Taking the Time...

Planning backwards, or with the end in mind, isn't a new idea, nor is making sure your lessons reach a diverse set of learners and meet their individual needs. What is new, the framework, the lingo, and the meaning behind it all. At first, Learning Focused was confusing and overwhelming. We needed to use this new framework, we needed to make sure we had all of the I's dotted and t's crossed. When we took a step back and looked at the why of it all, not the how, things started to fall more into place. The whole point we've gathered from this process is that we are just doing exactly what the framework calls for, focusing the learning. Does this mean we don't do fun things? No. Does this mean we don't do Kagan and small groups? No. It means we are planning for an assignment that we've already designed, and making sure each lesson and activity we plan gets us one step closer, while equally challenging, providing opportunities for summarizing and sharing, and keeping all students in mind.

We are now several standards into really using the learning focused framework and recently had our HOTS training. Again, it can all be overwhelming, but through sitting down and looking at exemplars and using the provided information from training, books, and the flip-charts, we are finally making gains in the planning. It isn't taking as long, it isn't causing as much of an inconvenience, because let’s be honest, in the beginning it felt that way. We now are always thinking of what’s our assignment, going to figure out what we need our students to do to get there, how we are going to get there, and ways we can make sure we are formally assessing along the way. We are narrowing our focus, but covering the the standards that need be covered. If we are using power standards, that’s another way we’ve focused the students’ learning.

A huge takeaway is looking at what we want our students to know and what we want them to be able to do, and making sure that each lesson and activity covers of those “will be able tos” or get the students one step closer to being able to. Keeping focus on our lesson essential question helps to make sure that we are staying on task and on topic. We are making sure each day, each lesson, we are one step closer to having students who can answer our LEQ and can provide the needed support. Spiraling is embedded, as is summarizing and vocabulary. We sometimes are bogged down with trying to do too much too quickly. We now take the time to go deeper and strengthen their understanding. We took that same time to go deeper and strengthen portions of our lesson plan. We did each component, in order as suggested, making sure each section was strong and aligned. Just like students need time to understand new skills, new formats, we needed that too!