Mark Jarrett, Ph.D.
Florida Transformative Education
How does a teacher squeeze all of Florida’s
Next Generation Sunshine State Standards
(NGSSS)—from the causes of the Civil War
to the present—into a one-year course?
Agenda
New Standards, New Test, New Challenges
 Next Generation Sunshine State Standards
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(NGSSS)
EOC Assessment Test Item Specifications
How Do Students Learn? What the
Research Says
Organizing the US History Standards
Key Learning Features of Gateway to US
History
Challenges Posed by
Florida’s New End-of-Course
Testing
 Broad Range of Content
 More Document-Based and Data-Based
Assessment Items: some may combine datainterpretation and critical-thinking skills with
assessment of specific content knowledge
 Assessment Items of Varying Cognitive
Complexity
 Online Test Administration?
How Do We Learn?
Three Key Learning Principles from
How People Learn:
 Unmask
Preconceptions
 Conceptual Learning
 Metacognitive
Approach
HOW STUDENTS LEARN
National Research Council, How People Learn (1999)
KEY FINDINGS
1. “Students come to the classroom with
preconceptions about how the world works. If their
initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail
to grasp the new concepts and information that are
taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a
test but revert to their preconceptions outside the
classroom.”
KEY FINDINGS
2. “To develop competence in an area of inquiry,
students must: a) have a deep foundation of
factual knowledge,
b) understand facts and ideas in the context of
a conceptual framework, and c) organize
knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and
application.”
3. “A metacognitive approach to instruction can
help students learn to take control of their own
learning by defining learning goals and
monitoring their progress in achieving them.”
Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering & Jane
Pollack, Classroom Instruction that Works
 Identifying Similarities and Differences
 Summarizing and Note Taking
 Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
 Homework and Practice
 Nonlinguistic Representations
 Cooperative Learning
 Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
 Generating and Testing Hypotheses
 Cues, Questions and Advance
What is the best way to
organize Florida’s NGSSS
Benchmarks for United States
History?
 A special opening unit
teaches all the required
social studies skills.
 Students can use these
chapters at the
beginning of the course
or refer to them as they
go.
 This unit lays a
foundation for later
practice questions in the
book.
 “Historians at Work”:
Students learn how to
interpret historical
documents
Civil War and Reconstruction
Civil War and Reconstruction
Chapter 1. The Civil War
 Chapter 3.
 Chapter
Chapter 4.
 Chapter 5.
The Civil War
2.Reconstruction
Reconstruction
"Go West!"
Chapter 3. "Go West!"
America’s
Second
Industrial
Revolution
 Chapter 4. The Triumph of
Industry
 Chapter 5. The Labor
Movement
 Chapter 6. Cities,
Immigrants and Farmers
 Chapter 7. The
Progressive Era
World Affairs through
World War I
 Chapter 8. American Imperialism
 Chapter 9. World War I
The Roaring
Twenties & the
Great
Depression
World War II
and
Post-World
War II
 Chapter 12. World
War II
 Chapter 13.
