Elementary History-Social Science Planning Task 2012-13: Performance Assessment For California Teachers
Elementary History-Social Science Planning Task 2012-13: Performance Assessment For California Teachers
Elementary History-Social Science Planning Task 2012-13: Performance Assessment For California Teachers
PACT expresses appreciation to the following for their work on the rubrics and the conceptual framework for the Multiple Subject tasks:
Beverly Carter Stephanie Demaree Dorothy Flynn Megan Hopkins Emily Kang Ron Kok Ira Lit Isabel Luna Shirley Magnusson Teri Marchese Barbara Merino Eloise Metcalfe Rebecca OBrien Nancy Prosenjak Linda Siefert Tine Sloan Randy Souviney Jeanne Stone Kip Tellez Kim Tolley Brent Wyborney
as well as to the hundreds of anonymous faculty, supervisors, and students who have provided feedback and suggestions for improvement in PACT assessments.
Overview
If you teach history-social science to more than one class of students, focus on only one class. Select a central focus for your learning segment and reflect on the relevant features of your classroom context that will impact your planning, instruction, and assessment. The focus of your learning segment should provide opportunities to develop students developmentally appropriate1 analytic reasoning skills in history or social science. A Glossary of terms used in this task appears on pages 8-9. Identify learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content. Provide descriptive information about your instructional context and instructional resources. Describe important features of your class that will affect your instructional decisions.
Both the content and skills that are the focus of the learning segment should be appropriate for the grade level taught (K-2; 3-5; 6-8). Candidates should consult the Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills on pages 1-2 and 21-22 of the History-Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools. These are available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/histsocscistnd.pdf.
Context Commentary
Write a commentary of 3-5 single-spaced pages (including prompts) that addresses the following prompts. (If youre responding via an electronic platform, your 3 to 5 pages may appear as text boxes for individual questions.) You can address each prompt separately, through a holistic essay, or a combination of both, as long as all prompts are addressed. 1. Briefly describe the following: a. Type of school/program in which you teach, (e.g., elementary/middle school, themed magnet, or charter school) b. Kind of class you are teaching (e.g., third grade self-contained, sixth grade core English/social science) and organization of subject in school (e.g., departmentalized, interdisciplinary teams) c. Degree of ability grouping or tracking, if any 2. Describe your class with respect to the features listed below. Focus on key factors that influence your planning and teaching of this learning segment. Be sure to describe what your students can do as well as what they are still learning to do. a. Academic development Consider students prior knowledge, key skills, developmental levels, and other special educational needs. (TPE 8) b. Language development Consider aspects of language proficiency in relation to the oral and written English required to participate in classroom learning and assessment tasks. Describe the range in vocabulary and levels of complexity of language use within your entire class. When describing the proficiency of your English learners, describe what your English learners can and cannot yet do in relation to the language demands of tasks in the learning segment. (TPEs 7, 8) c. Social development Consider factors such as the students ability and experience in expressing themselves in constructive ways, negotiating and solving problems, and getting along with others.
(TPE 8)
d. Family and community contexts Consider key factors such as cultural context, knowledge acquired outside of school, socio-economic background, access to technology, and home/community resources. 3. Describe any district, school, or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations that might impact your planning or delivery of instruction, such as required curricula, pacing, use of specific instructional strategies, or standardized tests.
8. If there is a particular textbook or instructional program used for history-social science instruction, what is it? (If a textbook, please provide the name, publisher, and date of publication.) 9. What other major resources are typically used for history-social science instruction in this class?
Overview
Identify the central focus, student academic content standards, English Language Development (ELD) standards (if applicable), and learning objectives for the learning segment. Identify objectives for developing academic language, taking into account students prior language development and the language demands of the learning tasks and assessments. Select/adapt/design and organize instructional strategies, learning tasks, and assessments to promote and monitor student learning during the learning segment.
Submit copies of all instructional materials, including class handouts, overheads, and informal and formal assessment tools (including evaluation criteria or rubrics) used during the learning segment. If any of these are included from a textbook, please provide a copy of the appropriate pages. If any of these items are longer than four pages, provide a summary of relevant features in lieu of a copy. (TPEs 1, 2,4,7,9) Label each document or group of documents with a corresponding lesson number.
Provide appropriate citations for all materials whose sources are from published text, the Internet, or other educators. Respond to each of the prompts in the Planning Commentary.
