what’s on the test?” The trick is to set an essential question large enough that it can be sustained through a unit, and equivocal enough that multiple viewpoints and opinions can arise.
Lastly, to your questions about teaching race. I would encourage you to think about the bodies in your classroom and the body you wear around town. We all have a situated perspective/subject position that follows us into every room we enter. Male, female, trans, gay, straight, gold, white, black, we all have signifiers of identity, class, and normality hanging off of our bodies. Use this reality. There is a lot of scholarship out there about how to teach race in an authentic way. Do not decontextualize race from the lived experience of your students. As a caution, this is obviously a sensitive subject that ought to be done with respect, care, and compassion (again, lots of research, suggestions on how to set up respectful classrooms). It will be hard, but that does not mean it is not worth doing.
I thank you for your post.
Hi Saarah.
ReplyDeleteI do like the working backward method. However, in your particular example I think the question may be a little broad: I tried: How does race relate to individuals across the United States? That kind of a question brings in a large amount of subjectivity into the question and begs the introduction of certain "desired" discourses . Since your standard is "that demonstrates that students have achieved understanding of the question." I would suggest you frame the question in such a way that students have to support their answers with data/evidence, which for e.g. responsible historians are required to. Therefore, I would suggest question(s) that would require an accumulation of research and evidence. for e.g. how has the the mean African American household income changed vs the mean "white" household income post WW2 and how does this influence your views about race/ your views on race? or you can get into housing patterns, percentage of young black males in prison (and the reasons behind it), the incidence of young black males shot by police (tying it with current events) It is a very "fertile" field, however, it is also a field full of landmines. How do you define 'race'? this is a loaded term made especially more loaded by identity politics? strictly by skin color? what about bi-racial children? what about Latinos/Hispanics? Are Muslims a race? Arabs? Jews? South Asians? (as opposed to East Asians?) Hispanics are actually overwhelmingly bi or multi racial for e.g. Does that meke them a race? (bearing in mind that they don't even consider themselves as such.. that's a term used with identity politics in the U.S. overwhelmingly Latinos define themselves by nationality. And if you introduce Asian Americans into the picture, your statistics on income and many other indicators will flip.
It's a minefield and very tricky. However. I think Elizabeth in her reply right above me makes some terrific points in her last paragraph.
Hi Saarah
ReplyDeleteso.. what I essentially wanted to suggest re your sticking point in your example is to frame the question a bit more specifically (or given them specific suggestions in the various frames or variants that the issue can be studied) in such a way where the students would be required to offer evidence and data into their response(s) and discourse. Of course, current events, their personal experience(s), which relates to Elizabeth's suggestion of contextualizing it within their own personal lives as well.
Good afternoon, Saarah.
ReplyDeleteI taught a lesson on Orwell's 1984 last term and struggled with the same question: "how do I structure the lesson where the conversation is allowed to organically develop apropos to the students' interests in the text while at the same time steering it in some sort of qualitatively measurably manner?" I do think that backward design is helpful in this, but if your overarching question is too vague, then it stands to reason that all the steps that follow may bot produce the result that you had intended. Think of it as pointing to a map of the United States in the dark and saying "I want to go to New York."; you may have an idea as to where on the map New York may be, but its mere guesswork and will not lead to the desired destination. Thus, the idea of planning with backward design seems to presuppose that the educator is familiar enough with the level of students' prior knowledge and their ability to "grasp" things "just out of reach," to use the prior as a bridge to new understanding (and this is all just another way of saying what Vygotsky calls "the zone of proximal development").
All this considered, it may behoove you to reconsider the initial step in your lesson. If the question is "How does race relate to individuals across the United States?", and you're interested in students being able to ascertain the nuance of this question, then it may be helpful to ask them to provide their own images of race relations, thus putting the onus on them and having their initial images of race out on the table, so to speak. To Liz's point: we ought to decontextualize race. Asking students to provide their own images of race in America puts them in the driver's seat, asks them to situate how they see it for themselves in the midst of their high school experience.
I love that you tackled this by creating your own lesson and showing us just how complex and complicated these unit designs can be. It seems very overwhelming and puts into perspective of how much we as teachers are going to learn by the actual doing of it. The chapters and your blog also reaffirm for me just how important it is to view this as a journey. We as beginning teachers are also learning as we go and our students will ultimately tell us what is working and what is not. That clicks in my brain the notion of changing the unit if lessons need more clarity and allowing for student input!
ReplyDeleteHey Saarah,
ReplyDeleteI really love your lesson plan, and especially like the idea of a primary source gallery. It's something I would love to implement in my future classes, and the question you posed for students--"How does race relate to individuals across the United States?" is great. I think my only advice is that I would be prepared to stay flexible, because it is likely that students will have a lot to say on the topic, including personal and individual accounts, which should by all means be validated. I would also suggest what other people have talked about, which is maybe try frontloading a bit on what race actually IS (a social construct? biologically determined?)as --this will likely be a source of hot debate). So, in short, I think you should perhaps consider stretching this lesson out a little bit, or splitting it up into two parts. Hope that makes sense!