1.  Identifying Critical Content What is this element about? What do I need to consider when introducing this to my students?

2. Where does fit?

3. Even though…  The elements are separate and unique, they do not work in isolation.  The teacher will skillfully blend the strategies they select for each element to achieve the overarching desired effect.  Today we will focus on identifying critical content, we will make natural connections between this and other elements in the DQ 2 lesson addressing new content…. With the ultimate goal of helping students get to that DQ 4 event.

4. Remember…  You may have taught this content many, many times….  But it is their first exposure with this content  Not everything in the lesson is of equal importance  Some students inherently understand that, but most do not.  Signaling to students what is critical information is key to implementing an effective lesson

5. First steps…  As you prepare to present the information to the students:  Identify a lesson, or part of a lesson the students should pay particularly close attention to.  This element is integral to helping your students understand knew knowledge, make connections to prior learning, and ultimately retain new content.

6. This is a teacher This is a teacher dominated element…, but there will be a desired effect the students must exhibit after the information is shared with them.

7. Desired effects…  Students can identify the critical information addressed in class.  Students can explain the difference between critical and non-critical content.  Students can describe the level of importance of the critical information addressed in class.  Formative data from the lesson show that students attend to the critical content (for example…questioning or artifacts)  Students can explain the progression of critical content in the lesson.

8. As you prepare the lesson for the students…  What are the ways you expect students to react to the critical information?  What actions should they immediately take?  Are there specific note-taking routines that were taught on how to do this?  Do you expect students to give hand signals or write answers on small white boards to indicate their understanding of critical content?

9. Model, Model, Model…  Students will not know what action(s) to take unless you have explicitly stated, modeled and practiced your expectations and followed up with consistent monitoring of their understanding of that information.

10. Effective Communication  Assemble a toolbox of ways to cue or prompt your students that you are about to introduce skills or knowledge of critical value and importance.  Think about how to further develop those that are already your favorites, as well as how to become more skilled in employing different techniques to target subgroups of students you may not be reaching.

11. Behaviors associated with identifying critical content:  Highlight critical information that portrays a clear progression of information related to standards or goals  Identify differences between critical and noncritical content  Continuously call students’ attention to critical content  Integrate cross curricular connections to critical content

12. Common mistakes…  Failure to identify the critical content from a unit of instruction before you begin teaching  Failure to communicate its importance to your students in an effective or memorable way  Failure to communicate to students the kind of action or response their attention requires for certain types of important content

13. Analogy of importance…  If someone were to convince you of a certain key bit of information that is critical to your health, you are more inclined to figure out a way to remember that information.  You might make a special note of it or ask for additional information to clarify what is the most important aspect to remember.  Help them realize that hearing the critical content is only the first step; they need to do something with it for it to be effective.

14. Ask yourself…  Did the students know what content was important?  Did they learn or master the information taught?  The most elaborately planned lessons have no meaning unless they focus on the critical content outlined in the standard and are monitored for the desired effects of the implemented strategies.

15. Monitor and Reflect  The more teachers monitor their students and reflect on how they are progressing in the learning process, the better equipped they will be to adjust their instruction to meet student needs.

17. This should be our focus…

18.  What are the critical parts of this definition?  Teacher act  Checking evidence  Desired student learning of critical content  During instruction

19. Facilitation Grid for Monitoring  Use some sort of collection tool as you monitor student progress toward the understanding of critical content.  A facilitation grid is one method.  Write the student names down the left side.  Write the learning targets or criteria you are looking for as you monitor student learning across the top.  In this case it is their understanding of what ever critical content you are teaching.  As you walk around and monitor student work, check off who has it and who does not.

25. Monitoring During Instruction  Teacher Observation:  Walk and listen to student conversations around critical content  Watch and listen to demonstrations, oral presentations, etc. of critical content  Spot check student work to determine progress  Ask probing questions to redirect or elevate thinking  Review student class work  Observe students as they work with manipulatives  Observe students as they respond by pointing to correct answers or represent the correct answer through body movement

26. Scaffold/Support-Adaptations  Use pictures, graphics, and diagrams  Provide sentence stems  Develop guiding/probing questions  Tell stories to illustrate examples  Regroup students to provide additional support  Show work samples or point out exemplars  Review reasoning behind responses before asking students to respond  Provide a brief overview of critical content  Post anchor charts, helpful lists, diagrams or techniques

27. Extension Adaptations  Students answer questions that stretch them just beyond the standard to deepen and extend their thinking.  Students categorize important terms and make generalizations based on those categories.  Students identify how each chunk of information or each activity relates to the learning targets.  Students identify similarities and differences between learning targets, and groups’ conclusions or solution methods.  Students create their own graphic organizer to share with the class.  Students identify strategies and techniques that were particularly useful to their knowledge gain.  Students create picture, graphics, and diagrams of previously learned skills or procedures to share with the class.

