Table of Contents
Arts-Integrated Lesson Development Worksheetpage 3
Big Ideaspage 7
Topics that Lead to Big Ideas page 8
Examples of Essential Questions page 9
Examples of Tasks that Produce Evidence of Learning page 10
16 Habits of Mind and Artists’ Habits of Mindpage 10
Characteristics of a Great Performance Taskpage 11
5 Questions That Lead to Great Performance Taskspage 12
Using Exemplars and Steps to Creating Scoring Guidespage 12
Scoring Guide Worksheetpage 13
Arts-Integrated Lesson DevelopmentWorksheet
What’s the Big Idea?
(See Big Ideas on page 7; see Topics that Lead to Big Ideas on page8)
1. What topic have you chosen that leads to the Big Idea?
______
2. What is the big idea that you want your students to learn and to apply?
State your big idea with the phrase: Students will understand…
______
______
______
3. What other knowledge, skills and abilities will be addressed as learner objectives?
For example, learning to use a digital camera, knowing what “dynamics” means in music, understanding the use of point of view in writing, etc.
______
______
______
______
4. How can you design this study around an essential question that puts the students into roles of investigator, detective and discoverer of opportunities and dilemmas? What is your inquiry question?
(See Examples of Essential Questions Related to Topics on page9)
______
______
______
What Do Students Need to Learn?
Subject areas or disciplines: (Arts and non-arts)
______
Show-Me Standards: (Content/Knowledge and Process/Performance)
______
Grade-Level Expectations: (Arts and non-arts)
______
______
______
______
______
______
How Will You Know What They Are Learning?
What could a student do to show a visitor to the school that he or she understands the important knowledge and processes in this lesson or unit? Identify the performance tasks that will produce evidence of learning.
See Examples of Tasks that Produce Evidence of Learning on page 10
and other resources at the end of this packet.
______
______
______
______
______
______
How Are YouGoing to Make it Happen?
Design the performance tasks and learning activities that will build understanding of the Big Idea and help your students reach the learner objectives.
Describe what you, the teacher, will do:
______
______
______
______
______
Describe what the students will do: What will students produce as a result of this project and with what audience will they share it? What will quality look like in the work your students will produce?
(See Exemplar Information on page 12 and the Scoring Guide Worksheet on page 13)
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
Big Ideas
A Big Idea answers the question, “So what? Why is this relevant to me?”
A Quality Big Idea…
- is a topic that people can care about,
- resides at the heart of a discipline or discipline,
- can generate a lot of thinking, exploring, discovering,
- matters and is useful beyond this classroom right now,
- will matter, be useful and still be important 20 years from now,
- opens up connections to each student’s experiences, both in and out of the classroom,
- gets a teacher/artist excited thinking about it,
- has the potential to grab the imagination and engage the students, and
- challenges students’ misconceptions and misunderstandings.
What's the big idea?
by Grant Wiggins
Jun 21, 2009
What is a big idea? Good question! We have argued over the years that a big idea is any concept, theory, principle, or theme that helps learners make sense of a subject. 'Follow the money' is a big idea in politics. 'The American dream' is a theme useful for understanding complicated literature, etc. Then, why do designers and teachers get so confused about this term? Let's ponder it.
The confusion comes in when people start saying things like 'change' is a big idea. No, 'change' is just a vague concept that covers a massive amount of content. It doesn't by itself provide a powerful insight into a topic. Don't confuse a category that holds a lot of content with a big idea. Otherwise 'outerspace' would be the biggest idea in the intellectual world.
Better to ask: what's the point of a big idea for teaching? What do we want it to DO? The answer: help learners make sense of a lot of information or confusing claims. That's why it is useful to think of a big idea more as a 'theory' or 'strategy' than a word. Newton's 3 Laws are arguably 3 of the biggest ideas ever thought. Suddenly, millions of seemingly unrelated events are connected - we are helped to 'see' better by a truly big idea. Similarly in ball sports the strategy of 'create space and spread the defense to score' is a powerful way for scoring and seeing the big picture on the field - and the idea is transferable to all other team ball sports.
So, give students powerful ideas, not just vast vague ones.
