1. Common Formative Assessments
Whittier City School District
5 minutes
Today we will focus on building background knowledge about Common Formative Assessments.
Introductions
Review Norms (especially because it is a new team!)

2. Agenda Part 1: Introduction to Common Formative Assessments
Part 2: Laying the Standards Foundation
Part 3: Assessment Formats and Item Writing Guidelines
Part 4: Writing First-Draft Assessment Items
Part 5: Creating Scoring Guides
Part 6: Tools for Checking Item Quality
1 minute
Review the agenda. Today we will focus on Part 1…. Read
Tomorrow we will focus on parts 2-6 of the agenda.
Part 2: (read part) focuses on unwrapping standards, and writing big ideas and essential questions.
Part 3: (read part) Discusses the different type of assessment formats & some guidelines to write your own assessment questions.
Part 4 (read slide) will give you time to work with your grade level colleagues to create selected and constructed response questions.
Part 5: We will practice (read part) to help you analyze constructed response assessments.
Part 6: We will also give you (read part) to help you and your teams determine the best test item questions.

3. Critical Questions of a PLC
What do our students need to know and be able to do?
How will we know if each student has learned it?
How will we respond when some students do not learn?
How will we extend and enrich the learning for all students who are already proficient?
30 sec.
As you’ve heard several times, the critical questions of the PLC is what guides our work as we work collaboratively. Tomorrow we will focus on question one by going deeper in understanding what the standards are teaching & second, creating CFAs to check for student’s understanding and mastery of the priority standards.

4. Learning Objective
Understand how common formative assessments are the centerpiece of an integrated standards and assessment system.
30 seconds
Read through the learning objective for the day. Today we will focus on the first learning objective.

5. Terms Common Formative Assessments Unwrapping Standards 5 minutes
Before we get started we’d like to take a quick self-assessment of the terms we will talk about as we learn more about CFA’s.
Posted on the wall are the charts of two terms we will learn about. Take a minute to write your name and grade on a post-it.
Think about a couple of things as you “rate” yourself:
Were you trained in CFA’s by the Leadership and Learning Center in March?
Did you work at your school sites on unwrapping standards and/or creating CFA’s?
Rate yourself on the continuum.
When they come back ask: What are some things you have done at your school site that lead you towards rating yourself at a proficient and/or expert level?
**Charts with each term are on a poster with a continuum line from Novice – Proficient. Participants put their post-its (include names and grade level) to show their level of understanding for each term.
This is an example of a pre-assessment of terms to gauge the “expertise” in the room. We will use this formative assessment, to put you in heterogeneous groups later today. This way we put some “experts “ in groups that were trained to help those who feel are in the novice level in doing this work.
Remember this is a great way to formatively assess your own students at the beginning of instruction to find out what students know.

6. Essential Questions What are common formative assessments?
How do they connect to powerful instruction and assessment practices?
1 minute
Take a moment to read these essential questions. These questions will guide our work today. Essential questions are an example of how we can use formative assessment with our students to check for understanding when learning new concepts. We will learn about writing these types of questions tomorrow as we unwrap standards.
At the end of the day you will be asked to answer questions 1 & 2. (posted on chart in room)

7. What the research says…
“The biggest effects on student learning occur when _______ become _______of their own teaching and when ________ become their own ________.”
Hattie, 2008
teachers
learners
students
3 minutes
Click on slide once then stop, there are blanks on the slide.
In the book, Visible Learning by John Hattie, he presents extensive research about what actually works in schools to improve learning. A major message within the book is what works best for students, is similar to what works best for teachers.
Take a minute to talk to your neighbor and fill in the blanks above.
When they are ready, have them chorally respond to what they think should fill in the blanks. Click on slide to reveal answers.
Ask: What they think this means.
Discuss quote or elaborate…
John Hattie states that it is important to set learning intentions, be clear about what success means, and place an attention to learning strategies for developing conceptual understanding about what teachers know and understand.
When we unwrap standards we are clear about what students need to know and be able to do.
When we set clear learning intentions we strive to develop lessons with strategies that help increase conceptual understanding.
When we create Common Formative Assessments, before, during and after assessment, we are helping our students be clear about what they are expected to learn and master. In turn, students begin to monitor their learning which in turn helps improve learning.
teachers

8. Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together
Standards
and
Assessment
Data-Driven
Decision
Making
30 seconds
In a Professional Learning Community it is important to consider the big picture and how all these powerful practices connect. They are all equally important, one cannot work without the other. They are (Read the four parts)
We will now describe each piece of the puzzle and see how they all fit together
Effective
Teaching Strategies
Accountability for
Learning

9. Standards and Assessment
Priority Standards
Leverage
Endurance
30 seconds
The first piece of the puzzle is….
As a district we have begun to address this part of the big picture. Remember that we used the LESS criteria to choose our priority standards.
As a review:
Leverage: Prerequisite concepts or skills students need to enter a new grade level or course of study
Endurance: what students will need to know and be able to do to be successful after the conclusion of formal schooling.
Success: Will this provide the knowledge and skills that will be of value in multiple disciplines?
State Tests: Concept and skills most heavily represented on the CSTs
We chose our priority standards that will guide our instruction and assessment for next year.
The CITs will create benchmarks that test these priority standards so that they can be aligned with your instruction.
Next year, it is important that your grade or department level teams focus on developing common formative assessments to monitor student’s progress in mastering the priority standards.
Success
State Test

10. Data Driven Decision Making
Data Teams structured process
Collect and chart data
Analyze to prioritize needs
Set SMART goals
Select effective teaching strategies
Determine results indicators
30 seconds
Another piece of the puzzle is Data-Driven Decision Making…
Your Instructional Data Team, grade or course specific, should engage in data driven decision making. Together you will complete the data teams step-by-step process using common formative assessment data, and use the results to differentiate instruction and improve student learning. Juan Cordova from Leadership and Learning Center will guide us through this process on Thursday.

11. Effective Teaching Strategies
“The single most important influence on student learning is the quality of teaching.”
-Charlotte Danielson, 2007
ADD PICTURE
5 minutes
The third piece of the puzzle is…..
Read the quote with your partner. Have participants define and create a list of effective teaching strategies.
**Let them brainstorm a definition and list of effective teaching strategies. Have them share out with their neighbor or table group their definition and strategies.
Say: Instructional strategies can be defined as the specific actions we take to help students achieve specific learning targets. In other words, strategies are the methods or techniques we us to increase student understanding. This, of course, is the most important thing we do.
Take a look at your handout on pg. 1
If instructional strategies are the most important thing we do, then we need to understand how all of the elements cycling around it should determine the effective teaching strategies that guide our instruction.
On handout pg. 2, you will see what Marzano considers to be the most effective teaching strategies we can use with our students. Take a minute to compare it to your list.
Identifying Similarities and Differences: The ability to break a concept into its similar and dissimilar characteristics allows students to understand (and often solve) complex problems by analyzing them in a more simple way.
Summarizing and Note Taking: These skills promote greater comprehension by asking students to analyze a subject to expose what's essential and then put it in their own words
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition Effort and recognition speak to the attitudes and beliefs of students, and teachers must show the connection between effort and achievement. Research shows that although not all students realize the importance of effort, they can learn to change their beliefs to emphasize effort.
Homework and Practice: Homework provides students with the opportunity to extend their learning outside the classroom. However, research shows that the amount of homework assigned should vary by grade level and that parent involvement should be minimal. Teachers should explain the purpose of homework to both the student and the parent or guardian, and teachers should try to give feedback on all homework assigned.
5. Nonlinguistic Representations According to research, knowledge is stored in two forms: linguistic and visual. The more students use both forms in the classroom, the more opportunity they have to achieve. Recently, use of nonlinguistic representation has proven to not only stimulate but also increase brain activity.
6. Cooperative Learning: Research shows that organizing students into cooperative groups yields a positive effect on overall learning. When applying cooperative learning strategies, keep groups small and don't overuse this strategy-be systematic and consistent in your approach.
7. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback: Setting objectives can provide students with a direction for their learning. Goals should not be too specific; they should be easily adaptable to students' own objectives.
8. Generating and Testing Hypotheses:Research shows that a deductive approach (using a general rule to make a prediction) to this strategy works best. Whether a hypothesis is induced or deduced, students should clearly explain their hypotheses and conclusions.
9. Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers: Cues, questions, and advance organizers help students use what they already know about a topic to enhance further learning. Research shows that these tools should be highly analytical, should focus on what is important, and are most effective when presented before a learning experience.

