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1	Planning Instruction With Proficiency Scales

When planning instruction within a standards-based learning environment, it is important for teachers to understand that the focus of instruction will evolve from a content-centered approach to one that develops student knowledge and abilities on the standards. Instead of forming the knowledge the student will need to acquire throughout the unit, the content is now the vehicle that drives student knowledge and skills development. Proficiency scales serve as a starting point to develop a plan that guides student growth on the standards.

This chapter provides teachers with a comprehensive understanding of how to create and use proficiency scales in a standards-based environment. It will explain how teachers can plan instruction by prioritizing standards, assessing students’ initial placement with a preassessment, and creating well-sequenced unit and lesson plans. This process is easily adapted to any instructional framework the teacher may be using.

Identifying Priority and Supporting Standards

Before discussing proficiency scales in detail, we should define the terms priority and supporting standards. Educators are tasked with teaching a large array of state standards, but a quick examination of these standards by an experienced teacher reveals that not all of these standards are of equal importance. Marzano (2003) has shown that there is insufficient instructional time in the K–12 years to bring all students to proficiency on every required state standard. Teachers must thus determine the priority of standards so that they can focus their instructional time on those standards identified as essential to a particular class or grade level. The remaining standards, which educators still teach but for which students may or may not reach proficiency, are identified as supporting standards.

In general, districts provide teachers tasked with implementing standards-based learning in their classrooms with lists of priority standards. If it is necessary to go through the process of identifying priority standards, more information about this process can be found in A School Leader’s Guide to Standards-Based Grading (Heflebower, Hoegh, & Warrick, 2014).

It is important to note that priority standards are the ones on which teachers focus instruction, assessment, and feedback in standards-based learning. Supporting standards are still taught, and may or may not be assessed, but the priority standards are the basis of assessing and reporting student performance. Thus, because teachers need proficiency scales for planning and delivering instruction, creating assessments, and reporting progress, we will create proficiency scales only for priority standards. Proficiency scales are usually not needed for supporting standards.

Understanding Proficiency Scales

Standards-based learning emerges from a teacher’s thorough understanding of the concept of proficiency scales (first created by Robert J. Marzano; for more information see Marzano, 2006). In essence, a proficiency scale defines a learning progression or set of learning goals for a specific topic, relative to a given standard. It shows teachers and students what proficiency looks like, what knowledge and skills students need to achieve proficiency, and how students might go beyond proficiency. See figure 1.1 for the generic form of a proficiency scale.

Source: © 2007 by Marzano & Associates; Marzano, 2010, p. 45.

Figure 1.1: Generic form of a proficiency scale.

Score 3.0 is the heart of the proficiency scale; it defines the target content that teachers expect all students to know and be able to do. When creating a proficiency scale, teachers place the standard or other statement of expectations at score 3.0. Score 2.0 describes simpler content—the foundational knowledge and skills that students will need to master before progressing to proficiency. This often includes vocabulary and basic facts. Score 4.0 provides students the opportunity to go above and beyond expectations by applying their knowledge in new situations or demonstrating understanding beyond what the teacher teaches in class. Score 1.0 and score 0.0 do not involve specific content. Score 1.0 indicates that a student can demonstrate some knowledge or skill with help from the teacher, but not independently. Score 0.0 means that, even with help, a student cannot show any understanding. Figure 1.2 depicts a sample proficiency scale as a teacher might use it in a classroom—with specific content for a certain topic and grade level.

Source: Adapted from Marzano, Norford, Finn, & Finn, 2017, p. 29.

Figure 1.2: Proficiency scale for a fifth-grade science topic.

The scale in figure 1.2 defines a learning progression for the fifth-grade science topic of material properties. Score 3.0 describes the learning target that all students have to reach, score 2.0 describes foundational vocabulary and processes, and score 4.0 describes an advanced task. In some scales, score 4.0 may simply state that students will demonstrate in-depth inferences and applications, rather than specifying a task.

The scale in figure 1.2 also includes half-point scores. This helps teachers measure student knowledge more precisely and helps students see their progress and inspires them to keep working. Students who receive a half-point score have demonstrated knowledge that is between two levels. Score 3.5 means that a student has demonstrated proficiency and had partial success with advanced content, score 2.5 means that a student has mastered the simpler content and demonstrated some understanding of the target content, and so on.

