News and information for staff members and the Madison community
Vol. III No. 4 - April 3, 2008
The Madison School District is making the full transition to a standards-based educational system. Here is the third in a series of articles about a standards-based system, with this one focusing on instruction.
Introduction to a standards-based system... instruction
The Wisconsin Model Academic Standards (WMAS) articulate what students should know and be able to do in each curricular area. Madison Metropolitan School District staff elaborated upon these state standards to frame district curriculum and instruction.
Curriculum is the planned educational experiences taught in each subject area at each grade level. This issue focuses on instruction, which is the action or practice of teaching the curriculum.
Instruction is standards-based when the knowledge and skills that are the primary focus of the lesson support students' continual progress toward meeting the standards.
This article shares an example from language arts to show how instruction in the MMSD is standards-based.
In middle school language arts classrooms, teachers focus instruction in a developmental sequence in the standards of ...
Language arts instruction in the MMSD melds content standards with best practices in literacy instruction. In a standards-based classroom, the objectives of each lesson are clearly communicated, so students are aware and focused on the final outcome of their learning.
During the instructional process, teachers initially model, use shared and guided practice, and ultimately bring students to independent usage of comprehensive literacy skills. Many language arts standards are infused within the development of reading, writing, and speaking, such as fluency, active listening, grammar, inquiry, research skills and literature appreciation.
In reading comprehension and writing development, using a common vocabulary benefits understanding and retention. Writing standards are taught with the common vocabulary and instructional framework of 6 + 1 TraitsŪ of Writing. Students learn how to develop writing for ideas and content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation. They use the recursive writing processes of pre-writing, drafting, conferencing, revising, editing, publishing and sharing.
Comprehension strategy instruction is a common thread used in teaching the reading standards. Students learn to make connections, question, visualize, infer, determine importance, synthesize and use fix-up strategies as needed to understand increasingly more complex text.
Additional information about MMSD Language Arts instruction is available by clicking here.
Future articles about standards-based education in MMSD Today will address the central role standards play in assessment and reporting.
Last Updated: Mon Apr 28 14:59:36 2008
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