Topics that Lead to Big Ideas
AdvertisingCultureFreedomMeasurementSadness and
AlienationCyclesGlobalizationMetaphorHappiness
Balance andDeathHeroismModelsSatire
ImbalanceDemocracyHonorMythScale/Structures
BureaucracyDutyHuman RightsNationalismSlavery
Cause/EffectEducationHumorOrderSocial Mobility
CeremoniesEnergyHungerPatternsStatus
ChangeEnvironmentIdentityPeaceSurvival
Civil LibertiesEqualityIndividualismPollutionSystems
CivilizationEquilibriumIndustrializationPopulationTechnology
ClassEthicsInteractionPowerTerrorism
CommitmentEvolutionInterdependencePunishmentWar
CommunityExplorationJusticeRaceWork
CooperationFateLanguagesRevolution
CourageFearLibertyRights of Passage
CrimeForceMatterRights of Women
Topics Related to Visual and Performing Arts Disciplines
Dance: balance, contrast, direction, force/energy, genre, interpretation, level, movements, pathway, pattern, point of view, repetition, rhythm, shape, space, style, time, unity/variety, variation
Music: balance, contrast, duration, dynamics, form, genre, harmony, interpretation, melody, pattern, perception, pitch, point of view, repetition, rhythm, scale, style, tempo, texture, timbre, tone, unity/variety, variation
Theatre: audience, balance, character, conflict, conflict/resolution, contrast, dialogue, dramatic action, genre, interpretation, mood, plot/story, point of view, repetition, rhythm, setting, style, theatre, conventions, theme, unity/variety, variation
Visual Art: angle, balance, color, contrast, description, form, interpretation, line, pattern, perception, point of view, proportion, repetition, rhythm, scale, shape, space, style, symmetry, texture, unity/variety
Topics Related to Other Subjects
Literature: beliefs/values, cause/effect, change, character, conflict/cooperation, cycle, form, genre, interactions, motivation, order, patterns, perceptions, point of view, space, systems, time
Mathematics: cause/effect, field, gradient, interaction, invariance, model, number, order, pattern, probability, proportion, quantification, ratio, scale, symmetry, system, theory
Science: cause/effect, change, cycle, energy/matter, equilibrium, evolution, field, force, interaction, model, order, organism, population, replication, systems, theory, time/space
Social Studies: beliefs/values, cause/effect, change/continuity, civilization, conflict/cooperation, culture, cycle, diversity, evolution, interaction, interdependence, migration/immigration, order, patterns, point of view, populations, systems
Examples of Essential Questions Related to Topics
Culture: Values, Beliefs & Rituals
- How do individuals develop values and beliefs?
- What factors shape our values and beliefs?
- How do values and beliefs change over time?
- How does family play a role in shaping our values and beliefs?
- Why do we need beliefs and values?
- What happens when belief systems of societies and individuals come into conflict?
- When should an individual take a stand in opposition to an individual or larger group?
- When is it appropriate to challenge the beliefs or values of society?
- Are there universal characteristics of belief systems that are common across people and time?
- To what extent do belief systems shape and/or reflect culture and society?
- How are belief systems represented and reproduced through history, literature, art, and music?
- How do beliefs, ethics, or values influence different people's behavior?
- How do individuals reconcile competing belief systems within a given society (e.g., moral beliefs conflicting with legal codes)?
- When a person’s individual choices are in direct conflict with society, what are the consequences?
- What is morality and what are the factors that have an impact on the development of our morality?
- What role or purpose does religion / spirituality serve in a culture?
- What purpose or function do ethics / philosophy have in governing technological advances?
- How do our values and beliefs shape who we are as individuals and influence our behavior?
Conflict & Change
- How does conflict lead to change?
- What problem-solving strategies can individuals use to manage conflict and change?
- How does an individual’s point of view affect the way they deal with conflict?
- What personal qualities have helped you to deal with conflict and change?
- How might if feel to live through a conflict that disrupts your way of life?
- How does conflict influence an individual’s decisions and actions?
- How are people transformed through their relationships with others?
- What is community and what are the individual’s responsibility to the community as well as the community’s responsibility to the individual?
Heroes
- Do the attributes of a hero remain the same over time?
- When does a positive personality trait become a tragic flaw?
- What is the role of a hero in a culture?
- How do various cultures reward / recognize their heroes?
- Why is it important for people and cultures to construct narratives about their experience?
- What is the relevance of studying multicultural texts?
- How do the media shape our view of the world and ourselves?
- In a culture where we are bombarded with other people trying to define us, how do we make decisions for ourselves?
Examples of Tasks that Produce Evidence of Learning
Ways to show understanding / Possible way to conceptualize understanding
explain / debate
apply / research and recommend
interpret / performance
detect or take another perspective / role play
apply to own circumstances / reflective writing
uncover pattern or trend / data collection and analysis
envision alternatives / design and construct
hypothesize / labs and experiments
question and interrogate / field work, interviews
create personal work / studio work
translation / multi-media rendition
16 Habits of Mind as Identified by Costa and Kallick
- Persisting – Do stick to it.
- Communicating with clarity and precision – Be clear.
- Managing impulsivity – Take your time.
- Gathering data through all senses – Use your natural pathways.
- Listening with understanding and empathy – Understand others.
- Creating, imagining, innovating – Try a different way.
- Thinking flexibly – Look at it another way.
- Responding with wonderment and awe – have fun figuring it out.
- Thinking about your thinking (metacognition) – Know your knowing.
- Taking responsible risks – Venture out.
- Striving for accuracy and precision – Find the best possible solution.
- Finding humor – Laugh a little.
- Questioning and problem posing – How do you know.
- Thinking interdependently – Learning with others.
- Applying past knowledge to new situations – Use what you learn.
- Remaining open to continuous learning – Learn from experiences.
Artists Habits of Mind
Develop Craft / Learning to use tools and materials.
Learning the practices of an art form.
Engage and Persist / Learning to take up subjects of personal interest and importance within the art world. Learning to develop focus and other ways of thinking helpful to working and persevering at art tasks.
Envision / Learning to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed, heard or written and to image possible next steps in making a piece.
