PURPOSE: The purpose of this information is to help you fulfill the objectives requirement in the TWS assessment form where you demonstrate HOW you would teach a certain objective. This assist originated through students’ needs for guidance on the objectives portion following the initial TWS examples I placed on the web early in the semester.

REMINDER: the objectives portion of the TWS is to show that you have correlated your unit plan with state or federal regulations. It demonstrates that you are aware of expectations not only within your school policy but within state and federal mandates regarding educational expectations. In my sample on your website I used the TWS manual, coordinating each objective with the manual. In this method below, which you are also encouraged to use, you can coordinate your objectives with that of NCLB directives.

NCLB: the No Child Left Behind Act is some 627 pages in its full length. This act serves as the guiding premise for all education plans including literature. District failure to adhere to NCLB objectives can place the school at risk. When you, as a future teacher, can demonstrate that you can correlate your teaching approach with an NCLB directive, you are insuring your own safety should the accusation ever arise that you are not teaching the appropriate curriculum.

INTERFACE: What was needed was an interface that would be reliable, where site integrity was above average but that would neatly break down components of the massive NCLB document. I found this for you.

 STEPS: What you can use in this section are elements called quick keys. These quick keys can be found at the following website.

 http://www.ncrel.org/policy/curve/resource.htm

 This site, The North Central Regional Accreditation Educational Laboratory, has reduced the primary premise of the NCLB into ten basic quick keys with subdivisions. These are what you can use on your TWS to show me that you have correlated your steps with a broader assessment framework.

 1)      Go to this site, familiarize yourself with the ten quick keys. You’ll find the keys under “Quick Key Action Guides”

2)      There are four symbols we will use here. They are Q(#), Pg(#), P(#) and B(#). “Q” is the quick-key followed by its number. “Pg ” is the page number we can find it on within the quick-key PDF file, “P”is the paragraph followed by which paragraph number and “B” indictates the bulleted statement and its number (if a bulleted entry applies).

 3)      Lets do one together. On your TWS lets say that you are going to give a multiple choice exam much like I did for your midterm. What objectives am I going to use? I chose the quick key objective “Q5” since I am using “English Proficiency” as my guideline. I click on that. I look on the page and I see a sentence that says “Download an Adobe Reader, PDF version of Quick key number 5” I click on that. It comes up. There are seven pages to this file. I move down to page 3 and click on that. I can’t see it very well so I’m going to use my magnifying glass on the top of the adobe page and “blow it up”. I see paragraph 3 is talking about assessment. That is what a test is supposed to do isn’t it. So I read it. I find that bullet one says what I need, it says I have to “establish an annual measurable objective…” So, what I put in as an objective is “Q5-Pg 3 -P3-B1 – Quickkey 5, Page 3, Paragraph 3, bullet 1. If there was no bullet I’d put in Q5-Pg3 – P3.

 Using this system, I might be three objectives in each square under objectives (at least 1 objective.) As you look through the quick keys you will find keys for technology, testing, reading, language, and other proficiencies. If you choose to go with this method then I should have a row of “Q references” in your objectives page. I would also advise you to put a note on the page, somewhere at the bottom, that these objectives came from this website. You could even paste the website in.

What this does then is allow someone looking over your work to see that you have coordinated your teaching objectives with a source that is reliable as it translates the bulkier NCLB. A person should be able to go to the site and find your objectives. Yes, you might have to explain what Q and P and B mean but once you did, even a parent could see what it was you were teaching this or her child.

Conclusion: In conclusion then, I’ll either see “TWS, P.# and Bullet” in the objectives column, like I did in your example on the website, or, I’ll see Q#-Pg#-P# and B# (if applicable.) Both of these will help you to triangulate your teaching with state and federal objectives.   Below you see an example where I re-designed the Catcher in the Rye unit plan (TWS) using the quick keys from NCLB. In all three cases, I coordinated one or two of the areas (highlighted in blue) with one or twoof the areas of the NCREL/NCLB quick-keys highlighted in blue.

 Remember class, this is optional. If you are already using the show me standards or the TWS accountabilities (like I did in your online example under TWS earlier this semester) then don’t worry about changing them. However, if you aren’t sure of a method for accounting for objectives, give this NCREL a try. At the very least, go to the site and analyze it. This reduces primary elements of NCLB into a more manageable aspect by delivering accountabilities through 10 different “quick keys.”

 TWS Overlay Example: * objectives come from http://www.ncrel.org/policy/curve/resource.htm