Understanding and Applying Standards

When I started this module I was pretty clueless about standards, unpacking and backwards mapping and everything, but now I feel a lot more confident in my understanding of these strategies.  Since I have never taught before, it was all a little new to me.  I have experience in setting goals and making goals S.M.A.R.T., but not when it comes to providing those for a class.

When I found the standards I was looking for, they seemed pretty straight forward.   Since I am starting out as a PE teacher, standards aren’t too tough to meet and plan.  After unpacking the standard and backward mapping it, I found it was more in depth than I realized.  I really enjoyed going into more depth for the standards and actually planning what needs to be done to accomplish this standard. 

The unpacking of the standard helped me identify each part of the standard.  It also helped me analyze the verbiage that the standard used, which provides a base for what lessons should follow. The backwards mapping I really liked as well.  It breaks down the standard even further and helped me determine what I wanted the students to learn, and how to teach that.  It provides a full lesson plan to complete that standard, which is an important goal for a teacher.  The standard objectives were a little bit of a challenge for me.  With my standard, there’s only so much depth I can get into with 5^th graders.  I think it will depend on the class, but once I start reaching I will have a better idea of how deep I can take the subject.  Once I figured out how to write SMART objectives, I was able to determine objectives for the standard. 

I really liked this module and I learned a lot about standards and good strategies to use to achieve those standards for your class.  I think it might be a little different in PE, but I can still use the same principles like backwards mapping and unpacking.  I’m excited to get started and use this in the classroom.