28. Connecting PLC Work - Monitoring  You are the content experts, so use each other’s experience and knowledge during your PLC time to:  Prioritize and problem solve around the most critical content students must learn.  Determine what mastery of the target/standard (s) looks like.  Analyze data in order to share successful strategies and meet the needs of all students.  Brainstorm scaffold/supports could be used to support student learning.  brainstorm extensions that could be used in the learning moment to extend student learning.

29. Different strategies…  Verbally cue  Explicit instruction  Dramatic instruction  Advance organizers  Visually cue  Storytelling  What students already know

30. What do you currently do?  Download the handout from this Canvas module  Read over the different strategies that can be used for identifying critical content.  You may use these strategies for teaching your students, but I’d like you to read through them circle the bullet points for strategies you currently use for identifying critical content.  Star some ideas you might like to try in an upcoming lesson.

31.  In the next segment, we will look at two of the most commonly used strategies listed on the previous slide.  Verbal Cue  Explicit Instruction

32.  Identifying Critical Content Strategies to Help Students Know What is Important

33. Verbal Cue  Directly state the important information  Be direct, succinct, and assertive  Identify the central idea and a few supporting details  Raise and lower your voice (intonation)  For a few sentences  Record yourself for practice  Pause at key points  Gives students time to think about the information and signal what they find to be important

34. Elementary Example:  Good morning, class. Today we are going to learn how to listen. One important thing about listening is that you do not talk when you are listening. The second important thing about listening is that you should look at the person who is talking to you. You are listening to me right now. I can tell because you are not talking and you are looking at me.  LAFS Listening/Speaking 1A: Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).

35. Secondary Example:  Greetings, class. Today we are going to think and talk about what it means to prepare for and participate in a discussion. There are two important things to remember from this lesson today. Write them in your academic notebook. The first important thing is that preparing means doing something positive ahead of time to get ready for the discussion. The second important thing is that participation means actively doing something positive during the class discussion.

36. Monitoring  Take time to monitor whether students know the difference between important and unimportant information.  Yes/No response cards students hold up  Journals and learning logs left open for teacher to review entries on critical information form each lesson in a particular unit  Write answers on white boards to hold up  Choral response; thumbs up/down  Can students accurately explain why some information in the lesson is important vs. unimportant.

37. Scaffold/Extend  Scaffold:  Further explanations  More vocabulary instruction  More guided practice  Teacher modeling  Post resources: word wall, picture keys, important steps  Extend:  Think about ways they can manipulate the content at higher levels. (think taxonomy)  Ask them to prioritize or categorize the critical information of the lesson.

38. Explicit Instruction  Explicitly Identify the Critical Content  Identify for each chunk of content  Keep it simple, plain, clear and systematic  Possibly add a slide in a presentation just for that  Model Critical Skills, Strategies, and Processes  Demonstrate or show how to perform a skill, strategy or process  Think out loud as you model  Show exemplars of completed work as well as non-examples

39. Explicit Instruction  Chunk Critical Content into Digestible Bites  Present only one important concept at a time  Give students thinking time in which they talk to a partner, write out a question, or write and answer on a small white board  Design handouts so all of the information students need is on one page  Pass out only one handout at a time  Give only one direction at a time  Develop Student-Friendly Definitions for Important Concepts

40. Common Mistakes  Teacher provides vague or general information.  Teacher moves too quickly or too slowly, minimizing the the amount of explicit instruction.  Teacher assumes that students have prior knowledge they do not have.  Teacher doesn’t give students opportunities to write down, talk with a partner, or ask questions about digestible bites of information.

41. Additional Examples  In the Canvas module, you will see a document with elementary examples/non-examples and another document with secondary examples/non- examples for each of the strategies listed earlier.  Read through those to see how they could/should look in an actual classroom setting.

42. Additional Resources  For additional information on the rest of the strategies, you can reference the Essentials for Achieving Rigor Series- Identifying Critical Content.  Your admin or coaches may have a copy you can borrow.  You can also access the Framework Canvas Course (Course #34864) and scroll down the page to click on the link for Identifying Critical Content.