12. Accountability for Learning
Lucky
High results, low understanding of antecedents
Replication of success unlikely
Leading
High results, high understanding of antecedents
Replication of success likely
Losing Ground
Low results, low understanding of antecedents
Replication of failure likely
Learning
Low results, high understanding of antecedents
Replication of mistakes unlikely
Antecedents/Cause (Adult Actions)
Effects/Results
5 minutes
The final part of the puzzle is Accountability for Learning.
Think about the presentations on Mission & Vision and Teamwork & Collaboration. This matrix reiterates the importance of how powerful it is to have those pieces in place to truly have an impact on student learning.
This matrix shows the powerful relationship between student achievement and the actions of leaders and teachers in the school system and classroom.
The matrix also implies that teams who take action to implement strong, frontline instruction and leadership strategies that are the best of what we know and do as education professionals, will have a visible impact on student achievement.
For a school to push it’s way to the “Leading” quadrant on the matrix, it needs to connect cause and effect and take powerful actions known to lead to measurable outcomes for students. To continue to exist in the “leadership quadrant, teachers and leaders need to continuously engage in conversations that highlight HOW teaching, leadership and learning are causing good results.
If you think about the quadrant and our learning from Mission and Vision from Day 1, what type of schools would they be?
Leading
**Henry Higgins school.
Lucky might apply to schools in more affluent communities. Where they have high results because the students come with parents with a higher education. But they have little understanding of how the adult actions effect these results.
**Charles Darwin
Losing ground sees no connection between how they do business at the school has no impact on students results.
**Pontius Pilot
Learning is on the way to the leading quadrant.
**Chicago Cub Fans

13. Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together
Standards
and
Assessment
Data-Driven
Decision
Making
30 seconds
In a Professional Learning Community it is important to consider the big picture and how all these powerful practices connect. They are all equally important, one cannot work without the other.
Effective
Teaching Strategies
Accountability for
Learning

14. If the state standards and the state tests are the “book-ends”….
…how would you arrange these powerful practices in between?
10 minutes
We will now engage in an activity to think about how these parts all fit together. At your table you will find some cards in an envelope.
How would you arrange the “books” to show the connections between the powerful practices we’ve been discussing? (Read slide..)
Go over the big cards together to review terms or clarify any terms.
Teachers work in table groups to put the cards in order. Then call up one team to show their thinking using the “big cards”. Fix together if there is some misunderstanding about the process.
State Standards—Priority Standards—Unwrapping—Common Formative (Pre)—Data Teams—Common Formative (Post)—Benchmark Assessments—State Assessments.
**Remember Data Teams can go anywhere in between after Priority and before State assessments.
**Presenters, while they are working, one of you should regroup participants using the information from the expertise chart from earlier. Group them by grade level and hopefully you will have at least one proficient or expert in each group. Make a chart into quadrants and put the stickies into groups and number them. They should be in grade level teams.

15. Common Formative Assessments
The
Centerpiece
of an Integrated
Standards-Based
Assessment System
Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006
30 seconds
Now we will begin our discussion about how Common Formative Assessments are the centerpiece of our standards based assessment system.

16. Standards- Assessment Alignment Grid
What we’ve done….
Standards- Assessment Alignment Grid
1 minute
Look at your handout on page 3
At the end of the school year we chose priority standards and tomorrow we will focus on the next few steps of this process by unwrapping standards and creating CFA’s. Thursday we will learn about the data team process.
Each of these components plays a powerful role, both interdependently and independently in advancing student learning.
Alignment of all assessments measures—classroom, common, district, and state provides predictive value of how students are likely to do on the next level of assessment in time for teachers to make instructional adjustments!!
In this way, we are purposefully using assessment to truly inform our instruction!

17. Talk It Over
What benefits do you see in deliberately aligning powerful instruction and assessment practices to improve student learning?
2 minutes
Have participants discuss and then share out.

