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Energize Your Teams
The process concludes with the final step, as teacher teams collaborate to translate the learning targets into I can statements (sometimes called student learning targets) that help make expectations for the lesson clear to students. According to Clayton (2017), these I can statements “describe in student-friendly language the learning to occur in the day’s lesson” (p. 1). She continues explaining that I can statements are “written from the students’ point of view and represent what both the teacher and the student are aiming for during the lesson” (p. 1). Students are better able to track their own progress, assess their own learning, and set specific goals for improvement when they understand exactly what teachers expect them to learn.
Synopsis of Chapter 5 Modules The modules in this chapter support the second prerequisite of a PLC which states, Collaborative teams implement a guaranteed and viable curriculum, unit by unit (DuFour & Reeves, 2016). The professional development activities in this chapter explore several important aspects of the GVC, such as why teams should ensure students have access to a GVC, what a GVC is and is not, and how teacher teams can operationalize the GVC in their school.
Module 5.1: Why Should Teams Establish a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum? A GVC promotes clarity for teachers and equity for all students. According to Marzano, Warrick, Rains, & DuFour (2018): A guaranteed and viable curriculum means all teachers teach the same content for the same course or grade level. With a guaranteed and viable curriculum, a student in one second-grade class is taught the same content as a student in a different second-grade class, or a student in one ninth-grade English class is taught the same content as a student in a different ninth-grade class. (p. 116)
The effort of creating a GVC promotes teachers’ deeper and more thorough understanding of what is most essential for all students to know and be able to do.
Module 5.2: What Is a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum? The guaranteed dimension of a GVC requires all educators accept responsibility for ensuring all students enrolled in the same class, course, or grade level are exposed to the same rigorous curriculum. The viable aspect recognizes teaching the curriculum and covering the curriculum are two very different things, and while teachers can cover lots of content, to teach the curriculum requires students learn what teachers teach. If the amount of content teachers are responsible for exceeds what they can reasonably teach within the time allotted, the curriculum
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Teams unwrap the essential standards to identify the highest-leverage learning targets. All standards consist of multiple learning targets; unwrapping, unpacking, or deconstructing the standards helps create more clarity and precision in the planning for and assessment of student learning. Researchers and coauthors Connie M. Moss, Susan M. Brookhart, and Beverly A. Long (2011) explain, “Instructional objectives [learning targets] are about instruction, derived from content standards, written in teacher language, and used to guide teachers during a lesson or across a series of lessons” (p. 67). Regardless of whether the state, province, county, or district previously prioritized the standards, teams must unwrap them to understand exactly what the standard is asking teachers to teach and students to learn.