In a standards-based learning environment, proficiency scales form the basis of instruction, assessment, feedback, and grading. Teachers deliver instruction based on the expectations and progressions that proficiency scales define. Assessments align with scales, and students receive feedback on their performance that clearly describes where they are on the scale. Teachers report grades on the four-point scale. The proficiency scale forms the foundation for a consistent system centered around student learning. Principal William Barnes describes proficiency scales and their impact in his school:

In our standards-based grading system, standards outline what students should learn, and our scales clearly define what students need to know and be able to do to achieve each level of knowledge. Since these standards and scales inform our grades and form the foundations of our courses, it is much easier to purposefully align our whole instructional system. The activities and assessments that represent the day-to-day work in our classes are aligned to the standards and scales, so teachers and students are able to communicate progress and learning in a clear and concise way. This results in a much richer understanding of where gaps in learning exist, while also providing an opportunity for teachers to push students who are more advanced in their learning. (Personal communication, January 19, 2018)

Since teachers share proficiency scales with students throughout instruction, these scales become the common language surrounding everything that happens in the classroom. This has the added advantage of connecting students and teachers with the learning that will occur across the unit, raising students’ ability to understand the relevance of each lesson, activity, assignment, and assessment in the unit. The scale becomes the centerpiece of communication and understanding in the classroom, as well as the common language for discussing learning between teacher and student (see figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3: The role of the proficiency scale in classroom communication and understanding.

Given this understanding of the proficiency scale and its role as the basis of instruction, assessment, feedback, and grading, we will now discuss how teachers can adapt the standards-based paradigm to their desired teaching framework. The following section will discuss how to plan standards-based instruction using The New Art and Science of Teaching framework and how this method can be adapted to other teaching frameworks the teacher may be using.

Planning Standards-Based Instruction

Teachers new to standards-based learning may find a focus on the standards rather than content to be uncomfortable at first. Traditionally, the sequence of presenting content to students has been the guide for instructional planning. As teachers consider the planning process for standards-based learning, the content moves into a secondary position. That content will still be there, and likely in much the same sequence. But the starting place for planning instruction will be the priority standards and their associated proficiency scales.

Further, no matter what instructional framework a teacher uses, he or she can adopt standards-based instruction to the framework requirements. There are multiple frameworks available to teachers, including:

• Danielson Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2007)

• ADDIE model (www.instructionaldesign.org/models/addie.html)

• The Dick and Carey Method (Kurt, n.d.)

• Madeline Hunter’s Instructional Theory Into Practice (Wilson, n.d.)

• Marzano’s (2017) The New Art and Science of Teaching framework

• The Framework for Intentional and Targeted Teaching (FIT Teaching™; Fisher, Frey, & Hite, 2016)

While some of these frameworks put the teacher’s focus more at the lesson level than the unit level, in a standards-based classroom, students make gains in knowledge and skills across large units of instruction. Thus, in a standards-based classroom, the focus of the teacher in matching an instructional framework to a set of priority standards is to design instruction that starts where the students’ knowledge and abilities are on the standard and ends with proficiency on those standards. For example, in the Danielson framework (Danielson, 2007), a teacher designing a standards-based unit will address the role of standards throughout Domain 1: Planning and Preparation, as well as specifically in Domain 3: Instruction. For the purposes of this book, we will use The New Art and Science of Teaching framework as the example, but the cognitive processes involved in designing standards-based learning work equally well within any applicable instructional framework.

Through the lens of The New Art and Science of Teaching framework, we will now discuss sequencing standards within the unit, creating the unit plan, and differentiating with response to intervention (RTI).

Sequencing Standards in the Unit

In the shift to standards-based learning, teachers discover quickly that unit plans are the focus of understanding the development of the priority standards’ knowledge and skills. While lesson planning remains important, and teachers use instructional strategies at the lesson level, the vision of student learning should start at the unit level.

Traditionally, units have been the logical way in which teachers break down content into small chunks that they can teach and assess. In a standards-based system, units function in the same way, though the purpose is to break down the development of the knowledge and skills that the standards require into smaller segments. An example may help clarify this idea.

