As I see it, we have a problem with education in general. It is called content-based instruction and it is what most of us grew up on. The basic issue I have with content-based instruction is that it contains content-based lesson plans which, among other things, do not consider the situation under which the teacher is to facilitate learning the content. The resultant fundamental (and fatal) flaw is that content-based instruction attempts to impart information (knowledge?) without taking into account either what the students already know or at what level they know anything at all.
We often assume that if a topic is “covered,” students then “know it.” “Listen to me now and believe what I say.” And, “My knowledge and wisdom will make you smarter, successful, intelligent, respected. I will present you with information, your job is to absorb what I teach.” In essence, traditional, content-based instruction places the onus of any skill-building on the shoulders of students. Teachers remain at the lower end of Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy – simple data and procedures.
A standards-based lesson plan, on the other hand, places the instruction of skills above the lectures of “experts in the field.” We want students to do for themselves rather than train them to become dependent upon someone else to tell them ground truth. We don’t want to give them a fish. We want to teach them how to fish.
The primary element of a lesson plan is the content standard (or skill), whether CCSS, CRS, ILS or whatever. This is the learning objective. There are the prerequisite skills which belong in the lesson plan and there are the fundamental learning activities which have been deliberately selected for skill-building and problem-solving within the parameters of the basic content standard. Within the lesson there will discussion points and discussion topics. There are strategically placed formative assessments. There are decision points based upon these formative assessments which tell us what we want to do if the students “don’t get it” or how to proceed if ≥80% do. And of course, there is the summative assessment. That’s about it.
The difficulty in writing a standards-based lesson plan has three aspects. As simple as writing one sounds, the degree to which the relatively intuitive components are put together requires a plan in which they are all simultaneously active. This may be why content-based instruction is most pleasing to traditional minded teachers. Content-based instruction does not require the extensive planning because it is linear. Linear progression in this case is two dimensional. How simple is that? Standards-based instruction is more on the order of five or six dimensional.
The second difficulty has much to do with content-based resources. Content-based resources are so integral they often will determine what content students are exposed to and select what they will learn relative to the discipline. Student choice does not exist here. This is a critical aspect of standards-based instruction which traditional teachers too often misunderstand in their critique of SBI. In teaching skills and standards of performance within a discipline, teachers rely on relevant and accessible information within the content area, whether that is science, literacy, mathematics or anything. Remember, however, we are not giving students a fish, we are teaching them how to fish. To extend the metaphor, there are many aspects of fishing, such as knot tying, metallurgy, or meteorology, which could be part of it. Content resources are crucial to contextual relevance. Contextual relevance is crucial to understanding.
Context is exceedingly relevant to the child. Let us suppose we are going to teach someone how to fish. Will we be trying to catch brook trout or ocean halibut or something in between? Are we spear fishing or fly fishing? Do we use a boat and nets or a boat and a rod and reel or no boat at all? The content must be relevant to the skill and the skill has to be relevant to the students.
A third difficulty with standards-based instruction is difficult to the nth degree. The third difficulty is the pupil population – the students, themselves. Regardless of what anyone says, every student is different from every other student. Any teacher who tells you that they’re all the same is not doing his/her job. It is critical to know who they are as individuals, what their individual skill sets consist of, and where they get their motivation (or lack thereof). This is why data-driven instruction is so critical. We, as teachers, have to know what the students know. As often as not, students either don’t know what they’re capable of or they’re unwilling to tell us. They also forget what they’ve been exposed to if it has not been reinforced sufficiently.
The traditional teacher might just need a class roster, a room assignment, and a content textbook (teacher’s edition, of course). A standards-based teacher needs to know who his or her students are. What are their skills? What are their skill levels? How did they perform (what did they achieve) last year? On what skills were they assessed? Data is so critical that without it, you might just as well start at the beginning of your content-based textbook and see how far you can get by the end of the school year. You must know your students. Know what they’re actually learning, not what they’re “doing.” Track their progress. Individually.
Before we begin the actual lesson planning, be have to clear up the idea of content, content standards and content-based instruction. There is a requirement in all instruction, no matter what philosophical or theoretical bent you prefer, to include content. There simply has to be something of substance to manipulate. There is sometimes a misunderstanding when we juxtapose standards-based instruction (SBI) with content-based instruction (CBI) that SBI cannot or does not contain or permit content and CBI cannot teach standards – that content and standards are mutually exclusive. They are not. In fact, neither could exist without the other. SBI and CBI differ entirely on central focus and goal.
It is an important distinction to remember. Neither SBI nor CBI can possibly be effective without content and performance standards, respectively. When creating a standards-based lesson plan, content is the instrument through which the skills are taught. It must be chosen carefully for relevance to both the student and the standard within the course discipline. As students learn content skills there must exist a synergistic relationship between both what they can do with the material and the material as it represents deeper understanding of the subject matter.
A good lesson plan (such as the 5-phase SBI lesson planning process) takes into account myriad aspects of course content, academic skills, student cognitive development, and teacher capacity. It begins with a simple premise: the students for whom the lesson is planned are not yet proficient but are capable of learning the skill (performance standard) undertaken within the lesson, itself. It is best to begin with a single skill (or content standard, the terms are virtually synonymous ) but may encompass multiple standards with project-based instruction. We must understand that, although we may be creating a lesson plan for a single skill, proficiency at any level requires the incorporation of many subordinate skills. Indeed, the students must be ready to learn a skill at an appropriate level based upon their own current expertise and cognitive development level.
How do teachers know what skills to instruct and at what levels? Teachers have to be knowledgeable of student performance data. Thus, teachers are not only experts in their content area, they are data managers. They draw the fine line between what students are capable of doing and what they’re capable of learning. Without begrudging teachers their expertise within their respective content areas, the most crucial, yet the most often overlooked, aspect here is the student and his capacity for learning. A traditionalist may focus on the material. But for students to learn how to do for themselves, we must focus our instruction on their skills with the materials and what new things they can do with it.