18. 3 minutes
Give participants some time to review the descriptions of each type of assessment, on pg. 4 of the handout. Then review the chart.
The purpose of a formative assessment is to improve learning and achievement. As the chart indicates, the most formative assessment is daily. This type of daily assessment is critical when checking for understanding. It should be planned into your lessons to gauge if students are understanding the concepts, if they aren’t, it is essential to adjust our instruction.
Common assessments are collaboratively developed during grade or department team meetings and can be done before, during and after a unit of study to make adjustments to instruction.
Summative assessments are focused on the product of learning. They are usually district benchmarks and the state test. Teachers use the results to make final “success or failure” decisions about a relatively fixed set of instructional activities. It is not used to monitor and adjust instruction.

19. Assessment of Learning
2 minutes
Formative and Summative Assessment can be sorted into 2 categories:
Read over the descriptions of Assessment of Learning and Assessment for Learning on pg. 5-7 in your handouts.
Assessment for Learning

20. Formative/ Assessment for Learning Summative/ Assessment of Learning
5 minutes
Think about what you just read. Turn to your neighbor and discuss which of these pictures would be considered a formative assessment or the assessment for learning (guitar lessons) vs. a summative and the assessment of learning (guitar concert) and why.
Share out responses.
Ask: Can you think of another analogy?
Other analogies:
Training for a marathon and running in one
Practicing tennis and playing in a tennis match.

21. Final Thoughts
1 minute
Doug Reeves (2000) uses an analogy to draw a sharp distinction between the summative and formative assessments, comparing the former to an autopsy and the latter to a physical examination.
A summative test, like an autopsy, can provide useful information that explains why the patient has failed, but the information comes too late, at least from the patient’s perspective.
A formative assessment, like a physical examination, can provide both the physician and the patient with timely information regarding the patient’s well-being and can help in prescribing antidotes to help an ailing person or to assist a healthy patient in becoming even stronger.

22. What are Common Formative Assessments (CFAs)?
Administered to all students
Items collaboratively designed by teachers
Items represent Priority Standards ONLY
Items are aligned to district and state tests
Results are analyzed in Data Teams in order to differentiate instruction
1 minute
Read through slide

23. On Your Own Please review the research on formative assessments.
Select three key words that resonate with you.
7 minutes (this slide and next)
Let’s take sometime to read the research on CFA’s in your handout on pages 8-12.
As you’re reading write three key words on a post-it. Then share them with your partner. When you’re done, write a short statement using the key words.
Show them the next slide so they see the process.

24. Key Word Box Notes Me Partner
Use 4 or more of the 6 words above to summarize the “Big Idea” regarding assessment for learning.
3 minutes
Have students share out their statements or big ideas with the group.

25. Priority Standards 7 minutes
Have them divide up into the groups you created earlier while they were working and tell them where you would like each group to sit.
Hand out the DRAFT document of the priority standards for their grade level. Give them a minute to look it over. Explain that this is a draft and not the final document (the way they will look in essential agreements might change, but priority standards are set!).
The priority standards are bolded and supporting standards are marked with an asterisk & italicized. Listening and speaking will be added to the final draft that will be given to them in August.
The vertical alignment team made final decisions on selecting the priority standards using your feedback from the end of our priority standards day. They also came up with a recommended pacing guide for when the standards would be taught. The CITs will design benchmark assessments to match the priority standards that were starred and have the final “say” on pacing.

26. Selecting Priority Standards to Unwrap & Assess
Analyze CST or Benchmark Data
Review District Priority Standards Pacing Guide & District Benchmarks
Minutes
**Participants need blank CFA planning templates.
Next year at your school sites, you may want to consider some of the following before you select the priority standards to unwrap and assess such as:
Data: Analyze your grade level or individual CST scores or benchmark data to select an area of need. OR
Pacing Guide & District Benchmark: Review the district pacing guide.
Today we would like you to choose a standard or standards that you would like to take through the process of unwrapping and creating a CFA for tomorrow as a team. It could be math or ELA it could be both! (***K-1 & 2-3 presenters, we may choose to have them select both since we might have more time).
Take a look at your priority standards.
With your team choose a priority standard or standards that you would like to unwrap together . You will fill out the 1st page of your template today.
Choose an area of focus.
For example choose a strand such as : Reading comprehension.
Then write out the standard/s word by word that you will focus on unwrapping tomorrow.
Choose the priority standards you would like to unwrap and create a CFA.
Decide on the materials you will bring to help create a CFA for these standards. (laptop, HM resources, math manual etc.)
Ask them to bring back the samples and priority standards if they are taking them with them or leave in room/table.