Consider an English language arts (ELA) teacher planning the sequence of units for a year of eighth-grade ELA. Traditionally, there are large categories of content that she will teach, such as writing, reading, vocabulary, grammar, and perhaps some other important content. In a traditional approach, there are a number of ways in which to group this content. One effective way is to organize the content by theme, allowing the teacher to group works of literature by large thematic categories and to connect writing instruction and vocabulary to that literature study. Grammar will find its way in, perhaps with the literature or writing, or perhaps as a separate chunk of content done each week through the year. Another way to traditionally group the content is by genre. This has the advantage of sequencing the literature in terms of its challenge for students. In this case, the teacher would likely start with less challenging forms of literature, such as the short story, and then proceed to larger, more challenging works. Drama might follow, then the novel, and finally the most challenging form, poetry. Writing, vocabulary, and grammar would accompany this general sequence. Either approach, or another based on sequencing literature or writing, would be effective.

Turning to a standards-based approach, the first step the teacher would take is to start with the standards. ELA standards are grouped by strand, and these strands often include reading literary texts, reading informational texts, writing, speaking and listening, language instruction (including grammar), and, depending on the grade level, additional standards concerning research methods. In considering a logical sequencing of these standards, teachers face much the same problem as exists with sequencing the content. However, important to the task is the desire to present students with a logical sequence of increasingly challenging standards.

In the traditional approach, the teacher selects one of the larger content groups to drive the curriculum sequence. This is, in the case of this eighth-grade teacher, either literature (reading) or writing. Either will work. In the two previously mentioned descriptions, she chose literature as the “spine” around which the sequence of all content revolved. A teacher approaching the problem of sequencing in her own classroom might do much the same thing with the standards. She will choose one strand of standards to sequence for the year and align the other strands to it. For the purposes of this example, the teacher chooses reading.

There are two major reading strands in ELA: (1) reading of literature and (2) reading of informational text. This represents two choices: the teacher can (1) sequence the strands or (2) combine them. For example, consider the following two typical third-grade state standards for ELA—the first for literary texts and the second for informational texts—noting that they are exactly the same.

1. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

2. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Although the teacher can apply the standards to different content, she knows the similarities within the standards far outweigh the differences. So, it is likely she would choose to work on both those strands simultaneously across the entire year. From the sequence of those standards, the teacher can connect writing standards, speaking and listening, language, and the rest to the reading strand. For example, as students build their knowledge and skills in reading texts, both literary and informational, teachers can infuse the development of writing, vocabulary, and grammar, as well as speaking and listening skills, within the activities and assessments for the development of reading skills. This means that, in the previous example involving similar literary reading and informational reading standards, the teacher would likely introduce both types of texts at the same time, working on the common reading skills with both. Thus, reading “drives” the curriculum sequence, but no standards are eliminated.

This now establishes the general sequence of the standards across the school year. Next, the teacher looks at what the standards ask of the teacher and of the student, and she looks for a more specific sequence that allows organization of the content. A review of the reading standards indicates that students will work over an extended period of time on reading and interpreting literary and informational texts. Students will work on the skills all year long even though they are challenging and involve a large amount of content knowledge. This means that the traditional sequence of literature—from less challenging to more challenging, from short story to poetry, or from informational text to persuasive passages—would serve the development of the knowledge and skills that the priority standards in reading require.

The specifics of this example are not that important. The more important issue is the analytical approach to developing the learning that the teacher engages to create the sequence of standards. The particular sequence of standards will vary depending on the content area. Some content areas, such as the ELA example, feature standards that are large and apply throughout the entire school year. Other content areas have standards that are more sequential. In this case, one standard is the basis of another, and instructors need to teach them in that sequence. Here there will be many more standards for the year, but only a few that will be in operation at any given time. When students reach proficiency on a certain standard, the teacher removes it from instruction and replaces it with the next standard in the sequence.

It is at this point that experience teaching the class (or grade level) is invaluable. A knowledge of the students involved in the class or grade level and the challenge the standards represent will allow an experienced teacher to accurately judge the proper sequence. Some schools, departments, or districts already provide a pacing guide or scope and sequence. Such a document may or may not be useful in planning for standards-based instruction. If it was developed with a traditional, content-driven approach, it may not help. Consider that any such document should serve the students’ needs, not the other way around. The teacher may need to revise any documents that do not approach sequencing of instruction from a standards-based approach before the teacher can use them for planning standards-based instruction.

