Learning Experiences

Learning experiences and instructional techniques are designed to achieve specific learning goals (Backward Design Planning). 

have an idea? submit a picture or lesson plan if you think you have an exemplar of this idea. 

Highlight Patterns, Critical Features, Big Ideas, and Relationships

• One of the big differences between experts and novices in any domain is the facility with which they distinguish what is critical from what is unimportant or irrelevant. Since experts quickly recognize the most important features in information, they allocate their time efficiently, quickly identifying what is valuable and finding the right “hooks” with which to assimilate the most valuable information into existing knowledge. As a consequence, one of the most effective ways to make information more accessible is to provide explicit cues or prompts that assist individuals in attending to those features that matter most while avoiding those that matter least.
• Highlight or emphasize key elements in text, graphics, diagrams, formulas
• Use outlines, graphic organizers, unit organizer routines, concept organizer routines, and concept mastery routines to emphasize key ideas and relationships
• Use multiple examples and non-examples to emphasize critical features
• Use cues and prompts to draw attention to critical features
• Highlight previously learned skills that can be used to solve unfamiliar problems
• Over the course of any sustained project or systematic practice, there are many sources of interest and engagement that compete for attention and effort. For some learners, they need support to remember the initial goal or to maintain a consistent vision of the rewards of reaching that goal. For those learners, it is important to build in periodic or persistent “reminders” of both the goal and its value in order for them to sustain effort and concentration in the face of distracters.
• Prompt or require learners to explicitly formulate or restate goal
• Display the goal in multiple ways
• Encourage division of long-term goals into short-term objectives
• Demonstrate the use of hand-held or computer-based scheduling tools
• Use prompts or scaffolds for visualizing desired outcome
• Engage learners in assessment discussions of what constitutes excellence and generate relevant examples that connect to their cultural background and interests

Student Ownership

Teachers support each student’s ownership of learning by providing clear end of course learning targets allowing students to develop their ability to reflect on their learning, develop their own learning path, understand their learning progression and set goals.

• Track progress visible to both the teacher and student to celebrate growth
• Meet with individual students regularly to discuss student progress, strengths, areas of improvement. Students are clear about what they need to learn or the skill they need to develop in order to get to the next performance level
• Provide students with opportunities to determine and monitor their own learning goals and learning path throughout the year that is clearly connected to end of course outcomes
• Allow students to reflect on their learning and explain what they understand and concepts and/or skills with which they are still struggling