MINDFUL TEACHING: SETTING STANDARDS TO ACHIEVE GOALS BY BRITA BANITZ Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

OVERVIEW 1: What are goals, objectives, and standards? 2: Who formulate standards? 3: What do standards include? 4: Adopt, adapt or create? Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

GOALS…  Are general statements about desirable program purposes.  Focus on what the program hopes to accomplish  Serve as a basis for developing measurable objectives  Provide guidelines for teachers and learners. Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

OBJECTIVES…  Are Specific statements that describe the particular knowledge.  Need to be feasible, precise, consistent.  Specify three components: performance, conditions, criterion. Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

STANDARDS…  Set minimum criteria to achieve specific goals.  Are formulated in the way that the learning progress can be measured.  Provide a common set of expectations. Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

WHO FORMULATES STANDARDS? Any teacher, administrator, or organization. It is important to consider that they: work for the specific teaching situations, should be clearly formulated, should be attainable, and all parties involved must agree. Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS… Foreign language learning standards are clustered around five knowledge areas:  communication  cultures  connections  comparisons  communities Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS… o Include a definition of the grade level clusters (e.g., Prek-K, 1-6, 7-12) o Language domain specific descriptions for each standard and grade level (e.g., listening for standards 1 for Pre-K students) and o Proficiency descriptions (benchmarks) for five performance levels (starting, emerging, developing, expanding, and bridging) Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

ADOPT, ADAPT OR CREATE STANDARDS You can adopt or adapt existing standards from recognized organizations like TESOL or ACTFL. If you decide to formulate your own standards, you need to:  define the concrete expectations (the goal)  Formulate clear criteria statements.  Provide descriptors for a range of performances (benchmarks). Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014

CONCLUSIONS Setting standards requires had work, teamwork, and time. It is ok to adopt or adapt existing standards. Once you have worked with standards, in the classroom, you can evaluate your students more objectively. Irma Guerra Martínez – Oct. 2014