27. Agenda Part 1: Introduction to Common Formative Assessments
Part 2: Laying the Standards Foundation
Part 3: Assessment Formats and Item Writing Guidelines
Part 4: Writing First-Draft Assessment Items
Part 5: Creating Scoring Guides
Part 6: Tools for Checking Item Quality
1 minute
Review the agenda. Today we will focus on Part 1…. Read
Tomorrow we will focus on parts 2-6 of the agenda.
Part 2: (read part) focuses on unwrapping standards, and writing big ideas and essential questions.
Part 3: (read part) Discusses the different type of assessment formats & some guidelines to write your own assessment questions.
Part 4 (read slide) will give you time to work with your grade level colleagues to create selected and constructed response questions.
Part 5: We will practice (read part) to help you analyze constructed response assessments.
Part 6: We will also give you (read part) to help you and your teams determine the best test item questions.

28. Essential Questions What are common formative assessments?
How do they connect to powerful instruction and assessment practices?
5 minutes
This is the end of Day 2–
Ticket Out activity….
Before you leave we’d like you to revisit our first 2 essential questions to determine your level of understanding of the learning you did today. In a a bulleted list or a few sentences, please answer the first 2 questions on a piece of scratch paper or a post-it. Leave it at the center of your table.
Let them know you will be ing out a CFA template to work on CFA’s tomorrow so they can bring in their laptops tomorrow.
****Presenters: Please use sign in sheets to templates (thanks!)

29. Part 2 Laying the Standards Foundation 3 minutes Welcome to Day 3
As they come in, remind them to sit in their new grade level groups from yesterday. And to take out their CFA Planning template that they started the day before.
Before we begin to unwrap we’d like to engage in a quick activity. On your table, you have some hershey kisses
Ask: What is missing? (the labels)
Ask: Can you tell what kind it is by just looking at it? (no)
Say: What do you have to do to figure out what kind it is? (have them share out)
Ask: Now do you know what kind it is? (hopefully they say yes)
Review some of the things they did to figure out what kind of kiss it was.
Analogy: The hershey kisses with the missing labels are like our standards we know what they are and see them all the time, but not until we “unwrapped” them and “experienced” them were we able to determine the flavor.
The same is true for unwrapping the priority standards. Until we engage in the process of deconstructing and analyzing a grade level standard, we can’t say that we truly know what students need to know and be able to do.

30. Laying the Foundation Steps 1-4
Step 1: “Unwrap” the Priority Standards Step 2: Create a Graphic Organizer Step 3: Determine the Big Ideas Step 4: Write the Essential Questions
30 seconds
Before we create a Common Formative Assessment it is essential to follow this four step process, they are: **read slide

31. Step 1: “Unwrap” Selected Priority Standards
Identify the key concepts (important nouns or noun phrases) by underlining them
Identify the skills (verbs) by circling them or making them ALL CAPS
1 minute
Take out your CFA template from yesterday.
This is the deconstruction part of the process. Read the standard carefully to analyze the wording to identify the embedded concepts and skills. **
Concepts are the most important noun or noun phrases that represent teachable concepts.
The verbs are the skills that the students themselves are expected to do.

32. Step 1: “Unwrap” Matching Priority Standards
Example RECOGNIZE main ideas presented in texts and PROVIDE evidence that supports those ideas DRAW inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and SUPPORT them with textual evidence and prior knowledge CONTRAST facts, supported inferences, and opinions in text.
2 minutes
**Presenter FYI this 5th grade sample is in pgs. _____ in their handout.
Identifying what the verbs mean, for example CONTRAST: impacts the way we teach. It is key to have a common understanding of what the verb means so we can ensure that what they learn is not determined by each school. When we identified the priority standards we are ensuring and making a commitment to teach the standard at the level of rigor it states, no matter what our demographics are.
The terminology that we use has an impact on the state test as well. We need to ensure that we are using the standards academic vocabulary when we are teaching. If we don’t, it is a disservice to our students.