Once the sequencing process is complete, the teacher has a general plan for the year. The next step is to look at specific units of study and plan how to share this journey with the students.

Creating the Unit Plan

When designing a unit plan, teachers must provide students with a series of scaf-folded learning opportunities based on the proficiency scale’s learning progression. Understanding that progression is key to creating an effective unit plan. Also essential to the unit design is a focus on priority standards. The priority standard and its associated proficiency scale provide both the teacher and his or her students with the sequence of learning that will guide student growth.

Early in the unit, the focus should be on establishing a solid foundation of the prerequisite knowledge and skills for the priority standard. Focus will then shift to moving past those basics, identifying learning targets that represent the steps in achieving proficiency on the priority standard. At some point in the unit, the teacher will present students with the opportunity to operate both at and beyond the standard. The proficiency scale clearly presents this progression of learning. Obviously, instruction and learning activities will be different at higher and higher levels of the proficiency scale. Students require more direct instruction as they deal with basic knowledge and skills, and they can handle more independent learning opportunities as they achieve and exceed proficiency.

Moving students to and beyond the standard is an important consideration when planning a unit. In a traditional system, teachers facing large amounts of content often feel bound by having to move forward to “cover the content” or “make it through the textbook.” In a standards-based system, where the focus moves from covering content to developing student knowledge and abilities as the standards guide, the teacher’s task is to help every student reach proficiency on every priority standard. Teachers must find how every student can reach proficiency on the priority standards. By carefully selecting priority standards and spending the instructional time to help students reach proficiency and beyond, teachers will provide their students with a deep understanding of the important material. Some content will have to go to make room for this kind of instruction, but the result will be deeper-thinking students who appreciate what they have learned.

Types of Lessons

In order to link the proficiency scale with requisite instructional strategies to operationalize this learning progression, it is useful to identify several different types of lessons students will experience throughout the unit. Marzano’s (2017) The New Art and Science of Teaching is the basis of the descriptions of lesson types here. Marzano (2017) identifies four types of lessons and associated activities.

1. Direct instruction (DI) lessons: When students experience new content, teachers often use instructional strategies that they might describe as direct instruction. In direct instruction lessons, teachers will do many of the things good teachers have been doing for years when they share new content with their students: they identify the important information, chunk the content, provide opportunities for students to process that content, and process the information. Teachers are often in front of the class and leading students through the content by directly presenting it in a direct instruction lesson.

2. Practicing and deepening (PD) lessons: Once students have a good grasp on the new content, teachers ask them to engage in activities that deepen their understanding and abilities with that content. Instructional strategies in practicing and deepening lessons are different than when introducing new content and asking students to engage in high-level critical thinking. A few examples include examining similarities and differences, examining errors in reasoning, or using structured practice sessions.

3. Knowledge application (KA) lessons: Lessons at this level require students to apply their deep understanding of the knowledge or skills that the priority standard requires in ways that direct instruction lessons or practicing and deepening lessons aren’t normally asking. At this level, the teacher’s role shifts to facilitator of the learning, and students often work independently on activities such as problem solving, creating and defending claims, investigating, conducting experimental inquiry, and the like.

4. Strategies that appear in all (All) lessons: Teachers use some important instructional strategies at every level of instruction. These include strategies such as previewing, highlighting critical information, reviewing, revising knowledge, reflecting on learning, using purposeful homework, elaborating on information, and organizing students to interact. While these strategies may be less likely to define a particular type of lesson in the sequence of developing understanding and ability in the standards, they will be present in the plan.

Figure 1.4 links Marzano’s (2017) four types of lessons with the levels of a proficiency scale.

Source: Marzano, 2017.

Figure 1.4: Lesson types and the proficiency scale.

Although there are exceptions to the relationship this chart depicts, direct instruction lessons, dealing as they do with new content, will occur most often when teachers are dealing with score 2.0 content, and with the initial instruction to score 3.0 content. Once students arrive at score 3.0, teachers move quickly away from direct instruction lessons to practicing and deepening lessons, since these lessons advance the level of rigorous understanding students have of the knowledge and skills that the standards require. Finally, although teachers don’t share content labeled as score 4.0 (by definition, score 4.0 has students operating beyond what is taught in class), students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate ability at score 4.0 by experiencing knowledge application lessons, featuring instructional activities that are often student-driven and that require students to apply their deep understanding of score 3.0 content in unique circumstances they have not encountered before.

