Planning Backwards
Coalition schools are unique in the way they develop curriculum using a planning backwards approach. Teachers work backwards from what they want students to know and be able to do at the end of the course/unit/year. They know what they are assessing and how they will assess the student even before they develop the activities for the unit or course. The 10 Common Principles guide them; standards of authentic pedagogy and assessment challenge them. Since this is hard work, teachers work together, and they bring students and parents into the planning, so the curriculum and instruction truly meet the needs of students.
Essential Questions - a Rationale
Essential questions provide purpose for learning; they guide our work with students by providing the larger, global context for learning and "schooling." To be more specific, these questions center the work of schools on our covenant with society to develop students who are productive citizens in a democracy and citizens of the world. At the core, they engage students in the real work behind the question: How does Anytown High School's students assume vital roles in the town, the county, the state, the United States, the world?
Guiding the Work of Interdisciplinary Courses
Using a planning backwards process, CES teachers choose an essential question and an exhibition to craft the sub-goals and activities for a given course. The humanities teacher team may craft an essential question such as "What causes history?" A sub-question might look like: "What matters most in history-societies and events or individuals?" We look for frameworks for essential questions in many places, as far out as Alpha Centuri (Who owns space?); as close as the heart (What is a parent?). Problems and dilemmas often become the source of essential sub-questions (Do Americans have a right to smoke in public places?); dreams and wild notions need to be used more often as sources for essential sub-questions (What educational structures would ensure success for every student in America?). Every school in America is guided by the covenant to prepare productive citizens for our democracy, a responsibility that evokes many essential questions and sub-questions (Is education a right or a responsibility in our society? How do we keep students from dropping out of school?). The Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights provide abundant concepts for essential questions (What do we do with students who refuse to learn?).
Guiding the Work of the Whole School
The Coalition of Essential School's 10 Common Principles give us a school-oriented foundation for essential questions (What does equity feel like to minority students in a public high school?). The Coalition of Essential Schools proposes that we center the school work of every student on the "Habits of the Mind," another rich source for essential questions. Ted Sizer explains that students who move into this fast-changing world must be armed with these habits, since any "facts" they might have learned will be obsolete or obscured by too many more facts to remember. Habits of perspective, analysis, imagination, empathy, communication, commitment, humility and joy would help students manage as well as prosper in an ever-changing world. Some staffs and students devise an essential question from one of the habits to guide their studies in all of their major coursework for the whole year (How can imagination improve our world?).The process to design essential questions to guide the work of their school, is more important to staff unity and purpose than the questions themselves. When the staff takes an objective look at the work of their school, they should see that their energy and efforts are devoted to the right thing, that is, to help every student learn and prepare for their place in the world. The essential questions they design will keep the staff and students on track (or get them back on track). As we know, if a school doesn't understand where it is going, it will probably end up someplace else!
It is important to note: Excellent essential questions don't have answers or solutions; they are often hard to measure, and they appear too big to consider. But they show the school community and the world that the school understands how to frame their work in proper context, that is, in reference to a common good.
Essential questions checklist:
- Big! Global in scope
- Related to what it means to be a citizen of the world
- Unanswerable
- Interesting, intriguing
- Important
- Challenging
The Look of the School Plan
- Whole staff determines a School Essential Question (E.g., "How can imagination improve our world?")
- Each staff member or team of staff (integrated team, for instance), determines how to develop sub-essential questions under that school umbrella essential question.
NOTE: Even without a whole school essential question, teams of teachers and individual teachers can choose an essential question to guide the year/term work. If a team of science, humanities and art teachers used a question like "Who owns space?" each member of the team could contribute to "working" on the question with their discipline in mind. (Example of prompt resources for this question: Ray Bradbury's short story in THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES; Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING; legal precedents and treaties around satellite use by countries; astronomy; artistic renditions of human conceptions of the universe over time, etc.) - Teachers collaborate to determine what habits of the mind they will develop in their coursework and they will decide what exhibitions students will show at the end of the unit. These exhibitions will be judged by a high stakes audience for the student's grasp of concepts and habits of the mind as well as for what the student has learned regarding the essential questions
- Based on the essential questions and the exhibitions of student work, staff will craft (along with students) the activities and assessment rubrics for the learning.
- Eventually, the school will learn that a series of exit exhibitions need to be designed to assess students over time. These will focus on essential questions and habits of the mind that are chosen by students, parents and teachers each year.
A Summary
(Which ideally, includes students, parents and community members)- School-wide essential question crafted
- Interdisciplinary sub-essential questions agreed upon
- Habits of the mind focus determined
- Student exhibitions which demonstrate the habits are designed
- High stakes audience chosen
- Performance Assessments (including self assessment) designed
- Activities produced