Planning Commentary
Write a commentary of 5-8 single-spaced pages (including prompts) that addresses the following prompts. You can address each prompt separately, through a holistic essay, or a combination of both, as long as all prompts are addressed. 1. What is the central focus of the learning segment? Apart from being present in the school curriculum, student academic content standards, or ELD standards, why is the content of the learning segment important for these particular students to learn? (TPE 1) 2. Briefly describe the theoretical framework and/or research that inform your instructional design for developing your students knowledge and abilities in both history and academic language during the learning segment. 3. How do key learning tasks in your plans build on each other to develop students developmentally appropriate2 analytic reasoning skills in history or social science? How do the learning tasks develop students mastery of related academic language? Describe specific strategies that you will use to build student learning across the learning segment. Reference the instructional materials you have included, as needed. (TPEs 1, 4, 9) 4. Given the description of students that you provided in Task 1.Context for Learning, how do your choices of instructional strategies, materials, technology, and the sequence of learning tasks reflect students backgrounds, developmental levels, interests, and needs? Be specific about how your knowledge of these students informed the lesson plans, such as the choice of text or materials used in lessons, how groups were formed or structured, using student learning or experiences (in or out of school) as a resource, or structuring new or deeper learning to take advantage of specific student strengths. (TPEs 4,6,7,8,9) 5. Consider the language demands 3 of the oral and written tasks in which you plan to have students engage as well as the various levels of English language proficiency related to classroom tasks as described in the Context Commentary. (TPE 7)
Both the content and skills that are the focus of the learning segment should be appropriate for the grade level taught (K-2; 3-5; 6-8). Candidates should consult the Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills on pages 1-2 and 21-22 of the History-Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools. These are available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/histsocscistnd.pdf. 3 Language demands can be related to vocabulary, features of text types such as chronological accounts or historical interpretation, or other language demands such as understanding oral presentations or participating in role plays. For early readers/writers, this will include sound-symbol correspondence and a word as a text but might also involve the development of oral skills which are antecedents to reading and writing, such as oral narratives and explanations.
a. Identify words and phrases (if appropriate) that you will emphasize in this learning segment. Why are these important for students to understand and use in completing classroom tasks in the learning segment? Which students? b. What oral and/or written academic language (organizational, stylistic, and/or grammatical features) will you teach and/or reinforce? c. Explain how specific features of the learning and assessment tasks in your plan, including your own use of language, support students in learning to understand and use these words, phrases (if appropriate), and academic language. How does this build on what your students are currently able to do and increase their abilities to follow and/or use different types of text and oral formats? 6. Explain how the collection of assessments from your plan allows you to evaluate the students learning of specific student standards/objectives and provide feedback to students on their learning. (TPEs 2, 3) 7. Describe any teaching strategies you have planned for students who have identified educational needs (e.g., English learners, GATE students, students with IEPs). Explain how these features of your learning and assessment tasks will provide students access to the curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their learning. (TPEs 9. 12)
Lesson ____ Content standards that are the target of student learning (list the complete text of the relevant parts of each standard): (TPE 1)
(TPE 1)
(TPE 1)
(TPE 2)
Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks to Support Student Learning (what you and the students will be doing) (TPEs 1,4,5,6,9,10)
(TPEs 4,9)
Glossary
Academic Language: Academic language is the language needed by students to
understand and communicate in the academic disciplines. Academic language includes such things as specialized vocabulary, conventional text structures within a field (e.g., essays, lab reports) and other language-related activities typical of classrooms, (e.g., expressing disagreement, discussing an issue, asking for clarification). Academic language includes both productive and receptive modalities (see below).
Central focus: The target of the student learning that the standards, learning objectives,
instructional tasks, and assessments within a learning segment are intended to produce. A central focus can be expressed by a theme, overarching concept, or essential question.
Curriculum content: The student learning that is expected to occur, including various
areas of knowledge, e.g., facts, concepts, procedures, methods of inquiry and making judgments.
English Language Development standards:The standards in the EnglishLanguage Development Standards for California Public Schools (California Department of Education). This document organizes standards for English Learners in reading, writing, speaking, and listening in English according to sequential stages of development of English proficiency. It is intended to identify what English Learners must know and be able to do as they move toward full fluency in English.
Learning Objectives: Student learning outcomes to be achieved by the end of the lesson. Learning Segment: A set of lessons that build one upon another toward a central purpose,
with a clearly defined beginning and end.
Learning Tasks: Purposefully designed activities in which students engage (not just
participate see Engagement in Learning) to meet the learning objectives for the lesson.
Receptive modalities: Ways that students receive communications from others, e.g.,
listening, reading, viewing. Assessment of receptive modalities focuses on student communication of their understanding of the meaning of communications from others. Because this is done through a productive modality, assessment of students skills and abilities with respect to receptive modalities is not as straightforward as that of productive modalities. Examples of students demonstration of receptive abilities with respect to curriculum content are using tonal qualities of voice to help convey meaning from a passage read aloud, restating a classmates comment, describing how the key and tempo of a piece of music set a mood.
Scaffolding: A special type of instructional support to allow students to do a task that they
cannot yet do independently. Like scaffolding for buildings under construction, the support is designed to be temporary and to be removed or gradually reduced as students learn to do the task by themselves.
Student academic content standards: A set of knowledge, skills, and abilities that
students are to learn by the end of a particular grade, grade level, or course. Californias student academic content standards are published by the California Department of Education. They guide curriculum and instruction in California public schools.
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