Sequence of Lessons in the Unit

In linking the proficiency scale to a unit plan, teachers will sequence the type of lessons and their associated content to gradually move students along the learning progression depicted in the proficiency scale. Early on in the unit, students will need work at level 2.0 on the proficiency scale in order to understand and process new information. Eventually, the teacher moves them to level 3.0 activities and offers the opportunity for them to work beyond level 3.0. This provides a logical sequence of activities connected to the learning progression found in the proficiency scale, and that means students are working toward, and possibly beyond, proficiency on a priority standard. Consider the eighth-grade ELA teacher who is working with a standard on identifying theme or central idea of a literary or informational text. One important task for the teacher to consider as she begins the process of creating a unit plan for a priority standard is to consider what proficiency means for the standard. After some thought, the teacher may produce—or have given to her—a proficiency scale for this standard as follows (figure 1.5).

Source: Adapted from Marzano, Yanoski, Hoegh, & Simms, 2013, p. 89.Source for standards: Adapted from National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers (NGA & CCSSO), 2010a.

Figure 1.5: Eighth-grade ELA proficiency scale.

In the case of figure 1.5, the standard falls at score 3.0 and requires students to be proficient in two tasks: (1) analyzing a grade-level-appropriate text for theme or central idea using specific criteria, and (2) objectively summarizing a grade-level-appropriate text. There are two separate learning targets for the score 3.0 performance on this standard. In order for students to achieve proficiency on this standard, they must be able to do both tasks competently and consistently. It is likely that teachers will instruct to both learning targets in a unit on this standard, though there might be instances where they would not teach these two learning targets simultaneously. So, one consideration in designing the unit is sequencing the learning targets. Identifying the learning targets, and their sequence for instruction, is an important first step before teachers can consider the sequence of lessons that they will teach.

Further, teachers should consider the relationship between score 2.0 performance and score 3.0 performance. Score 3.0 contains two learning targets; there are three additional learning targets at score 2.0. The three additional targets are the following.

1. Student will recognize or recall specific vocabulary such as analyze, central idea, character, development, objective, plot, relationship, setting, summarize, summary, supporting detail, text, and theme.

2. Student will perform basic processes such as determining a theme or central idea of a grade-level-appropriate text (RL.8.2, RI.8.2; NGA & CCSSO, 2010a).

3. Student will perform basic processes such as summarizing a grade-level-appropriate text using a teacher-provided graphic organizer (RL.8.2, RI.8.2; NGA & CCSSO, 2010a).

The vocabulary learning target is a vital first step to score 3.0 performance. These are important terms for students to understand if they are to analyze the development of theme or central idea. The relationship between the score 2.0 learning target on summarizing a text and the score 3.0 target on the same topic is clear. Students will start by learning to summarize a text using a teacher-provided graphic organizer and then proceed to independence in performing this process.

The relationship between the learning targets regarding theme or central idea analysis at the 2.0 and the 3.0 scores is somewhat less clear. At score 2.0 the learning target requires students to determine theme or central idea for a grade-level-appropriate text, whereas at score 3.0 students must analyze theme or central idea in a grade-level-appropriate text. Consider the difference between the act of determining and the act of analyzing. Objectively, these verbs present different processes, but an important consideration is what is different for the student. In other words, what is going on inside the student’s mind at score 2.0, and how is it different at score 3.0? In determining theme or central idea, students apply a process that one can define in a series of steps. Certainly, students will need to look at important elements of a text, including characterization, plot element sequence, setting, and specific details, but the mental process consists of applying a series of clearly defined steps in order to simply determine theme or central idea. Analysis implies a higher level of critical thinking. In this case, the student may rely on a learned process but must think through a broader set of evidence, some of which may appear to conflict with other evidence, looking for and determining the effect of patterns across an entire text. Further, although each learning target applies to a grade-level-appropriate text, at score 2.0 it is likely students would receive shorter, less-challenging passages of text as they learn to determine theme or central idea. At score 3.0, students might be engaging with longer texts, perhaps full-length short stories or poems, where they must engage with much more complex evidence, and potentially multiple and even conflicting themes. Thus, in truly analyzing for theme or central idea, the student’s mental process represents a much more strenuous engagement with the text and its evidence.

