What it’s about, why we need it, and how do
school leaders encourage it?
Working with Ruth Sutton, October 2013
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Understanding the process of ‘backward
planning’ in the curriculum
Discovering how ‘instructional leadership’ really
works, in this context
Checking out all the available resources
Enabling and encouraging teachers to work
collaboratively: Why? How?
Developing skills and confidence in your own
school: designing a PD ‘process’, using
‘backward planning’
Sustaining the focus in the longer term
Identifying most effective next steps, in school,
for your Division, and for mRLC
In a small group…
 Share your understanding of ‘backward
planning’ and how it works
 Draw a picture, or a diagram, to illustrate it
 What questions do you, or your teachers,
have about it?
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Fight the urge to plan too much detail too
soon
Teachers – and leaders too - step back and
take a long look at the curriculum
requirements, for a whole grade level
Consider the total of content, skills and
approaches expected/required for that year
long program
Break the whole into ‘chunks’ and decide
their size and order
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3.
Big learning goals: what do we want the students to learn, ie.
content knowledge, skills and ‘behaviours’? (Don’t go straight
to what the students are going to do)
Evidence of learning: what will we look for to show that these
expected outcomes have been achieved? How will students be
involved in developing and understanding these criteria?
Assessment activities: how will students be enabled and
encouraged to provide this evidence, and get feedback to
decide their next steps? Assessments must be as valid
(ie..accurate) and reliable (ie. consistent/fair) as possible (ie.
manageable)
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5.
Teaching: what teaching and learning activities will enable and
encourage students to learn and practice the desired skills and
content? How will these activities be differentiated?
Starting point: how will the students’ prior learning be
identified and built upon, and previous misconceptions be
rectified?
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More ‘evidence’ doesn’t necessarily mean
better evidence: what matters is ‘sufficiency’
The quality – validity and reliability – is more
important than the quantity of data about
student learning
The question is not ‘How much evidence can
we manage?’ but ‘How little evidence do we
need?’
Validity
(accuracy)
Reliability
Best fit
Manageability
and
‘Credibility’
(fairness)
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Teachers need help to design ‘valid’
assessment activities
Shared professional judgment is much more
important than individual professional
judgment
Teachers who are unsure of their evidence
will try to gather too much
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Enable and encourage their teachers to share
their interpretations of the ‘outcome’. I call
this process ‘moderation’.
This process is time-consuming, needs
careful management and has a huge payoff
for students (greater clarity), teachers
(greater confidence) and parents (better
information)
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Choose some outcomes to focus on
Share what we think the outcomes mean
Find ‘neutral’ examples of these outcomes in
practice, at various levels
Discuss what ‘levels/standards’ the examples
represent
Design and agree a ‘shared assessment’ around
these outcomes
Try it out and bring back examples of student
work
Discuss the outcomes and ‘standards’ in this
work
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www.mRLC.ca, follow links to Tools
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The backward planning template
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The ‘essential outcomes’
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A sample Science unit
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From what you know already, and have heard
from me, and have seen on the mRLC
website…..
Go back and add to the picture/diagram you
started with, and add or amend where
necessary
What issues and questions still remain?
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26 studies, of which 11 were chosen as most
useful to decide the leadership activities most
associated with improving student learning and
achievement
Each activity was identified, and its ‘effect size’
showing how important it was
Decide the priority order for these factors, from
least to most influential for improved student
learning
o Strategic resourcing
o Planning, co-ordinating and evaluating
teaching and the curriculum
o Ensuring an orderly and supportive
environment
o Promoting and participating in teacher
learning and development
o Goal setting
o
o
o
o
o
Ensuring an orderly and supportive
environment (0.27)
Strategic resourcing (0.34)
Goal setting (0.35)
Planning, co-ordinating and evaluating
teaching and the curriculum (0.42)
Promoting and participating in teacher
learning and development (0.84)
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What’s the ‘big idea’ and the desired learning outcomes for
teachers in your school?
What would/could the evidence of teachers’ learning be?
How, when and by whom would this ‘evidence’ be gathered and
assessed?
What will teachers need to learn and practice to be able to
demonstrate this evidence?
How will you differentiate? What about the resources you might
need, groupings etc? What about ‘structure’ for this PD?
How will you check teachers’ prior learning and experience?
How will you engage and motivate the teachers throughout this
process?
Be prepared to present this plan another group!
Backward planning is not an ‘initiative’ : it
raises questions all the stages of teaching…
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How teachers plan their ‘units’
How they ‘differentiate’ and include as many
students as they can
How they engage and motivate their students
How they find and judge the evidence of
learning
How they ‘record’ their assessments
How they describe and report student
achievement
‘Initiatives’ sound and feel different from year to
year
 Teachers and Principals complain about ‘initiative
overload’, lose sight of the big picture, and
what’s fundamentally important
SO..What other school priorities do you have?
What’s on your ‘front burners’?
 How do these priorities link together? Do they
have ‘indicators’ in common?
 How might these ‘overlaps’ make your
implementation plans more effective or efficient?
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Aspect of
teaching…… ………………
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‘initiative’
Implementing
new
curriculum
Differentiation
Supporting
vulnerable
learners
……………….. ………………
Planning
with the end
in mind
Teacher
collaboration
Classroom
assessment
Developing
student
resilience
Backward
planning
Sharing the
work
More
‘reliable’ and
consistent
Focus on
learning skills
3 level
planning
Sharing
resources
More
accurate
diagnosis
Year to year
continuity
Welldesigned
appropriate
assessment
developing
student
‘growth
mindset’
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We learn to teach mainly through experience
Our teaching and leadership styles reflect our
personal approach: what we do is a reflection of
who we are
Habits are notoriously hard to change
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The neo-cortex:
useful for academic
assignments
The reptilian brain:
useful for basic
instincts
The limbic brain:
useful for changing
habits
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The practices of teaching,
schooling and leadership
are deeply ingrained or
‘hard-wired’
Habits are formed and
changed in the limbic brain
not the neo-cortex
They can only be changed
through the limbic brain
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Pre-contemplation
Contemplation
First step
Discomfort and
floundering
Practice
Confidence
New habit
Coach someone else
The Weight-watchers model for
improving teaching, and
leadership, involves:
Big, important, agreed goals
Small steps and continual feedback
Perseverance
Collegial support and accountability
Recognition of success
Think about your own school/role
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What have we already achieved in
implementing the outcomes - based
curriculum in our classrooms?
What’s still to do?
What will be the ‘indicators’ of progress?
What are your one or two next steps – no
more – between now and the end of this
term?
Who needs to do what, with whom and by
when?
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Explain why you’ve
made these choices
and decisions
Ask and answer
good questions
about these
decisions
Be prepared to
amend and improve
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Very careful listening
Open questions designed to
make the other person
reflect, not just to seek
information
Clear achievable next steps
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Share what you’re planning to do.
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Consider – what might help us achieve these
changes?
What might be the barriers to these changes?
What could get in your way? How might you
deal with these potential roadblocks?
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Consider - what you will need more help
with, in the January session, and in March
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Keep in touch. If I can help, I wil
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Email exit slips to lorimtighe@gmail.com
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Sutton.ruth@gmail.com
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Twitter: @ruthsutton
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www.ruthsutton.co.uk