Technology Supporting Standards-Based Instruction

By Mary Odenbach

I teach 9-12 English in a small Wyoming school. My school district is one of 46 in the state that collaborated as an educational consortium to develop fair and reliable assessments that demonstrate student proficiency in core knowledge and skills. These assessments plus other measurements like the state test and other achievement tests, create a Body of Evidence that reveals a clear picture of our students' knowledge and skills. As I understand it, our state chose this path over high-stakes testing. This path has had a profound effect on how I go about teaching. I want to share how I learned to use technology to support a standards-based approach to teaching English.

As a teacher, I value using the Body of Evidence Consortium Activities for several reasons but the main one is that these assessments have focused my teaching. I went from jumping from topic to topic, trying to cover as much material as I could, to purposefully teaching specific, critical knowledge.

Everything I teach is aimed toward a specific goal. This change in my teaching came about through an opportunity I had to participate in the Wyoming Standards Based Schools Institute (WSBSI). This is where I began to understand how to teach in a way that led students to achieve a standard.

Start With the End in Mind

A large part of WSBSI involved creating a unit plan based on the Wyoming Language Arts Standards. One important aspect of this program was to begin with the end in mind: I needed to have a clear picture of where I wanted my students to be, what they needed to know, and the skills they would have to have to get there. This was something new to me. Sometimes I still don't feel like I have a complete understanding of exactly how this works.

The main focus of the Institute was to help participants develop a quality unit that would serve as a model from which to build. I chose a Wyoming Body of Evidence Consortium Activity as the assessment, or end product that would demonstrate the knowledge and skills that I would teach throughout the unit.

As I reflect on the whole unit, I can compare it to a favorite gadget I had as a child. I had a set of screens that I would use to sift sand. A large pile of the finest sand would fall to the bottom, the next screen would catch some small pebbles, and the top would hold a few larger rocks.

As I see it, the sand represents the reading, discussions, daily assignments, practice, and tests. These are the many small tasks that we work on, setting the groundwork for more complex tasks. The pebbles represent the projects that my students completed. These involve analysis and synthesis of concepts we have learned. Fewer, larger tasks are completed at this level. Finally, the few larger rocks at the top of the screen represent the assessment. The skills and knowledge are assessed in a culminating indepth application of all they have learned.

Assessment Activity

I chose the Language Arts Assessment activity called "Words to Live By." For this activity, I asked my ninth-grade students to do the following:

1. Create a list or map of elements of their lives.
2. Identify a set of quotations that reflect their views, interests, and values.
3. Write a personal essay on a theme in their lives that is reflected in a selected quotation or quotations and related to life experiences associated with the selected theme.

Reflecting personal themes in selected quotations and relating them to their own life experiences was the end on which I would focus all my instruction, the activity that would represent meeting the standard.

I chose to approach this assessment through study and discussion of several pieces of literature. I chose literature that I thought would elicit discussion and reflection of personal values, choices, and goals. During the reading and study of this literature, we tried to put ourselves in the positions of the speakers/writers/characters. My goal was to cause students to feel empathy for others. I also hoped this would create an atmosphere of safe self-evaluation, goal setting, and introspection. Along with a variety of activities, I gave daily journal writing topics that focused on those ideas.

The literature I chose represents not only a variety of genres, but also a strong representation of diverse cultures: Chinese, Native American, African American, Mexican, and Jewish. I also chose these because I felt that we could discuss how choices, attitudes, and goals eventually affect everything about the individuals we are, how we live our lives, and the individuals we become. We discussed these ideas in the context of literature and then attempted to transfer those ideas to our own lives.

This is the literature we studied:

• "Rules of the Game," from the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• "The Washwoman," an essay by Isaac Bashevis Singer
• "On Summer," an essay by Lorraine Hansberry
• "A Celebration of Grandfathers," an essay by Rudolfo A. Anaya
• "The Road Not Taken," a poem by Robert Frost
• "New Directions," an essay by Maya Angelou
• "To Be of Use," a poem by Marge Percy
• "I Have a Dream," a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• An excerpt from Rosa Parks: "My Story by Rosa Parks" with Jim Haskins
• "There is a Longing," a poem by Chief Dan George
• "I Hear America Singing," a poem by Walt Whitman

I use the Prentice Hall Literature series, of which these are all a part, but teachers can choose whatever path they wish to get students ready for the assessment. We studied vocabulary, reading strategies, literary terms, and a grammatical concept with each set of readings. I liked this aspect because I didn't have to give up other important concepts that I need to teach. Students also took formative tests during the course of studying the literature and concepts. After the last test, students chose from a list of projects to complete. Student Projects

The required projects were similar to the assessment activities in that they had to find quotes that fit the lives of the speakers in the literature we studied and give reasons why those quotes were suitable for each of the individuals. These were interesting for me to read. I was especially interested in the reasons they gave, since the reasons provided a good indication of how well students understood the selections and how ready they would be for the assessment. Other positive aspects of the projects were that students had freedom to choose the grade they wanted to work toward and they were given some options for completing the project. Once students completed their projects, they presented them to the class.