33. Step 1 Activity “Unwrap” Your Priority Standards
Analyze the wording of your priority standards to determine exactly what students must know and be able to do.
Identify the key concepts (important nouns or noun phrases).
Circle the skills (verbs).
3 minutes
Remember that sometimes it might seem like we are underlining every word and you might wonder what the point is. The power of the practice reveals itself in the physical doing of it. By studying the wording of the standard it determines precisely what students need to know and be able to do.
***Have them unwrap their standard.
After say:
A word of caution: It is critical to experience the process of unwrapping first-hand. If we think about John Hattie’s research that we discussed yesterday, truly understanding the concepts ourselves, is the first step to improving student learning. I can’t stress enough that you should be careful not to “divvy” up the standards amongst your grade level partners and then share.

34. Step 2: Create a Graphic Organizer
Represent each of the “unwrapped” concepts and skills clearly
Reveals all the learning targets (concepts and skills)
Focuses instruction and assessment
1 minute
Once we have identified the teachable concepts and skills from the priority standards, the next step is to represent all of those elements on a graphic organizer of your choice. The specific format doesn’t matter. What does matter is that each and every teachable concept from the priority standard is represented in a way that makes sense to you. We have provided one for you, however feel free to create your own.

35. Step 2: Create a Graphic Organizer
Choose the type of organizer that works best for you:
Outline
Bulleted List
Concept Map
T-chart
Other
30 seconds
Here some ideas about the type of graphic organizers you might select to represent the concepts and skills.

36. Step 2: Reading Comprehension Examples
Concepts: Need to KNOW
Skills: Be able to DO
Main Idea
Supporting Evidence
Inferences
Conclusions
Generalizations
Text Evidence
Prior Knowledge
(2) RECOGNIZE (main idea and concepts)
(1) IDENTIFY (supporting evidence)
(5) ASSESS (supporting evidence)
(4) DRAW (inferences, conclusions or generalizations)
(5) SUPPORT (inferences/conclusions with text evidence and prior knowledge)
3 minutes
Explain to participants that on the left is the list of the underlined nouns or noun phrases that describe the teachable concepts. On the right are the verbs with the related concept(s) in parentheses after it. Again it may seem redundant, however it is helpful when we move to the next step of creating big ideas.
Notice how the skills and concepts on this T-chart are across from each other. In addition, it is important to label an approximate level of Bloom’s Taxonomy for each skill that is identified.
See pages 1-2 in the handouts to help you identify the level of blooms.
How you use the skill with its corresponding concept(s) is what helps determine that skill’s approximate level of rigor.

37. Step 2 Activity
Using the T-chart, or a graphic organizer of your choice, list all “unwrapped” concepts and skills from matching priority standards.
List each skill with its related concept(s) in parentheses.
Identify the approximate level of each skill according to Bloom’s Taxonomy
5-8 minutes minutes
Review steps for activities and let participants work.

38. Step 3: Determine the Big Ideas
What do you want your students to discover on their own.
Represent the main ideas, conclusions or generalizations about the “unwrapped” concepts and skills
2 minute
Step 3 is determining the big ideas. We don’t teach things in isolation or merely want students to regurgitate facts. We went them to notice a theme or bigger idea with what we are teaching. First, we need to realize that big idea ourselves so that our lessons, activities, questioning, etc, guide students toward realizing this big idea on their own.
Big ideas represent the 3 or 4 foundational understanding –main idea, conclusions or generalizations relative to the “unwrapped” concepts – that we want our students to discover and state in their own words by the end of our instructional unit.

39. Big Idea Key Points Open-ended Enduring
Can apply to more than one area of study (broad) … OR
Integrated understanding of the Priority Standard (topical)
1 minute
Read through the key points..

