Covering the Standards

Sample copy of standards with marks on them.

At the beginning of the school year we had a staff development day with Dennis Parker.  He talked mostly about standards and the importance of targeting each one.  He gave us some suggestions of things we could implement in our own classroom.  One great idea is to take a copy of your grade level standards and  put a tally mark or plus sign next to it every time it is covered in class.  You can do this by enlarging the standards and posting them in your class.  Then every Friday you go over with the students what standards you have covered during the week and put a mark by each one.  If you don't want to do that, you can keep a copy in your lesson book and mark it yourself at the end of the week.  It really doesn't matter how you do it as long as you are aware of what standards you are covering.

Math Standards Coverage Chart

Language Arts Standards Coverage Chart

A few weeks ago we went to our second training with Dennis.  One of the main activities he had us work on was going through the language arts and math standards one by one and arranging them in a chart based on how well they have been covered in our classroom this year.  There were three columns: covered well, partially covered and covered little or not at all.  We used our standards list with our marks to help us fill out the chart.  The standards we have partially covered or not yet taught went on what he calls a "Hit List".  The idea being that you make sure to target those standards on your "Hit List" by the end of the school year.  This was a great exercise because it really helps you examine your own teaching and it ensures that you don't leave your students with any academic holes as they move on to the next grade.