1. TEACHERS ARE DESIGNERS An essential act of our profession is the design of: – curriculum – learning experiences We are also designers of assessments to: – diagnose student needs – guide our teaching – enable us, our students, and others to determine whether our goals have been achieved Did the students learn and understand the desired knowledge?

2. ASSESSMENTS & EVALUATIONS In the past, we typically conducted our assessments at the end of our unit(s). We used mostly paper-and-pencil kinds of assessments found in the teacher’s guides of adopted textbooks.

3. ASSESSMENTS & EVALUATIONS We also incorporated culminating projects into our units, but generally as celebratory events for students to showcase their work with little evaluation. – Did we really know who learned what? When we were honest with ourselves, we admitted that we operated under the maxim: – “I taught, therefore, they learned.”

4. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS & CURRICULUM PLANNING When you think of teaching a unit… – Do you “teach, test, and hope for the best?” – How do you think of going about lesson planning? What do you think about before putting pencil to paper? What resources to you consider first? What steps do you take in the planning process?

5. Targeted Goals “Students can hit any achievement target they can see and that will sit still for them.” – Rick Stiggins

6. IDENTIFY THE DESIRED RESULTS What should students know, understand, and be able to do? What is worthy of understanding? What enduring understandings are desired?

7. WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS WORTH UNDERSTANDING?