A further consideration is what student performance at score 4.0 would resemble. As previously stated, students are not actually taught content that represents score 4.0 but receive opportunities to perform at score 4.0. An example follows, but at this stage consider that a student working on this standard would most likely exceed proficiency only on the learning target regarding analysis for theme or central idea. The other learning target—summarizing a grade-level-appropriate text—is inherently limited in scope, and the student’s mental state would be approximately the same as he or she summarizes any grade-level-appropriate text. It is possible to exceed proficiency by applying summary to a beyond-grade-appropriate text. But consider how a student might exceed proficiency on the learning target involving analysis of theme or central idea.

Students performing at score 4.0 will demonstrate “in-depth inferences and applications that go beyond what was taught in class.” Score 4.0 performance becomes a measure of the qualitative difference between analysis at the 3.0 score and analysis at 4.0. At score 4.0, the student might apply analysis of additional literary devices, perhaps ones that are beyond grade level (for example, tone). Or the student might do an exceptionally perceptive analysis of the grade-appropriate text, in which the reasoning is much deeper and more accurate than performance at score 3.0. It is also possible that the student can apply analysis to challenging texts beyond grade level.

Taking into account the analysis of the proficiency scale for eighth-grade ELA theme and central idea, the following unit plan (figure 1.6) is one way in which a teacher can sequence the types of lessons to provide learning opportunities for her students. Where applicable, we indicate in this figure which activities are connected to specific levels of the proficiency scale. Some aspects of the plan (for example, sharing the scale and learning target) are not specific to a scale level so no level is indicated. (For additional information, see The New Art and Science of Teaching, Marzano, 2017.)

Source: Adapted from Marzano, 2017, pp. 107–108.

Figure 1.6: Sample unit plan for theme and central idea.

A quick review of this unit plan reveals the lesson sequence’s logic. Starting with the score 2.0 content from the proficiency scale, vocabulary terms and prerequisite knowledge and processes such as the ability to summarize the text with a teacher-provided graphic organizer and a process for determining theme or central idea, students progress through the content of score 3.0 and receive the opportunity to perform at score 4.0. The speed at which this progress occurs is less important than the sequence. Perhaps this same unit might occur across twenty instructional days instead of eleven.

Also note that the unit plan does not identify specific content to teach. It will become important to align specific passages of text with each instructional activity and homework assignment, but the content will merely support the unit plan’s sequence of instruction to the standard and its learning targets.

Further, note how often assessment, in various forms, takes place. In an eleven-day period, five assessments occur. Some of these assessments are informal student self-assessments, but these give important instructional feedback to the teacher and the students, indicating how the students perceive their own progress toward the learning targets. The formal assessments provide the teacher with the opportunity to use the information from these assessments formatively, deciding whether to continue with the unit plan as initially sketched, or to make adjustments, returning to content students have yet to master, reteaching as needed and so forth.

In summary, we define the process for sequencing a unit plan in this manner as a series of four steps.

1. The teacher identifies the priority standard and associated scale that he or she will teach during the unit of instruction. (This can be more than one priority standard. For purposes of explaining the process, we limit the example here to a single standard, but with multiple standards the process is the same. Instruction to each standard is integrated throughout the unit plan.)

2. The teacher reviews the proficiency scale to be clear about the learning progression from score 2.0 to score 3.0 and on to score 4.0. The teacher identifies the number of learning targets at each score of the scale.

3. The teacher proceeds to build the unit plan day by day, including:

► Adapting the sequence of lessons to scaffold learning through the scale’s scores

► Making frequent reference (often) to the learning goals and the proficiency scale

► Discussing how homework will play a role in supporting the unit’s learning progression

► Giving assessments often enough for students and teachers to use the results of the assessments formatively

4. The teacher reviews the unit plan and makes adjustments.

It is also true that the teacher should ask students to progress as rapidly as possible through the scaffolded learning. Expect faster progress than has been seen in a traditional approach in the past, since the focus of instruction is narrower with standards-based learning. At the same time, as always, the teacher should be sure to provide sufficient learning experiences for students to make progress before he or she asks students to perform at the next score level of the learning target. Developing a “feel” for the pace of instruction takes time. Teachers should make informed decisions early on but be ready to do some adjusting in the first few units taught in this manner.

