1. Power & Priority Standards
Presented By: Alan Cabanting & Melissa (Missy) Beavers
July 23, 2015 (Thursday)

2. What’s a Power Standard?
Prioritized academic standards that educators
Determine to be the most critical and essential for students to learn.
Learning experiences are designed to emphasize power-standards content and ensure that
Students learn the content consistent with the power standards.

3. Power standards do not preclude the teaching of other standards—they merely determine the highest-priority material.
Power standards may be limited to only a handful of standards
Standards will typically require students to acquire and demonstrate strong understanding of a complex subject or sophisticated skill.
For example, understanding the scientific method and applying it in diverse scientific situations might be an example of a power standard identified by schools

4. What Makes a Standard a Power Standard?
Larry Ainsworth and Douglas Reeves are widely considered to have coined the term “power standards.” According to Ainsworth and Reeves, there are three criteria for selecting power standards:
Endurance
Leverage
Essentiality .

5. Endurance: Standards that focus on knowledge and skills that will be relevant throughout a student’s lifetime (such as learning how to read or how to interpret a map).

6. Leverage: Standards that focus on knowledge and skills used in multiple academic disciplines (such as writing grammatically and persuasively or interpreting and analyzing data).

7. Essentiality: Standards that focus on the knowledge and skills necessary for students to succeed in the next grade level or the next sequential course in an academic subject (such as understanding algebraic functions before taking geometry or calculus, which require the use of algebra).

8. I thought power standards were something different!

9. Common Understanding at Moanalua of Power & Priority
Yes, over the years, “power standards” has been a term used to refer to different things.
For example, that white-haired guy from Colorado referred to his school’s “Power Standard” of literacy.
That’s why today, we want to make sure we all use the same vocabulary.
So here goes

10. Defining Priority Standards:
Department Power Standards
AKA Enduring Understanding, Big Ideas
Power Standards that are central to a discipline and have lasting impact beyond the classroom.
Course or Content Priority Standards
AKA Essential Understandings
Priority Standards are the most important standards in your specific course or subject.
Missy – Defines what power and priority standards are.
2010 Leadership and Learning Center

11. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s):
Is this a new thing or something that we are doing again?
How does this fit with what we are doing here at Moanalua?
How are we going to tackle this task?
Why are we doing this?
MISSY: Goes over the frequently asked questions WITHOUT giving answers.
2010 Leadership and Learning Center

12. 1) Is it new?
No, Mrs. Martin has raised the idea of prioritizing standards in prior years.
Some departments have worked on their power standards already.
Some departments have not (‘Cause we nevah had time to!)
Alan – Goes over FAQ 1 with answer
2010 Leadership and Learning Center

13. So,
We all are revisiting it to FOCUS our teaching

14. 2) How does it fit with Moanalua’s Vision?:
Missy – Goes Over FAQ 2 with answer. Roots (Expectation)  Trunk (Success Standards)  Branches (Dept Power Standards)  Leaves (Priority Standards)

15. 3) How are we going to get it done?
Power Standards will be worked on in your Departments.
Priority Standards will be worked on in your Data Teams.
MISSY: Go over FAQ # 3 with answer.
2010 Leadership and Learning Center

16. You Remember the Data Teams Process:
1) Establish Expectations
- Unwrap the Standards
8) Determine if Goals Met
Reflection & Next Steps
2) Develop a Curriculum Map
7) Administer Post
CFA’s
3) Create Common Formative
Assessments (CFA’s)
Alan – Go over Data Teams Process VERY quickly…
6) Use Agreed Upon
Instructional Strategies
4) Administer Pre
CFA’s
5) Data Teams 5 Step
Process

17. Focusing Your Data Teams:
Provide a basic framework for data teams
Get started on what’s most important
Start Small
Spend time actually talking about instruction and its effect on student performance
Focus on the core
Be as specific as possible
Select a concept or skill that can realistically be taught and assessed over the course of a few weeks
Zoom in
Complete multiple cycles
Adjust process in response to feedback
Iterate and refine
Missy:
1) we need to start small. If you go back and try to do everything you hear in a book or training on data teams, you’ll leave very little room for developing ownership around the process, and very little room for fitting the process into your existing work.
2) We need to focus on improving instruction in order to improve student learning.
3) I believe that we do this by zooming in on specific concepts and skills that we want students to master, and closely examining and refining how we teach those concepts and skills.
Finally, since we’re talking about improving a process over time, and focusing on very specific teaching targets, we don’t want to spend all year on one small thing; we want to go through multiple cycles, each time refining the process so it better serves our goals as a school.
Excerpt From: Leadership and Learning Center

18. Seriously, this is what we do
3) Why are we doing this?
I said so….
Seriously, this is what we do
All standards important
Teach all of the standards
All by the end of school year
Students are unprepared for next grade & low achievement!
Teachers burnt out, unhappy, and frustrated!
Alan: Joke about Ms. Martin…
2013 Larry Ainsworth

19. Prioritizing Standards:
Makes it easier for us to teach
Provides depth over breadth,
Increases learning retention,
Students are more prepared -- increase in student achievement
Teachers are less frustrated, are happier, and have a sense of accomplishment.
MISSY:
2013 Larry Ainsworth

20. NOOO!!!!

21. Hakuna Matata:
Exemplars of Power & Priority Standards Tomorrow
Department Meeting time for Power Standards
Collaborative Groups (Data Teams) to determine Priority Standards
You ARE NOT alone…the PD team and Admin are here to help and support you!
Alan & Missy:
Alan – Go over 1, 2, & 3
Missy – You are not alone section…supported by PD Team.

22. Reference:
Data Teams – 2010 Leadership and Learning Center
CFA’s – 2008 Leadership and Learning Center