Express / Learning to create works that convey an idea, felling or personal meaning.
Observe / Learning to attend to visual, audible and written contexts more closely than ordinary “looking” requires; learning to notice things that otherwise might not be noticed.
Reflect / Learning to think and talk with others about one’s work and the process of making it. Learning to judge one’s own and others’ work and processes in relation to the standards of the field.
Stretch and Explore / Learning to reach beyond one’s supposed limitations, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes and accidents.
Understand Art World / Learning about the history and practice of the art form. Interacting with other artists and the broader arts community.
Characteristics of a Great Performance Task Organized by Artists’ Habits of Mind
A project may include one performance task or a series of tasks.
Great performance tasks ask students to STRETCH & EXPLORE by challenging them to:
- Explore complex ideas playfully.
- Stretch their thinking. They ask students to work through hard questions with an open mind. Even very young children are able to explore complexity—they just encounter the material in more naive ways.
Great performance tasks ask students to DEVELOP CRAFT and to UNDERSTAND the (ART) WORLD by challenging them to:
- Work and think like artists. Students engage in cycles of perceiving, creating and reflecting on their own and others’ work.
- Learn to use the tools and conventions of the artistic discipline and academic subject to create new work and explore ideas (e.g., labs, workshop, rehearsals, studio work, sketches).
- Embrace problems that are real and relevant to the art world or subject area. They permit students to make genuine contributions to the field.
- Use learning rooted in the arts for the duration of their project, not just in the final product.
- Connect the work to their experiences and life outside the classroom.
- Produce real work for real audiences.
- They perform or exhibit their learning to a variety of audiences, including peers.
Great performance tasks empower students to EXPRESS themselves by challenging them to:
- Create work that conveys their ideas or a personal meaning.
Great performance tasks empower students to ENVISION next steps by challenging them to:
- Direct their own projects.
- Follow the discoveries each student makes individually and as part of a team.
- Picture mentally what they cannot directly see or hear.
- Teachers and artists weaken the process by predetermining the steps, relying on fill-in-the-blank assignments with only one right answer or art projects in which all student work looks alike.
Great performance tasks empower students to ENGAGE & PERSIST by challenging them to:
- Invest substantial time, focus and effort in their tasks. Be prepared for a good task to take days, even weeks for students to finish.
- See the connection between effort and quality work.
Great performance tasks teach students to critically OBSERVE and REFLECT by challenging students to:
- Explain why they are doing what they are doing and what criteria will be used to critique or assess work.
- Think and talk about their work in order to construct a shared understanding of the discipline’s big ideas.
- Work actively in varied formats: pursuing projects and reflecting alone, collaborating and conferencing in small groups and interacting in larger groups.
5 Questions that Lead to Great Performance Tasks
Great performance tasks develop students’ other strong habits of mind by challenging them to ponder these five questions:1. How do we know what we know?
In a good task, students encounter issues of proof, reasoning, argument and persuasion. They have to make conscious decisions about what will count as evidence or knowledge. Students have to be able to describe what they actually see or hear or feel. They must attend to visual, audible and written contexts more closely than ordinary observation requires. They need to make judgments about the reliability and validity of information and consider what important sources and ideas they may have overlooked.
2. Who’s speaking?
In a good task, different viewpoints are not a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be overcome. They are an essential component of understanding. Such tasks reveal and reflect voices, cultures, and points of view that have
been systematically silenced. Great performance tasks can help students understand that the privilege of perspective is an essential component of power. In a great task, there should be more than one possible answer or path.
3. What are possible connections and patterns?
Ask students, “What causes what?” Or “How is one thing related to another?” Especially when the relationship might not be obvious.
4. How might things have been different?
Allow students to manipulate variables, create different scenarios or ask, “What if?” in powerful ways.
5. And finally, why does any of it matter, or who cares?
Ask yourself, “Are these activities based on big ideas that students get excited about and find meaningful in their lives outside of school?”
Using Exemplars to Lead the Way
Exemplars illustrate the desired attributes of student work. According to research carried out at Harvard University’s Project Zero, exemplars are effective because they:
- are easy to explain (parents like them),
- make expectations clear (students can grasp what it means to do well in school—“what the grades count on”—so that they can produce higher-quality work,
- help students become more thoughtful judges of their own and each others’ work,
- reduce the amount of time teachers spend evaluating student work,
- provide students with informative feedback about strengths and areas in need of attention in their work, and
- have an “accordion” nature that allows them to accommodate instruction and assessment with heterogeneous groups of students.
Steps to Creating and Using Scoring Guides for Quality Work
- Teacher and students carefully and thoroughly describe sample work. (This can be student work and/or professionally produced work, examples and exemplars.)
- They list criteria for excellent work.
- They describe gradations of quality. This step may be done with or without student input.
- They practice using the guide in class.
- Students complete a first draft of the assignment.
- Students use the scoring guide to get feedback from themselves, peers and/or teacher.
- The teacher gives students time to revise after each round of feedback.
- The teacher evaluates students’ final products using the guide.
- The teacher and students adapt the guide for new/next tasks.
Scoring Guide Worksheet
Missouri Alliance for Arts Education Lesson Development WorksheetPage 1