For an example of how the same process can be applied at the elementary level, please see appendix B (page 145). This appendix illustrates the creation of a unit plan for a second-grade mathematics unit.

The logical and straightforward process for creating unit plans presented thus far in the chapter can be applied to multiple different teaching frameworks and templates that teachers may already be using in their classrooms. The following section presents an example of adapting the previously presented standards-based method of unit design to a sample planning template.

Using a Planning Template

A well-organized template that captures the unit designer’s thinking as the unit plan is developed can aid not only the teacher doing the design but also teachers who may review or use the unit plan later. The example that follows (see figure 1.7) is a modification of a template developed by Uinta County School District #1 in Wyoming. This template uses the four questions central to the PLC process (DuFour & Marzano, 2011, pp. 22–23) as a starting point, with the addition of an important question for planning: “How will teachers facilitate the learning?” In following the sequence of these PLC questions, the teacher addresses each aspect of curriculum and instruction necessary to meet the needs of all students.

Source: © 2017 by Uinta County School District #1. Used with permission.

Figure 1.7: Sample planning template.

A quick review of this template will demonstrate how the information developed through the four-step process mentioned previously (page 22) can be used to complete the template. PLC questions one and two are directed toward identifying the specific state (or provincial) standards that teachers will address in the unit and determining the assessment methods that will measure student progress toward, and past, proficiency. In the case of this template, state- and district-level assessments are cited; the teacher could also substitute specific assessments their students will take or simply use classroom teacher-designed or common assessments. The template then includes a sample proficiency scale, which teachers can use as the basis for the answer to the planning question. In answering this question, the teacher would include the sequencing of lessons as outlined in the unit plan example mentioned previously (see figure 1.6, page 19), using the proficiency scale as the basis for that design. Question three requires teachers to consider how they will respond when student learning has stalled, and question four considers what will happen to students who have reached proficiency while the unit is still underway—this is essentially level 4.0 on the standard.

In using a version of this template, we can include the planning from our previously provided example of the eighth-grade ELA teacher designing a unit on theme or central idea (see figure 1.6, page 19). The completed template might look like the example in figure 1.8.

Source: © 2017 by Uinta County School District #1. Used with permission. Source for standards: Adapted from National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers (NGA & CCSSO), 2010a.

Figure 1.8: Sample completed unit design template.

In adapting the planning work from our example to this template, for PLC question one, “What do we want all students to know and be able to do?” we have included the priority standard in two learning targets. It is possible that we could have added some supporting standards, though in this case we have chosen not to. Supporting standards receive instruction but would likely not be assessed, though their role in any given unit is an important consideration, and the template can prompt the teacher to think through that issue. We have recorded the previous and the next grade-level standards, looking at the logical progression of skills from year to year. In this case, the previous and next grade-level standards are very similar, but in many cases the standards are substantially different and teachers should consider the learning progression on the specific skills and content in the standard. Next, we have translated each of the learning targets into language the teacher can use in the classroom with students and identified one potential way in which a student might demonstrate proficiency on these targets. Finally, we have broken down the level 2.0 content on academic vocabulary into two categories: (1) key vocabulary terms which might be defined as those that are absolutely essential to proficiency on the standard, and (2) scaffolded academic vocabulary, those important terms that are covered and learned by students at level 2.0 but are often a review of terms learned in prior units or years of instruction.

For PLC question two, “How will we know when students have learned?” the template directs the teacher to identify possible sources of assessment data. In the case of our example, the assessments will be teacher-created, but it is equally possible that there may be state- or district-level assessments that will provide data on student performance on this priority standard. The template requires the teacher to consider each of those possibilities.

Next, we include the proficiency scale we have been working from to design the learning for this unit. The next question, “How will teachers facilitate the learning?” allows the teacher to input the specific daily lesson activities developed when creating the unit plan, and here we capture both the learning progression inspired by the proficiency scale as well as the sequence of assessments that permit the teacher to make formative judgments about student progress as the learning develops. In the process of adding those specific activities, the template asks the teacher to consider supporting resources, like the textbook or close reading passages, that the teacher may commonly use each year in instruction. Additionally, the teacher considers any digital tools that may be appropriate for this unit. In our example, there are no additional resources.

