Long Term Planning
InTASC Standard 7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context
Introduction
When beginning to plan for instruction, I develop a standards based long-term plan as a first step to ensure all students are able to successfully meet the rigorous learning targets and demands of chemistry curriculum by the end of the school year.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for chemistry are composed of six lengthy, dense, and vague instructional segments. Each of these are based on a core real-world phenomena or chemistry concept that students should be able to understand by the end of their time in my classroom. The overall goal of the NGSS is to make chemistry knowledge applicable outside the classroom for all students. To accomplish this task each standard links to science and engineering practices as well as cross cutting concepts. To successfully implement these standards requires cross-disciplinary planning, and implementation of knowledge from multiple content areas in all science classrooms. A well thought out long-term plan is crucial for successfully unpacking these standards and implementing them during a 40-week academic year in a rigorous and authentic way that aligns to my pedagogy and personal teaching philosophy.
Each unit in chemistry builds off of skills and knowledge gained previously. This applies on a daily, weekly, monthly, and per unit basis. It is important to fully think through a long-term plan in order to effectively spiral learning and knowledge to allow students to master the difficult content.
While constructing a long-term plan for each new class, I think about the actual students that I teach and the community in which I work. It is important to take these factors into account to ensure the plan is aligned to the needs of actual students in my actual classroom—which can vary dramatically from my expectations and from class to class any given year.
Finally, I treat my long-term plan like a living document. Each section has room to be adapted as necessary based on school and student context. For example, due to several rounds of state and district testing, several of my sections of chemistry unexpectedly lost nearly three weeks of instructional time last March. My long-term plan had to be adjusted accordingly. It is important to be flexible to ensure all of our students are able to reach each learning target in their own time and obtain content mastery.
NGSS District Long Term Plan
NGSS instructional segments for chemistry
This first step in effective long-term planning is to use the standards to determine learning goals (Teach for America, 2011). When I first began teaching, California had recently adopted the NGSS to replace the California Science Standards. There were no curriculum maps, pacing plans, or standards aligned textbooks available for these new standards. Teachers had access to the incredibly dense and vague standards framework but it was unclear what exact topics needed to be taught and when. I was selected to attend a monthly professional development meeting with other chemistry teachers from around my district. The sole purpose of this professional development was to fully unpack the NGSS and determine what topics we were supposed to be teaching and when we were supposed to be teaching them. The process of long-term planning began by analyzing the six core phenomena—as shown in the picture on the left—outlined in the NGSS.
General long term plan
The second step in effective long term planning is to group the learning goals into units (Teach for America, 2011). The NGSS is conveniently split into six overarching core phenomena. I created the plan on the left, with my colleagues, to unpack each of these phenomena into six units that could be implemented in our classrooms. Once each of the six main descriptions were determined, we began to decide what core chemistry content needs to be covered in order to understand each phenomena. To do this we analyzed the old California State Standards, chemistry textbooks we had access to, and resources senior teachers used to implement before the switch to the NGSS.
Once all the topics had been sorted into units, student-centered learning goals were drafted. This plan took several months of professional development meetings to complete but it left me feeling confident that I was equipped to fully implement the NGSS with my students. While this plan could be passed along to other chemistry teachers in my district, it needs additional details to be implemented in each teacher’s individual classroom. I took this plan back to my school and began to adapt it for my students and my specific teaching context to make it as authentic and responsive as possible.
Course Vision and Big Goal
Overall Course Vision: Connect chemistry concepts to the six overarching, real-world phenomena outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards to contextualize scientific concepts.
Overall Course Big Goal: 85% of chemistry students in the SMART SLC will pass the course with a grade of “C” or better.
When constructing a long-term plan, it is important to not only consider the standards but also think about the specific students in your classroom, the community context in which you teach, and the specific goals you would like your students to achieve by the time they leave your classroom. The next step in my planning was to determine the overall course Vision and Big Goal for my classroom. In the video “Long-Term Planning Think-Aloud,” Christine Farber states that a big goal for a class should be quantitative—it should be measurable and there should be a clear way to know if you accomplished it by the end of the year (Laureate Education Inc., 2012). I am fortunate that my principal was a chemistry teacher at my school site before she transitioned to administration. She is incredibly familiar with the context in which we teach and is an excellent resource I have at my disposal because she taught my content—in my actual classroom—for so many years. We worked together to draft a Vision and Big Goal that would be measurable, authentic, responsive to our school community, and aligned with our school’s overall Mission and Vision. Since the California state science assessment is still in a beta test phase and is likely to be revised again, we agreed the above Vision and Big Goal would be an appropriate guide and goal for the students in my classroom. This goal is easily measured when I look at the final grades for my class and I can easily check progress towards the goal by looking at my grade book.
