Proficiency-Based
Learning Simplified
Using Essential Questions and Learning
Targets in Unit Design
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PRESENTERS
Alex MacPhail
Senior Associate
Great Schools Partnership
Mark Kostin
Associate Director
Great Schools Partnership
Kate Gardoqui
Director of Studies
Noble High School
North Berwick, ME
OUTCOMES
Explain the key components of a
proficiency-based system and how
they inform instruction and
assessment.
OUTCOMES
Explain key steps in the process of
implementing a proficiency-based
system.
OUTCOMES
Share examples of Noble High
School’s English Department’s
proficiency-based process and the
resulting curriculum.
Proficiency-Based Learning not
Standards-Referenced Teaching
Standard
Established norms or benchmarks
for learning that defines what
students need to know and be able
to do.
Graduation Standard
Performance Indicator
Learning Target
Graduation
Standards
Performance
Indicators
Learning Targets
A Graduation Standard Is...
A standard that focuses instruction
on the most foundational, enduring,
and leveraged concepts and skills
within a discipline.
A Performance Indicator...
Describes or defines what students
need to know and be able to do
to demonstrate mastery of a
graduation standard.
Learning Targets Are...
The component parts of a performance
indicator - that is, the performance
indicator has been broken down into a
series of progressive steps and
digestible chunks.
Essential Questions
Provoke student interest in the big
ideas (often the skills and concepts of
the graduation standards);
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Essential Questions
Inspire inquiry; Invite student as an
active participant learning; Provide
motivation for acquisition of knowledge
and skills.
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Graduation
Standard
The student applies concepts and processes from history
to develop historical perspective and explain issues of
continuity and change in the community, the state, the
United States and the world.
Graduation
Standard
The student applies concepts and processes from history
to develop historical perspective and explain issues of
continuity and change in the community, the state, the
United States and the world.
The student analyzes and interprets historical events &
materials from a variety of perspectives in world history
Performance
Indicators
(2 of 8 addressed
in unit)
The student describes and analyzes causal factors that
have shaped world history
Graduation
Standard
The student applies concepts and processes from history
to develop historical perspective and explain issues of
continuity and change in the community, the state, the
United States and the world.
The student analyzes and interprets historical events &
materials from a variety of perspectives in world history
Performance
Indicators
(2 of 8 addressed
in unit)
Learning
Targets
(4 classes in 4
week unit)
The student describes and analyzes causal factors that
have shaped world history
I can define mercantilism and explain how it could be a
cost and a benefit to colonists
I can analyze the causes and consequences of laws &
events in the 1770s and infer different viewpoints
colonists may have held about them
Graduation
Standard
The student applies concepts and processes from history
to develop historical perspective and explain issues of
continuity and change in the community, the state, the
United States and the world.
Were the
colonists justified
in spurring the
revolution?
The student analyzes and interprets historical events &
materials from a variety of perspectives in world history
Performance
Indicators
(2 of 8 addressed
in unit)
Learning
Targets
(4 classes in 4
week unit)
The student describes and analyzes causal factors that
have shaped world history
I can define mercantilism and explain how it could be a
cost and a benefit to colonists
I can analyze the causes and consequences of laws &
events in the 1770s and infer different viewpoints
colonists may have held about them
Implementation Steps
1. Content Area Team Familiarization with
Standards
Implementation Steps
2. Craft 5-10 Graduation Standards
Implementation Steps
3. Develop rubrics to guide the
assessment of student work for
each standard
Implementation Steps
4. Complete coverage/gap-analysis
Coverage Matrix
9
10
11
12
AP
Read and comprehend complex literary and informational
texts independently and proficiently.
✓
✓
✓
✓
Interpret, analyze, and evaluate complex literary and
informational texts.
✓
✓
✓
✓
Writing Produce clear and coherent writing for a range of
tasks, purposes, and audiences.
✓ ✓
✓
✓
✓
Conduct short and sustained research projects based on
focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the
subject under investigation.
