Wow, dc, this is fascinating. I'm sure that the concept of
teaching to the correct level of difficult is something we all
think about every time we plan a lesson. What I wonder about
is differentiation. How many levels of difficulty do you need
to have within each lesson. I'd need at least 6 if I were
honest (and that's just math right now). I love the concept,
but the implementation scares me silly.
Keep talking,
Judy

On 10/24/09, dc wrote:
> 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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