Long Term Plan
To ensure I am implementing a rigorous and standards based curriculum, I made sure my planning aligns as closely as possible to the Next Generation Science Standards for chemistry. There are six units outlined in the NGSS—each has the required standards for that unit. Unpacking and using these units and having a goal of 85% of students passing with a C or better directly link the big goal to the plan.
Detailed long term plan
Cross cutting concepts are included in the NGSS as a way to make science content more applicable outside of the classroom. It is vitally important that we don’t just teach students to simply memorize facts. We should instead by teaching students how to synthesize what they have learned and apply it to new situations (Conley, 2011). These concept embedded in the NGSS are a great way to ground a course in real-world applications. They can also act to increase student investment even if they are not interested in the course material. Cross-cutting concepts answer the question “Why are we learning this?” for all students. According to Instructional Planning & Delivery, it is important to “distinguish between (a) facts and concepts, (b) broad principles and themes that crosscut many facts and concept, and (c) skills to be reinforced regularly” (Teach for America, 2011, pp.45). Thankfully the NGSS has supplied an aid to teachers trying to deconstruct each of these important areas of education.
In “Building on the Common Core,” five key cognitive strategies are outlined—problem formulation, research, interpretation, communication, and precision/accuracy (Conley, 2011). The NGSS takes this one step farther through science and engineering practices. These are the required skills that run through each of the six unit blocks. These skills, which can be applied outside of the school walls and often, require cross-curricular works are embedded in every section of my long-term plan.
Unit Themes
As will be shown in the following sections, each of my units has an overarching, real-world theme—such as “how many calories are in a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos” and “forensic science and dissolving a body in acid.” However, you will notice that these themes are not included in my long-term plan. Unit themes are one of the major ways I adapt my long term plan every year to fit the interests and needs of the specific students in my classroom. For example, my first year, I used a theme “how do batteries actually work?” I received negative feedback from students about the theme so I threw it out and selected a new one from beginning of year student interest surveys the following fall. It is important to be flexible and to engage students in their own educational journey by incorporating their interests as frequently as possible.
Unit Calendar
It is important to continually adjust your long-term plan (Teach for America, 2011). At the end of each unit there is a space labeled “Remedial/Enrichment,” which I use to add additional information once a pre-unit diagnostic has been given in each class as well as take notes to improve the plan for next year. Formative assessments are also a crucial tool for the successful execution of a long-term plan (Heritage, 2010). Data from formative assessments can also be used to adapt and adjust the plan as necessary.
This third step in effective long term planning is to logically order units and plot them on a school calendar (Teach for America, 2011). However, it is also important to be flexible and take into account holidays and other factors that may interrupt instruction. For example, the third instructional segment in my long-term plan is designed to conclude immediately before winter recess. There are several non-essential topics included in this unit that can be removed and moved to a later unit if necessary for time. This block also contains the most core content out of the six. As you will see in the next sections, I realized it was too long of a unit for my students. I broke the instructional segment in to multiple units that were designed to be flexible in order to finish out the semester.
Approximate unit calendar
Furthermore, I moved stoichiometry calculations from unit three—as suggested in the NGSS—to unit four. This topic is arguably the most difficult for high school chemistry students. It requires a high level of cross-curricular knowledge and incorporates a significant amount of math. While most prerequisite science knowledge is covered during the fall semester, many students at my school are below grade level in regards to foundational math skills. The math-intensive topics were placed immediately following winter recess when students are well rested and not burned out. To keep the calendar flexible, I determine the approximate number of weeks a unit should take—as shown in the picture above—and then schedule each into my planner as we progress through the year.
Each new unit in chemistry builds on the information learned in the previous one. Having the entire year mapped out allows me to more effectively move on to the next step of the planning process—designing units to be implemented.
References
“2016 Science Framework.” 2016 Science Framework – Curriculum Frameworks (CA Dept of Education), www.cde.ca.gov/ci/sc/cf/scifwprepubversion.asp.
Conley, D. T. (2011). Building on the Common Core.Educational Leadership, 68(6), 16–20.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012). Long-Term planning think-aloud. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Marzano, R., Pickering, D. & Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement.Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Popham, W. (2009). Instruction That Measures Up: Successful Teaching in the Age of Accountability. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Teach For America. (2011). Instructional planning & delivery. Retrieved from http://www.teachingasleadership.org/sites/default/files/Related-Readings/IPD_2011.pdf