Chapter 8: Ascending Intellectual Demand in the Parallel Curriculum Model EQ: How does Ascending Intellectual Demand (AID) impact your classroom?

Chapter Notes Many teachers are given too numerous “tools” to count and rarely use any of them. Expertise is developed over time. Changes that characterize the learner at incremental stages from novice to expert are how AID is served. Challenge shifts from one stage of readiness to the next, the curriculum must increase in sophistication, depth, and complexity. Using AID, teachers plan with the pacing charts, state and local standards, textbooks, and related resources as they align.

Planning Backwards from Expertise Levels of challenge from novice to expert are found in all disciplines and fields. People begin as novices and move along a continuum toward expertise as knowledge, understanding, skills, and habits of mind are developed. As a learner progresses through a level, challenges become incrementally greater, scaffolds are slowly removed and often replaced with new ones. AID offers a starting point: begin with the goal of all students becoming experts and work backwards.

AID is built upon 5 key assumptions… Primary goal is the development of knowledge, understanding, skills, and dispositions associated with expertise in all learners. Foundation for expertise is developed in K-12 classrooms (alignment to content, models, strategies, scaffolds, and learner needs) Expertise is developed over time with careful attention to balancing appropriate levels of challenge and support. Highly personalized to the learner Teacher continually assesses the learner at each stage of the continuum to determine learner characteristics, needs, and the most efficient and effective instructional responses.

On the Continuum Page 238 AID chart Novice to Expert Page 240 What does the learner need at each stage? Novice—needs affirmation to complete a task Entry stage where the learner is introduced to the discipline or subfield Experience discipline-based facts initially, and then concepts, one at a time As the learner moves, beginning connections are made among multiple concepts. Apprentice—seeks confirmation of success at end of task Mastered basic elements Makes numerous connections among discrete facts Utilizes numerous basic skills with ease Teacher shifts from direct instruction to coach or guide Practitioner—persists, asks for assistance, seek new methods for working through challenging tasks Self-directed and independent in the teaching and learning Key concepts framed as well as interrelationships among big ideas Exhibits greater task commitment and persistence Performance tasks and rubrics become the primary mode of assessment Expert—take on new challenges, perhaps in a discipline completely Many learners end at the practitioner stage Utilize concepts within and among disciplines in order to derive theories and principles Independent and self-directed and works to achieve the state of flow

Final Thoughts Transitions on the AID continuum—learners move between all stages—this represents growth along the stages on the continuum and it is not completely linear There are discipline-specific behaviors that characterize students at each stage of development that are helpful to teachers’ planning and instruction.

Reflection: Discussion Question After this “brief” introduction to the Parallel Curriculum model, how likely are you to use it in your classroom as you design and develop unit and lesson plans?

Preview Chapter 5 from Comprehensive Curriculum for Gifted Learners Drafts of unit assessments are due next week.