The last two questions—“What will we do when students have not learned?” and “What will we do when students have learned?”—are vital considerations when creating a unit. We have built in opportunities for intervention on the unit plan we created, so these find their place in the template under the question about what to do when students have not learned. (Additional discussion of intervention methods can be found in the following section, Differentiation With Response to Intervention.) We have also considered learning opportunities for those students who move beyond proficiency in the form of the knowledge application lesson from days seven through eleven, and this provides an effective answer to the question of what to do with students who already have learned the material and are at or above the standard.

Thus, whether teachers plan with a template or simply by applying the four-step process outlined in this chapter, planning in standards-based learning involves considering each student’s learning needs for the unit ahead. Unlike traditional planning, standards-based learning starts with the standard as the centerpiece of the learning, and from there the teacher aligns the content to the learning progression on the standard.

Differentiating With Response to Intervention

Even in the planning stage, teachers need to consider what to do when students do not progress to proficiency in the expected manner, and when some students are ready to do higher-level work while others are still working on the basics at score 2.0 and lower. Response to intervention (RTI) provides a framework for considering these possibilities. Thus, a quick review of the basics of RTI is in order.

RTI is available for all students, not just those who are in need of intervention. Although the RTI model provides intervention options at three different tiers, and teachers must access these, as needed, to do everything possible to help struggling students, it also suggests the need for intervention for those students who are ready to move beyond the limitations of proficiency on the standard, as represented by score 3.0 on the proficiency scale. For those students, true differentiation in the classroom may offer a solution.

To review the basics of RTI, consider the three tiers of intervention. Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, and Janet Malone (2018) state:

The pyramid is commonly separated into tiers: Tier 1 represents core instruction, Tier 2 represents supplemental interventions, and Tier 3 represents intensive student supports. The pyramid is wide at the bottom to represent the instruction that all students receive. As students demonstrate the need for additional support, they receive increasingly more targeted and intensive help. Because timely supplemental interventions should address most student needs when they are first emerging, fewer students fall significantly below grade level and require the intensive services Tier 3 offers, creating the tapered shape of a pyramid. (p. 2)

The tiers are traditionally represented in the form of a pyramid, as shown in figure 1.9.

Source: Buffum, Mattos, & Malone, 2018, p. 2.

Figure 1.9: Traditional RTI pyramid.

Buffum et al. (2018) continue:

With this approach, the school begins the intervention process assuming that every student is capable of learning at high levels, regardless of his or her home environment, ethnicity, or native language. Because every student does not learn the same way or at the same speed, or enter school with the same prior access to learning, the school builds tiers of additional support to ensure every student’s success. The school does not view these tiers as a pathway to traditional special education but instead as an ongoing process to dig deeper into students’ individual needs. (p. 19)

Moving students to a score 4.0 activity approximately halfway through the unit raises the concern for those students who have yet to master score 2.0 or score 3.0 content, or both. It will often be true that not all students in the class will be ready to take on highlevel work at the same time. Teachers should include those students who can benefit from participating in the knowledge application activity. Knowledge application activities are student centered; the teacher’s role shifts toward facilitation. This means that while the teacher introduces the activity and monitors student progress as the activity goes forward, for much of the time during which the knowledge application activity is proceeding, the teacher is available for one-to-one remedial instruction with students who require it. The classroom becomes truly differentiated for a short period of time, providing a range of activities to meet students’ individual needs.

Summary

Teachers shifting to standards-based instruction from a traditional approach will find significant adjustments when planning instruction. Planning will begin with an understanding of the priority standards and will focus largely at the unit level. The proficiency scale provides a learning progression on the standards that will allow students to gradually progress to or beyond proficiency on the priority standards. Whether one uses The New Art and Science of Teaching framework or another instructional planning framework or template, sequencing lessons, activities, and assessments using a proficiency scale will provide students with a steady challenge and consistent feedback on their progress toward proficiency.

Now that teachers have planned for instruction, the next chapter will focus on instruction using proficiency scales.