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OK, so I told all of this to Jan already, but I thought
that you all might be interested in the thought
processes/discussion here. If not, scroll on by or delete
or ignore or whatever!

I have been assigned to an "alternative evaluation process"
this year at my site. Instead of doing the dog/pony show
20 minute observation, I have to do a year-long project on
a subject of mutual choosing by my principal and me. We
have chosen "Teaching to the Correct Level of Difficulty"---
1) because it is a challenge for me; 2) because she wants
me to present this subject to our staff in the spring.

I attended a 1-hour training by my district on this subject
and it just left me hungry for more information. Here is
what I learned at that training.

The steps to this process are as follows:
First, determine the terminal objective of the lesson or
unit.
Second, do a task analysis for each step of learning on the
way to the terminal objective.
Third, design a pre-assessment for each step of the task
analysis (can't be a multiple choice, has to be an answer
given by child, so you don't get lucky guesses).
Fourth, interpret the data. Who understands which part of
the task analysis? Who can skip parts of the lesson? Who
needs more development in prior fundamentals before even
beginning the lesson?
Fifth, design lessons for each "group" of children based on
the pre-assessment data.

Next week, I'm going to start a unit based on the following
standard in math. Third Grade Algebra 1.1
Represent relationships of quantities in the form of
mathematical expressions, equations, or inequalities

My terminal objective is: Students will read a word
problem and write a mathematical expression and an equation
for the word problem.

So here is my task analysis:

Students have to be able to 1) define a mathematical
expression
2) give an example of a mathematical expression
3) read a word problem and write the mathematical expression
4) define a mathematical equation (written as "number
sentence" in our text book)
5) give an example of a mathematical equation
6) read a word problem and write the mathematical equation

Then I designed a pre-assessment based on those six
questions--open-ended, short-answer questions.

Am I right so far? I gave the pre-assessment on Friday, so
I could analyze the results and interpret the data this
weekend and begin the process of planning my lessons for
this unit. Can you all read this and give me feedback
before I start planning my lessons? Is this something any
of you do regularly? They told me in my one-hour inservice
that EVENTUALLY you will SAVE time in your classroom
because you will be teaching more efficiently, but right
now it TAKES a lot of time, because I'm not skilled at it
yet. I do believe in it, because I'm a mother of two kinds
of kids (GATE kids and struggling kids) and I know that
teaching to the correct level of difficulty would be so
helpful to them in their classrooms, so I'm really
motivated to try this and try it well. I also want to have
a good amount of actual experience DOING it in my classroom
before I have to present it to staff, so they can see that
the time is well-spent too and can learn from my trials and
tribulations along the way.

GIVE ME HONEST FEEDBACK. I'm in a state of wanting to
learn and grow, so nothing will offend me as long as it is
given in that mode of helping me to grow!

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