40. Broader Big Ideas
Broader Big Ideas are the generalizations derived for one area of study that connect to and can be found in several subject matter areas.
Main ideas must be supported with evidence from the text and supporting details.
1 minute
Read through slide.
Broad Big Ideas are ideas that you can apply to other areas of study. Read sample

41. Topical Big Ideas
Topical Big Ideas relate primarily to the inherent understanding in a particular course of study or section of the standard
Mathematical formulas and estimates both provide shortcuts for determining needed mathematical information.
1 minute
Or they can be topical that relate to one content area only. Read sample. Or sometimes they can be a combination of both

42. Don’t worry about getting it right, just get it down!
Big Ideas
Don’t worry about getting it right, just get it down!
30 seconds
When we were writing Big Ideas at our CFA training, our presenter Jay encouraged the following. (Read slide) It is easy to get stuck on trying to write the perfect big idea. However, today the point is to practice getting it down and not making it perfect 

43. 5 minutes
Let’s try it! With your partner, take a look at the pictures and try to come up with some big ideas about the pictures you see up on the screen.
Give participants a couple of minutes to come up with some ideas then share out.

44. Examples
Writers express their ideas and imagination in different formats depending on their purpose and personal choice
Geographic, political, cultural, and other structures work together to ensure the survival and advancement of all civilizations.
Reading music allows you to participate and communicate in the language of musicians.
30 seconds
Here are some examples of big ideas in different content areas.
Read through examples

45. Additional Examples
Using story clues (picture clues, context clues, predictions) helps us understand a story.
All narratives need sequential story elements that focus on conflict and resolution.
The motion of objects can be approximated by using Newton’s laws.
30 seconds
Read through some more examples…

46. Step 3 Activity
Review your “unwrapped” concepts/skills on your graphic organizer.
Decide the main or essential understandings you want your students to realize on their own.
We draw conclusions and make generalizations from what we read and from our own experience.
10 minutes
Read through activity. Participants get to work.

47. Step 4: Essential Questions
Questions, Not Statements Will stimulate Student Curiosity to Find the Answers
30 seconds (read slide)

48. Guidelines for Writing Essential Questions
Write engaging questions that lead your students to discover the Big Ideas on their own.
Make essential questions open-ended.
Write questions that take students beyond who, what, where and when to how and why.
1 minute
Read through slide
Essential questions are open-ended questions that should be used to spark learners interest in learning new content. Even though plainly worded, they carry with them an underlying rigor. Responding to them in a way that demonstrates genuine understanding requires more than superficial thought. Essential questions sharply focus instruction and assessment.
Just like we posted our essential questions on the wall before we began the CFA portion of this institute, we highly suggest that you post essential questions before you open up your unity of study. It is a way to let students know what they will be learning. Let them know that they will be able to respond to the questions by the end of instruction in their own words. Again, this another way to formatively assess your students to check for understanding.

49. Essential Questions to Guide Instruction & Assessment
What are literary devices? Why do authors use them? (Big Idea: Literary devices enhance and deepen fiction’s impact upon the reader.) This is an example of a “one-two punch” questions.
1 minute
This question is an example of a one-two punch question. The first question is a lower level recall type of question, however the second question goes way beyond the first in terms of thinking skill demand.

50. Examples of Big Ideas with Essential Questions
How can an author capture an audience? (Knowing who one is writing for is essential to engaging the readers.)
What are conclusions and generalizations? How do we arrive at them? (We draw conclusions and make generalizations from what we read and from our own experience.)
Why isn’t a digit always worth the same amount?
(The position of a digit determines its value in a number.)
1 minute
Read through samples Notice the answers are the big ideas.

51. 3 minutes
Let’s try it! With your partner, take a look at the pictures and refer to your big ideas to help you come up with the essential questions.
Give participants a couple of minutes to come up with some ideas then share out.

52. Step 4 Activity Write Essential Questions
1. Review your Big Ideas.
What questions could you ask students that would lead them to discover your Big Ideas?
Can you include any “one-two punch” questions?
Limit Test: Do your Big Ideas answer your Essential Questions?
10 minutes
Review activity and let them get to work.

53. Reflection 2 + 1 answer two share one
What new insights did I gain by working through the first four foundational steps?
What are the key points I want to remember?
What questions do I still have?
4 minutes
Take out a sheet of paper and do a reflection called Look at the questions, answer 2 of these questions and share 1 with your neighbor.
End of Part 2….

54. Break Depending on group… Break at 9:30 OR 9:45
Need to start Part 3 by 10:00 AM
10:00-11:30
12:30-2:00