The Cold War
Modern America: Global
Leadership and Domestic Issues
Structure:
Key Learning Features
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Unit Opener: Advance Organizer
Chapter Opener: Florida NGSSS Benchmarks Covered in this Chapter
Chapter Opener: Names and Terms You Should Know (Word Wall)
Chapter Opener: Florida “Keys” to Learning (Important Ideas)
Chapter Text: “Chunked, Clustered and Illustrated”
The Historian’s Apprentice (Student Activities)
Review Cards
Concept Map
What Do You Know? (EOC-type Practice Questions)
Chapter
Opener
 NGSSS
Benchmarks in the
Chapter
 Key Terms and
Names
Florida “Keys” to
Learning
The Most Important
Ideas Your Students
Should Know
Purposes:
• An Overview that
Provides a Framework
for More Detailed
Information in the
Chapter
• A Preview that Checks
What Students Already
Know
• A Summary that
Students Can Refer to
after Reading the
Chapter
Florida “Keys” to
Learning
The Most Important
Ideas Your Students
Should Know
Purposes:
• An Overview that
Provides a Framework
for More Detailed
Information in the
Chapter
• A Preview that Checks
What Students Already
Know
• A Summary that
Students Can Refer to
after Reading the
Chapter
Florida “Keys” to
Learning
The Most Important
Ideas Your Students
Should Know
Purposes:
• An Overview that
Provides a Framework
for More Detailed
Information in the
Chapter
• A Preview that Checks
What Students Already
Know
• A Summary that
Students Can Refer to
after Reading the
Chapter
StudentFriendly Text
 Clustered into
Sections
 Emphasizes Key
Concepts
 Cutting-Edge History
 Key Names are
Bolded
 Accompanied
by Illustrations,
Maps and
Graphic Organizers
Student Interaction:
The Historian’s
Apprentice
 Some activities ask
students to apply and
reorganize information
they have just read, or to
view this information
from different
perspectives
 Other activities go
beyond the book and
ask students to act like
real historians by
conducting research or
interpreting primary
documents
Student Interaction:
The Historian’s
Apprentice
 Some activities ask
students to apply and
reorganize information
they have just read, or to
view this information
from different
perspectives
 Other activities go
beyond the book and
ask students to act like
real historians by
conducting research or
interpreting primary
documents
Student
Interaction
and
Application:
The Historian’s
Apprentice
Summary and
Reinforcement:
Chapter
Concept Map
 Research continues
to demonstrate the
value of concept
maps for cognition
 Each Concept map
emphasizes key
relationships
Summary and
Reinforcement:
Chapter
Concept Map
 Research continues
to demonstrate the
value of concept
maps for cognition
 Each Concept map
emphasizes key
relationships
Summary and Reinforcement:
Chapter Concept Map
Summarization,
Reinforcement
and Resources
for Different
Learning Styles
Review Cards at
the End of Each
Chapter
Summarization,
Reinforcement
and Resources
for Different
Learning Styles
Review Cards at
the End of Each
Chapter
Practice Items
based on the
EOC
Specifications
Practice Items
based on the
EOC
Specifications
Practice Items
based on the
EOC
Specifications
Practice Items
based on the
EOC
Specifications
EOC Assessment Skills/Practice
 Introductory chapter includes a typology of
questions, based on critical thinking skills
 Introduction also presents a metacognitive testtaking strategy: examine the question; recall what
you know about the topic; then apply what you
know to answer the question.
 Historians at Work chapter guides students in
analyzing documents and data.
 Continuous self-assessment in the end-of-chapter
questions
 Cumulative assessment in the final practice test
SOME BASIC CLASSROOM STRATEGIES
 Use the “Florida Keys to Learning” to preview the lesson
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and see what students already know.
Discuss lesson in Class.
Assign “Historian’s Apprentice” Activities to Groups for
completion in-class, in the library or on the Internet, or
at home as appropriate.
Assign “What Do You Know?” questions for homework
or as an in-class quiz.
Then discuss the lesson content and the answers to the
“What Do You Know” questions in class.
Additional Instructional Strategies
* Justify Answer Choices
After answering a series of multiple-choice questions, have students
explain why they selected the answers they chose. Students should
explain why their answers are correct and other answer choices are
wrong by drawing connections and providing supporting data and
information.
• Test Questions as Advance Organizers
Start lesson with “What Do You Know?” questions and review
topics students have difficulty with.
Additional Instructional Strategies
Test Questions
The teacher should review with students the types of questions and the
different ways of interpreting data found at the front of the book.
Students can discuss the language of the test questions with the
teacher, especially any test-specific terminology. Sample test questions
in “What Do You Know?” can be used in a variety of ways. The teacher
should review the first question in each question section with students.
Then students can complete the questions at the end of each lesson in
class or for homework. Alternatively, students could answer the
practice test questions as an open-book quiz or in study groups as a
cooperative learning activity. Then the class as a whole should review
the answers with the teacher. Students could also be given time to find
the correct answers to any questions they missed.
Additional Instructional Strategies
* Concept Map
Students study the concept map to see how different information in
the unit is related. Then they try to draw the concept map on their
own from memory, or fill in a blank concept map provided by the
teacher. Students can also use the concept map to prepare for each
unit test and for self-monitoring. Students review those items on
the map they cannot recall, or ask the teacher for additional help.
* Game Show Format
Students can play a “Jeopardy” game at the end of each unit. Teams
of students should make their own questions based on the
information in the unit.