The first requirement of the assessment was for students to create life maps of elements that made up their lives. We used the software program Inspiration to create the life maps. This program is designed to create several types of graphic organizers and allows students to show their individuality. Students used computers to word-process their work and the Internet to locate quotes that fit their lives.

This entire project was completed during a nine-week period. I was able to work through important content in a way that opened the door for some "life decision" discussions. We were able to discuss some difficult decisions they will be faced with in the near future--things like college, marriage, and facing the consequences of those decisions--but we talked about these in the context of the speakers in the literature. I think this approach created a safe environment where no individual in the classroom was put on the spot to defend a choice. Instead we tried to see life through the speakers' eyes. From the essays the students wrote as the final assessment, I saw a depth of thought and honest voices that are not common in ninth-grade writing.

I have just completed this unit with my current ninth-grade class. Most of the students scored well on their final essays. I have made minor changes in this unit from what I did last year, mainly adding more graphic orga-nizers to my daily lessons. I gained many skills and ideas from participating in WSBSI; it was one of the most valuable professional development experiences I have had.

Effective Technology Integration

Technology enabled my students and me to use time more efficiently than in past years. The students created their life maps using Inspiration, which enabled them to add ideas or change the layout to organize their ideas better without having to start over. On the Internet, the students found a vast number of choices from which to select their quotes. They were able to decide on the ones they wanted fairly quickly. Once they had their ideas placed into graphic organizers, most students word processed their first drafts.

I used a Web-based toolset, called TaskStream, to design my unit plan, create rubrics, and map and track standards. Using the TaskStream account that WSBSI set up for each Institute participant, we were able to communicate with our trainers and receive online feedback on the components of our unit plan as we developed them. Through TaskStream we were able to collaborate with each other to compile and distribute shared curriculum resources. The rubric maker has been an incredible time saver for me. And, I can go back and update the changes I make each year. I would guess that the technology tools my students and I used saved several days' worth of class time.

The Outcome

The final word on the successful completion of the unit comes from my students. I want to share some of their journal entries, projects, and assessments because their own words tell more than I could describe of their understanding of "Words to Live By."

Journal topic: Which of the speaker's feelings in "The Road Not Taken" seem most relevant in your own life?

• The speaker's feeling about not being able to take both paths is relevant to me because I always wonder what it would have been like if I'd done it different.
• The feeling of making choices is the most relevant to my life. But sometimes when I have to make a choice I choose one and then I wish I could have done both.

Quotations that could apply to the writers we studied:

Rosa Parks: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Mahatma Gandhi

I believe that this quote relates to Rosa Parks because she was black and was treated differently among whites. She wanted it to change so she took charge and made herself be the change that she wished to see.

New Directions:

"You have to recognize when the right place and right time fuse and take advantage of that opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can't sit back and wait." -Ellen Metcalf

This relates to "New Directions" because in the story Mrs. Johnson did not like the way her path was headed so she decided to make a new path for herself at the right time and the right place.

Interview and essay on choices made by an adult you know:

Mom has made many important decisions throughout her life... I look up to her for making the decisions, because a lot of them have been very difficult ones. I use to be mad at Mom for making some of the decisions she did, but now I realize that they have been the best choice. I'm very proud of my mom and I want to raise my children just the way she's raised me.

Words To Live By--Quotation chosen by a student:

My freshman football year was an experience with many difficulties that I have had to learn to get through and accept. Albert Schweitzer once quoted, "Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it." I have had to be determined throughout my football season to push aside the stones that lay in my way by myself. Those stones were my lack of physical size, not really liking the game and getting along with teammates who have emotionally changed through the years. All of these problems added up to be one big boulder of my not being able to play. Instead of trying to go around the boulder I made the best out of what I had and conquered my problems. I had to accept the fact that I wasn't going to play and be happy about myself for completing the season and being part of the team.

Conclusion

My school district has made a concerted effort to provide its teachers with current technology and professional development opportunities. I feel that these opportunities have led to successes that rejuvenate my desire to develop research-based teaching strategies and to utilize technology to reach all types of learners.

Mary Odenbach is a high school language arts teacher at Johnson School District #1 in Kaycee, Wyoming. She has been teaching English and Spanish classes at Kaycee Junior/Senior High for 15 years.

For information about the Wyoming Standards-Based Schools Institute please visit http://www.k12.wy.us/ao/c/pubs/hot_topics.pdf

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