Standards-Based Curriculum Design

In the previous section I considered the cultural, historical and

institutional influences at the heart of one particular strand of standards reform and the alignment of these forces to FA and SDT. I will now consider the

processes of how these standards are used within many American international schools which lead to SBGs and SBRCs. While standards represent the key learning criteria of what students should know and be able to do (Guskey et al., 2011), from their onset it was recognized that standards were not a curriculum in and of themselves, but should be used to guide assessments and instruction with the goal of assessments that reflect important learning goals (McLaughlin & Shepard, 1995). Within many American international schools, teachers are expected to take the role of curriculum designers by using standards as the starting point from which they align assessments and daily instruction

(Marzano, Heflebower, Grift, & Warrick, 2016). Many American international schools utilize the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework detailed by Wiggins and McTighe to “backwards design” curriculum from the standards (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). I will now give a brief overview of this process, aided by work from other standards-based researchers. In doing so, my

intention is not to give a detailed explication of UbD and all of its tenets, but to demonstrate that the standards-based curriculum design process used at SIS meets all of the requirements discussed in the previous chapter to allow for traditionally summative mediational means to function formatively.

UbD identifies three key stages within curriculum design. In stage one, teachers use standards to identify desired results from students by the end of the unit (Marzano & Kendall, 1998; Wiggins & McTighe, 2011). Because sets of standards typically include far more learning targets than is possible to reach in any given academic year, an important step for teachers is to identify priority standards within the larger set (Marzano, 2006; Marzano & Haystead, 2008;

McLaughlin & Shepard, 1995). These prioritized standards represent the essential content within a grade level or course that the majority of class time will be spent on (Heflebower et al., 2014; Marzano et al., 2016). If standards are written in such a way that they combine multiple skills, teachers must unpack the standard to identify individual skills, sometimes combining these with similar components found in other standards (Marzano & Haystead, 2008; Wiggins & McTighe, 2012). In stage two, teachers identify which assessments would allow students to show meaningful evidence of that expected learning and then proceed to construct those assessments (Fisher, Frey, & Pumpian, 2011; Wiggins & McTighe, 2011). Once priority standards and corresponding

assessments are selected, teachers can begin to identify criteria levels for these standards within rubrics (Guskey, 2004; Guskey & Bailey, 2001). These rubrics are typically a four level learning progression with the goal for the standard as the third step in the progression, frequently termed “meeting” (Marzano et al., 2016) (see Figure 3.2 below). Because these rubrics are generalized and aligned to priority standards and not detailed to individual assignments, the same rubric can be used in later assignments which address the same standard (Scarlett, 2018; Wiggins & McTighe, 2011). This alignment in rubrics across different assignments allows students to use SBGs from one assignment to guide learning on future assignments encompassing that same standard. Finally, in the last stage, teachers plan daily learning experiences for students with materials which will allow them to develop desired understandings (Heflebower et al., 2014; Wiggins & McTighe, 2011).

Figure 3.2: Rubric Example from Social Studies

Extending Meeting Progressing Beginning

Gather Researched Information

I not only meet standards, but I extend my learning by demonstrating creativity and resourcefulness in collecting evidence beyond what is expected. I gather a varied and sufficient amount of evidence related to my research questions, citing my sources. I gather and cite my evidence, but several pieces of evidence are either unrelated to my research questions, insufficient, or could use more variety. Several pieces of evidence are either unrelated to my research questions, insufficient, or could use more variety; In addition, I do not cite my sources.

By beginning with desired learning outcomes and working backwards to design assessments and learning activities around those standards (Marzano, 1998), the backwards design process ensures meaningful alignment within the curriculum to ensure opportunities for formative feedback which students can apply beyond one particular assignment (Fisher et al., 2011). This deeply criteria-referenced alignment of UbD meets the key requirements for FA/SA mixing discussed in chapter two (Biggs, 1998; Brookhart, 2001). If daily learning activities are not aligned to the larger end of unit assignment, or if that

assignment is not aligned to the standards, FA opportunities are greatly diminished (Wiggins & McTighe, 2011). The changes required within the

backwards design process to implement standards reform are far reaching across curriculum, assessment and instruction. They require teachers to

reconceptualize the way they have traditionally designed curriculum by starting with daily activities and then working up towards end of unit assignments (Scarlett, 2018; Scriffiny, 2008).

The process of curriculum design described in this section requires

teachers to make individual decisions at every step of the process. As such, even though classrooms or schools may use the same set of standards, these standards will never represent a standardized curriculum because context specific