✓
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of
discussions, responding thoughtfully to diverse perspectives
and expressing ideas clearly and persuasively.
✓
✓
✓
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence,
conveying a clear and distinct perspective.
✓
✓
✓
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard
English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
✓ ✓
✓
✓
ELO
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
Implementation Steps
5. For each course, develop a syllabuslike outline of which standards, where,
and when these will be covered during
the course of the year
Implementation Steps
6. For each unit: list standards addressed,
unpack each standard and develop
learning targets
Implementation Steps
7. Design daily learning experiences
aligned with the learning targets
with opportunities for practice,
formative assessment, and ongoing
feedback to students.
Implementation Steps
8. Where possible, include
opportunities for student
voice and choice
Implementation Steps
9. When ready, give students the
opportunity to engage with a
summative assessment task
Implementation Steps
10. Assess the performance against the
appropriate rubric
Implementation Steps
11. If the student has met the standard,
move on; For students who have not,
provide opportunities for interventions
and support
Noble High School
Mapping New Ground: Developing
ELA Graduation Standards Based on
the Common Core
Noble High School
Noble High School, a member of the
CES and LIS, is a school of about 1000
students in Southern Maine. Our
students come from small towns and
rural areas.
Noble High School
Over the past two decades, we
have devoted ourselves to creating
a school where:
Learning is personalized
Noble High School
Over the past two decades, we
have devoted ourselves to creating
a school where:
Teaming, heterogeneity and
collaboration are the norm
Noble High School
Over the past two decades, we
have devoted ourselves to creating
a school where:
There are many opportunities to
make learning authentic and
interdisciplinary.
Noble High School
Because of our system of end-of-year
exhibitions, all of our students must
successfully deliver a researched
presentation that is between 15 and 45
minutes in length in order to graduate.
Our efforts yielded gains in attendance,
test scores, and dropout prevention.
However, challenges remain.
Challenges
Many of our students reach 12th
grade still lacking the intellectual
stamina, the academic vocabulary,
and the sophistication to read
college-level texts independently;
Challenges
Many of our 12th graders also produce
writing that is cursory, unsophisticated in
its use of argumentation and evidence,
and laden with too many errors.
Enter The Common Core...
“All students must be able to
comprehend texts of steadily increasing
complexity as they progress through
school.”
Common Core (App. A.)
Common Core
“...students must be able to read and
comprehend independently and
proficiently the kinds of complex texts
commonly found in college and careers.”
...And Maine LD 949/1422
In order to graduate from high school,
students must demonstrate proficiency in
all 8 MLR content areas
(Maine Revised Statutes, Title 20-A, section 6209.)
New Territory:
To accomplish
proficiency-based
graduation...
New Territory:
We will need to create units, lessons,
assessments...
that will support demonstration of
proficiency at a more demanding level
New Territory:
We will need new methods of grading
and record-keeping in order to be able
to track and report student’s progress
on the standards
Making The Map
The Common Core for Grades 9 -12
contains 82 individual statements.
Making The Map
The first step in designing a Common
Core-based system is to cluster these
82 statements within a much more
manageable set of “Graduation
Standards.”
Making The Map
A Graduation Standard is a group of
related skills, knowledge, and behaviors
described by the Common Core.
Noble’s Strategy:
We used the strands within the
Common Core itself as a basis for our
Graduation Standards.
Noble’s Strategy:
These are the Common Core
strands for 6-12 ELA:
Reading: Literature
Reading: Informational Text
Writing
Speaking & Listening
Language
Noble’s Proposed ELA Graduation
Standards:
Analyzing Informational Text
Analyzing Literature
Writing
Argumentation (still under discussion)
Research
Speaking and Listening
Word Knowledge
Questions Discussed While Making our
Graduation Standards
Should “Language” be included in our
“Writing” Graduation Standard?
Yes.
Questions Discussed While Making our
Graduation Standards
Should “Word Knowledge be a
separate Graduation Standard?
Yes.
