Technology Integration
- Technology connects students with authentic content and communities
- Personalized learning experiences are achieved through a variety of mobile, game-based, or self-directed learning
- Technology creates learning opportunities impossible without it
- Technology is a means, not an end
Cognitive Demand
- Rigor is omnipresent, from bell ringers and quizzes to accountable talk and assessments
- Students generate original ideas from seemingly disparate sources of information
- Students consistently revisit ideas, thinking and general misconceptions (e.g., via digital portfolio)
- Thinking habits are valued over demonstrated “proficiency”
Lesson Planning
- Lesson planning templates serve student thinking, not district “non-negotiables”
- Bloom’s taxonomy (or related learning taxonomies) is/are used to move students from basic to complex thinking daily
- Data is applied immediately and meaningfully to revise planned instruction
- There is clear evidence of backwards design
Assessments
- Transfer is required to prove mastery
- Data is easily extracted and visualized
- The academic standard and assessment form complement one another
- There is opportunity for students to demonstrate what they do know rather than simply succeed or fail in demonstrating what the assessment asks for
Curriculum Mapping
- Curriculum naturally absorbs and adapts to data sources
- Curriculum map is dynamic, changing in response to data and circumstance
- There is clear priority of academic standards (not all standards are created equal)
- There is clear evidence of the Gradual Release of Responsibility model
Learner Choice
- Student questioning–rather than the teacher’s–drives learning
- The ability for self-directed learning extends beyond the topical, to assessment forms, research sources, learning technology, topics, and essential questions
- Learning pathways can be self-directed by ambitious, supported, and/or resourceful students
- Students recognize and can articulate their own role in the learning process at any given time
Classroom Management
- Expectations are clear
- Discipline is a collective effort: peers, colleagues, administration, and family
- Fair doesn’t always mean equal
- “Behavior” starts with self-awareness and self-respect, which must be encouraged and modeled
Student Support
- Students have choice in demonstrating understanding
- There are exemplar models immediately accessible to students of all important work and activities
- Students are accountable to peers, families, organizations, and communities, not you
- Student literacy levels are meaningfully taken into account when planning instruction
Image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad; 32 Characteristics Of A High-Performing Classroom