Forward Looking Classrooms

I have experienced a lot of classrooms, 8 in elementary school, 14 in middle school, 30- 40 in high school, and about 40 in college. As I read about forward looking assessments and higher level thinking I thought back to all of these teachers and classrooms. I have experienced a variety of teaching styles and methods, some that were great, and others that were subpar, but they all had something in common. They all had a variety of students, some that wanted to learn, others that wanted to earn good grades, others who didn't care, and learners that weren't there.

     The teachers that made the difference in these students lives were the ones that had a forward thinking classroom. When you google forward thinking classroom, you will find a variety of great articles about classrooms  that are utilizing technology to better equip their students for the future. When I think of a forward thinking classroom, I think of one that is equipping their students to think critically and take the skills they are developing and apply them in real world situations. We all have had that class where you learn about something but never get to see or do it. For example, if you took a class on animal nutrition and your first unit was on feed identification. This unit could be taught via a different powerpoint each day showing pictures of the various feed stuffs and then you could have a paper test that highlighted these pictures once again. However, in a forward thinking classroom, the students would be shown real examples of these feedstuffs, learn their properties, then apply this knowledge by mixing feedstuffs, a skill that could be transferred to a variety of situations latter in life.

    Forward looking assessments were one small part of our reading this week. When we look at designing lesson plans, unit plans, and curriculum, we not only have to worry about content, standards, and differentiated instruction, but we need to be preparing students to critically think about the information presented and how to apply it.  This can be done through forward looking assessment, instead of just asking questions that have students regurgitate facts, we should be prompting our students through higher level thinking response questions. I know that developing higher order thinking assessments will be quite a challenge so I went looking for further resources and fount this book How to Assess Higher-order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom by Susan Brookhart, it looks like a great resource to begin developing  forward thinking assessments.  http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109111/chapters/General_Principles_for_Assessing_Higher-Order_Thinking.aspx
   
    As I reflect on this I am beginning to understand the depths of lesson and unit planning. There are a variety of parts that all have to be included to have a successful class and it all begins with planning. It is important to plan the what, how, why, when, where, and to what extent you want learners to learn and engage.
 
     Its funny, if you would have asked me what the most important part of a lesson was I would have told you the content, but that just is not the case. I can teach you about how to peel a banana and if I am not carefully planning the who, what, when, why, and to what extent, you would leave my classroom having retained possibly nothing. The content is just one tiny piece of the planning puzzle.

     As I look to the upcoming week I see that we will be delving further into the importance of lesson planning, both to prepare the teacher and to better equip the student for learning, I am excited to piece together the rest of the planning puzzle.