CHAPTER 9

MOVING FROM CONTENT STANDARD TO

STUDENT-FRIENDLY LEARNING TARGETS

Have you ever looked at a standard—local, state, or national—and wondered, “What is this? And
how am I going to teach it?” If so, you’re not alone!

In the ever-changing world of which standards are we using this year?! The work of learning and
implementing new standards must often happen quickly. Implementing standards effectively requires
teachers to dive deep into the standards to fully understand expectations & make them clear to
students.

Why “Unpack” Standards?

Because standards are sometimes written as overarching- and often complex-- statements that can be
interpreted in different ways, it’s important that teachers share a common understanding about goals
and targets of a standard. (You might thought, “I had no idea that’s what that standard meant!” or
“Whoa, we’re reading the same book, but we’re not on the same page.”)

“Unpacking” is a technique teachers can use to make sense of standards, and then create focused
learning targets to make them actionable. Also called “deconstructing”/“unwrapping” standards, it
fosters a collaborative dialogue that supports growth and effectiveness.

Once you have unpacked standards to identify what students should know and be able to do, you can
do three important things:
1. Craft your vision of mastery for specific standards.
2. Align lesson plans and accompanying resources to that vision.
3. As you teach and report progress, create student-friendly learning objectives to better
communicate required skills to students and community stakeholders.

So what does unpacking look like? Read on the break down of the unpacking process and go through
a couple of examples to help get you started.

The Unpacking Process (Four Key Steps to Unpacking Standards)

Step 1: Identify Key Concepts & Skills

Identify what students need to know and what they need to do. We like to highlight nouns
(content) in blue and verbs (skills) in green.

Step 2: Identify Learning Target Types

Determine which concepts are content/knowledge targets, reasoning/cognitive targets, skill/

performance targets, and product targets.
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Step 3: Determine Big Ideas

List the conceptual understandings that students discover during the learning process
(the ah-ha! moments).

Step 4: Write Essential Questions

Guide classroom instruction and assessment, write open-ended questions to help stimulate
student interest and make new connections.

Think of this unpacking process as a journey with a destination in mind. Journey will
include packing and preparation, travel arrangements, perhaps some new experiences, and
ultimately an endpoint (student learning), which may very well begin a new journey.

Example 1: Unpacking a Simple Standard

With journey theme in mind, let’s use the analogy of planning a destination trip to help
illustrate the process (it’s summer time, after all!). We’ll start with learning target & break it
down with Steps 1& 2.

DESTINATION TRIP 101.1 (Organize and plan for a trip to the beach).

What should I know?

 Lodging availability
 Location of area restaurants
 Day/night temperature at location

What should I be able to do?

 Swim
 Locate the surf shop
 Apply sunscreen evenly

What should I understand?

 Recognize changes in tide

 Assess surroundings for safety
 Devise a plan if stranded at sea on catamaran

This breakdown of the familiar process of planning a trip makes sense: It provides clearly
outlined steps and a better vision of the target after unpacking the original standard.

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 Example 2: Unpacking a Complex Standard

Take a closer look at examples of Steps 1 through 4 with a more complex, real-world
standard. For this demonstration, we’ll use a sixth grade English Language Arts national/state
standard.

Step 1: Identify Key Concepts and Skills

Start by highlighting the nouns (concepts) in green and the verbs (skills) in blue, just
like we did in the destination trip example.

Step 2: Identify Learning Target Types

Identify the types of targets the standard represents. You may benefit by using a
graphic organizer like the one below.

Knowledge Targets Reasoning Targets

Define argument Evaluate an argument

Define claim Distinguish between supported & unsupported
Define evidence claims

Skill/Performance Targets Product Targets

Trace an argument in a
Not applicable for this standard
text

Identifying specific targets within a standard:

1. provides clear direction for instructional planning;

2. helps to focus on important content students should know;

3. helps to focus as to what skills students should develop

The above shows a critical balance that can easily get a little lopsided if there’s too
much on content and not enough the skills.

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 Step 3: Determine Big Ideas

You’re halfway there when determining Big Ideas, and it’s one of the most important
parts of learning process- we help students make connections/attach relevance to new
information

We want student thinking to extend beyond fact retention, because, let’s face it, facts
alone aren’t going to get you where you need to go unless you’re a contestant
on Jeopardy!

Below are some examples of Big Ideas for our standard:

 Presenting an argument with evidence is more persuasive than sharing an opinion.

 Unsupported claims can lead to an invalid argument.
 Identifying a claim supported with evidence is a skill applicable to all areas of life.

Big Ideas go beyond one standard, unit of study, or even a class. They are the key
learnings that move with students to new targets, new applications, and new
connections.

Step 4: The Essential Questions (ah-ha! Moment)

The real fun begins here. As teachers, our favorite moments were those that allowed us to
watch a student learn, grow in understanding, or have an ah ha! Moment. Essential
Questions can get you there every time! Questions are/can be:
 open-ended opportunities to stimulate interest, stretch thinking, make connections that
haven’t been made before, and much more; and
 used at the beginning of instruction on a learning target or during instruction to
advance thinking process.

Examples of Essential Questions for our standard include:

 Why is evidence important?
 Why do we need to be able to recognize an argument that has support versus one that
doesn’t?
 When do we use argumentation in daily life?

Important points to remember when using Essential Questions:

 keep them truly open-ended.
 craft questions to have more than one possible response or to generate discussion
when different or conflicting ideas are presented.

As teachers, our role in this process is to facilitate thinking/discussion, not to validate. Be

wary of responding with, “I agree with you” or “That’s correct”; other students may not
speak up if their thinking is different than the answer you’ve identified as “right”.

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Get Unpacking!

Congratulations! You’ve now gone through the unpacking process. By unpacking this standard, you now
have a clear path forward. This process will enable you to plan effectively and ultimately save you time
to focus on your students. It will have you a deeper understanding of the standards you teach, and your
students will be more engaged in their learning. Sounds like a win-win for everyone!

Activity # 3

Considering your chosen major field as a basis, make the following:

1. Simple classroom or school standard and unpack it. Show details of your plan below.

2. Complex or complicated classroom or school standard. Unpack it by showing the details below.

Note: Read Unpacking Standards – Moving from Content Standards to Student-Friendly Learning
Targets to explore priority standards and student-friendly “I Can” statements.

Reference:

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Cindy Harrison and Joellen Killion. September 2007 | Volume 65 | Number 1. Teachers as Leaders Pp.74-77.
https://blog.masteryconnect.com/four-steps-unpacking-standards/