The standard on the
right is a 7th grade social studies example. This
standard is very open ended and will probably be bounded
by the teachers available time and personal interest.
The social studies teacher has this standard to compare
to the others for the class and estimate the time that
could be budgeted to cover this standard. Then the
standard needs to be built out in order to define
exactly the content details that will be covered. To
assist with this, teachers have text books, possibly
curriculum from last year or from another teacher, and
descriptions and released items from the EOY tests.
One approach to the build out is construction of a content
outline as pictured. Assuming that this outline covers
the topics intended by the standard, the structure would
be repeated for each of the five areas. But as shown,
this outline is not content, but just finer grained
topic areas which themselves need to be broken down. But
as you proceed with this task, you soon realize that
there will not be enough time to cover all this material
that is unfolding. And taking this standard with the
others for this class, you have estimated this needs to
be a 10 to 12
session unit.
By using the text books, typical content areas can be found
and by using the test materials, specific content can be
determined. The scope of the content indicted by the
standard is huge and cannot be taken literally. The
teacher will need to decide what to teach and what to
skip.
And on the assessment side of the equation, test item writers
are going through the same private process. And while
some test items are disclosed, there is no assurance to
the teacher that assessment is confined to the disclosed
content, only the totality of the content specified by
the standard. There is a relationship between standards,
curriculum and assessments, but not true alignment.
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