Improving Instructional Quality in Jewish Day Schools and Yeshivot ...

learning objectives have been identified, the teacher still does notbegin to plan the lessons. The next step in the model is to developassessments by determining what would be considered appropriateevidence of the student’s understanding and attainment of the desiredresults. The teacher uses this information to create both formative andsummative assessments some of which include performance tasks andproducts. Only then does the teacher begin to plan the lessons anddetermine what learning experiences and teaching will lead to thepredetermined desired results.This type of unit planning avoids the content-focus designfollowed by many teachers who just “throw some content andactivities” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 15) together without a clearsense of the learning objectives. It also eliminates learning activitiesthat are not oriented toward the goals and have no purpose. Incontent-focus design the lessons are not framed in big ideas andunderstandings and students are left without a deep understanding ofwhat they are learning because facts remain isolated bits ofinformation that are forgotten as quickly as they are learned. When ateacher uses UbD, a student makes connections between discrete facts,creating a whole picture which then allows him to make sense andreally understand what he has learned. As part of that understandinghe is also able to “transfer … and to apply the knowledge and skillseffectively in realistic tasks and settings” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005,p. 7).Best Practice #4: Implement a Curriculum Development ProcessPrincipals can facilitate three key curriculum development stepsfor teachers, which are the same steps used for all lesson planning.1) Planning for teaching and learning2) Implementing the plan3) Assessing teaching and learningAccording to Beach and Reinhartz (2000), “These three stepsprovide a framework for supervisors to use in working with teachersin groups or individually as they develop a blueprint for teaching andlearning in classrooms and schools” (p. 199). Figure 4 (p. 199)illustrates the three steps of the curriculum development process. The62