High Definition Standards
Content knowledge is education’s common denominator.
It is
at the heart of teaching and learning in a
standards-based classroom.
As a matter of principle, standards-based education
requires that standards set forth,
clearly and specifically, the sequential content knowledge and skills
students need to learn.
Their quality and clarity greatly affects teachers, parents and
students.
Most of the ‘content’ standards guiding instruction today
are devoid of any real content and are neither teachable nor assessable.
They lack specificity and inadequately define the knowledge, skills
and concepts underpinning them, and they are in a presented in form that
cannot be followed for designing aligned instructional curriculum or developing
assessment items.
The universal absence among
state standards of precise, knowledge-delineated scope
and sequence details of the specific grade and course
content to be learned is a core problem obstructing standards-based reform success.
The problem is systemic and the primary cause of other serious impediments
to student achievement progress.
Aligned·By·Design Model was created by educators
and engineers to solve these systemic problems and empower the education community
to develop and operate an effective standards-based system.
The user-friendly Model enables educators to
easily specify, maintain, benchmark and revise precise, coherent, and
fine-grained content standards.
The resulting high-definition
standards are knowledge-centric and in perfect alignment with
instructional curriculum and assessments.
They are teachable and
measurable because
the detailed knowledge specified in the standard is mirrored by the
assessment.
The Aligned·By·Design
Model is unique. It defines
an innovative a new class of technology and process automation tools
based on quality system best practices that allow educators to
significantly improve the quality of content
standards. The resulting
high-definition content standards can be easily benchmarked with the
skills and knowledge needed for success after high school.
They promote cognitively challenging and sequenced instruction, and
allow educators to easily benchmark their standards with high-performing
states as well as national and international benchmarks.
The end result of developing high-definition,
Aligned·By·Design-enabled content standards is:
-
States and districts providing clear, concise answers when
teachers, parents and students ask for detailed guidance on ‘what they
should teach’ and ‘what the student should learn'
-
Efforts to ‘align’ standards with curriculum and assessments
hit the bulls-eye because the ‘standards’ precisely specify the actual
content knowledge and skills detailed by them
-
Teachers can validate if their instructional materials exactly
match, no more and no less, the standards and the assessment, and if it is
a good fit for their classroom
-
Content standards, not assessments, guide instructional
content and teachers are uniformly ‘teaching to the content’ as they prepare
their students for high-stakes end-of-year tests
-
Federal, state and local education policy and student learning
decisions are based on accurate, real-time data from precisely aligned
assessments
Aligned·By·Design
eliminates the guesswork for teachers, curriculum
developers and assessment developers.
It ensures that
content standards serve as
the basis for developing curriculum and assessments and clearly lay out the
rigorous, natural progression of the content skills and knowledge students
should acquire sequentially, lesson-by-lesson and grade-by-grade.
The standards are teachable and measurable enabling achievement gaps
to be closed and our students to be prepared for post-secondary success.
Related Pages
Learn More
To learn more about how the
Aligned·By·Design
Initiative
can improve
content standards and student achievement, please
contact us.