Questions Discussed While Making our
Graduation Standards
Ensures we teach and assess it
separately and we give it greater
attention...
Questions Discussed While Making our
Graduation Standards
...We thought this was important
because vocabulary is so often the
limiting factor which stops our
students from being able to read
high level texts.
...More Questions
In the Common Core, Research is
included in the Writing Strand. Should
we separate it out?
Yes. Research is a synthesis of so
many strands.
...More Questions
In the Common Core, Argumentation is
included in the Writing Strand. Should
we separate it out?
...More Questions
Assessing argument separately
focuses on critical thinking.
Will adding it as graduation standard
overcomplicate and overwhelm
assessment?
Levels of Proficiency
The next step after designating
Graduation Standards is to take
each GS, delineate all of the
Standards within it, and ask:
Levels of Proficiency
“What level of proficiency should
students reach in each of these
individual standards by the end of
each grade?”
Levels of Proficiency
At Noble, we created charts
articulating these levels of proficiency
in student-friendly language.
An example of a Proficiency Level chart:
Common Core Standards Skills
CCSS, ELA-Literacy.W.
9-10. 1a
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.
9-10.1c
I can organize my writing
so that my ideas are clear,
and my audience can
understand what my claims
are, what I am arguing,
and how my evidence is
connected to my claim.
Knowledge
I know the difference
between a claim and a
counterclaim.
I know a variety of words,
phrases, and clauses that
can be used to link section
of the text, create cohesion
and clarify the relationship
between claim(s) and
reasons, between reasons
and evidence, and
between claim(s) and
counterclaims
An example of a Proficiency Level chart:
Teachers use student work from
previous years (e.g. AP & SAT essays)
to help develop understanding of levels
of proficiency.
An example of a Proficiency Level chart:
Developed 9-10 and 11-12 list of
essential experiences and outcomes in
order to meet CCSS.
An example of a Proficiency Level chart:
These charts will guide us as we create
a Scope and Sequence that is aligned
with our school’s 21st Century Learning
Objectives and with the Common
Core.
Grade 11: During their eleventh-grade
year, students must learn and practice
Reading Informational Text and Analyzing Literature
Reading Informational Text and
Analyzing Literature
Analyzing an author’s choices in
informational and literary texts which
are at least at the 11th-grade level
Text Complexity band.
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf
Reading Informational Text and
Analyzing Literature
Citing strong and thorough textual
evidence to support analysis of what
the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text.
Reading Informational Text and
Analyzing Literature
Reading 18th, 19th, and 20th-century
foundational American texts. Two of
these texts should be from the same
time-period and should approach similar
themes or topics from different angles.
Reading Informational Text and
Analyzing Literature
Evaluating the application of
constitutional principles and use of legal
reasoning (e.g., in U.S. Supreme Court
majority opinions and dissents) and the
premises, purposes, and arguments in
works of public advocacy (e.g., The
Federalist, presidential addresses).
Next Steps
Our next step will be to design
common performance assessments
(with accompanying rubrics) at each
grade level which will allow students
to demonstrate their learning.
Next Steps
We have taken the first step by
designing Argumentation rubrics for
grades 9-10 and 11-12, aligned with
the Common Core.
Next Steps
Here is an example of the
argumentation rubric that we
developed using the Common Core.
Common Rubric for Argumentation,
Grades 11 and 12
Common Rubric for Argumentation,
Grades 11 and 12
Common Rubric for Argumentation,
Grades 11 and 12
Common Rubric for Argumentation,
Grades 11 and 12
Future Steps
We will create a Scope and Sequence
that is aligned with the Common Core
and our school’s mission.
Future Steps
We will give a Common Assessment of
one of our Graduation Standards, and
we will score the common assessments
collaboratively.
Future Steps
We will discuss observations from the
collaborative scoring, including revisions
needed in the rubric, or ideas for
changes in instruction.
Future Steps
Design units
Compile instructional strategies and activities
Develop formative assessments
...to support student demonstration of
proficiency
QUESTIONS FOR
PRESENTERS
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