CONTACT US:
Friday / June 6

Going on an Intellectual Journey: Designing a Course for Learning that Transfers 

This blog is part five of a series on learning transfer. For more on teaching for transfer, see the first postsecond post,  third post, and fourth post. 

How can one of the most powerful questions help us in this moment in time: What if?   

What if rather than marching students through a pacing guide going from unit to unit, topic to topic, we took them on an intellectual journey? This slight shift in mindset is the tipping point for dramatic differences in instruction. We can begin this shift by considering what needs to be learned and in what order. We will then turn this into a compelling story that invites students to join us on the journey.  

A transfer-focused course must place attention on deeper structures of both disciplinary literacy and modern literacies. The past two posts in this series zeroed in on these literacies’ components, and now it’s time to think specifically about a course. There are four critical steps of designing a course that promotes transfer – prioritize thoughtfully, arrange effectively, supplement strategically, and flow cohesively. Teachers and curriculum specialists alike can use these steps whether you are working on a curriculum team or in your classroom.  

Critical Steps for Designing a Transfer-Focused Course 

Prioritize Thoughtfully 

We have an overwhelming number of standards to teach in a given school year. However, we can use standards to understand the larger patterns and structures within the discipline, adding them up into a coherent whole instead of breaking them down into an atomized maze. Like all great journeys, every stop and every detail cannot be included. This prioritization requires us to determine what is most important and will make the most significant impact on learning. Think of your standards in a sort of hierarchy. These questions can help determine which should be the lead “characters” of your course and which should play a supporting role.  

  • Do the concepts and skills within the standard serve as powerful vessels for conveying my disciplinary vision to students?  
  • Do the concepts and skills within the standard reveal the underlying structure that will transfer between grade levels creating a cohesive curriculum?   
  • Do the concepts and skills within the standard transfer to a real-world application? 
  • Do the concepts and skills within the standard transfer between domains of the discipline? or across disciplines creating interdisciplinary connections?  
  • Do the concepts and skills within the standard have greater weight on high-stakes tests?   

As you work through the content of your course, strive to deem no more than one-third of your standards as “priority.” Prioritizing helps us identify where to focus most of our instructional time, not all of our instructional time.  

Arrange Effectively 

Now that you have identified priority standards or priority concepts arrange your course’s other standards around those priorities. This arrangement should build or spiral progressively so that students can apply their understanding to units throughout the year. Arrange your standards based on their connection to the priorities you’ve identified for your course. As you go along, it may help to cut and paste or otherwise manipulate the text of the standards, like bolding or highlighting, so it is easy to distinguish your priorities and see how the other standards relate to them.   

Keep in mind that standards might not remain in a linear sequence like they are listed on the curriculum documents. This process might require us to rethink how we arrange or structure our units to best form a comprehensive journey for students. This process aims to make the standards more manageable to work with and meaningful for the student journey. 

Supplement Strategically 

As course designers, we have to determine which concepts and competencies from our modern literacies will best supplement our content to add relevance and authenticity to our units while at the same time leaving room for flexibility and responsiveness to students’ interests.  

  • At what point in the year are students most ready for these concepts?  
  • Where does the content of your course best support your modern literacy goals? 
  • Will it work best to establish a baseline understanding of your modern literacy concepts upfront, or does it make more sense to introduce each idea gradually? 
  • How should student understanding of these concepts and competencies evolve throughout the year? 

Flow Cohesively 

Now it’s time to create a cohesive flow for our students’ journey.  As we reconceptualize our curriculum’s order, we must take a step back and take a zoomed-out view. Situating learning in authentic contexts and weaving a common conceptual thread between each unit is a powerful way to provide momentum and meaning to a course.  

What separates this step from the traditional pacing guide is again a simple shift in mindset. We are still mapping out the order of units based on the school calendar. However, instead of moving from one disparate chunk to the next, we intentionally plan a journey that is aligned and flows cohesively. This allows students to see how their learning is connected and has grown throughout the year. 

As we move away from the era of stringent and linear standardized testing and toward an unknown future, this vision will become the focal point of curriculum, not one-off tests. This paradigm shift might feel disorienting at first, but we believe it will ultimately be liberating for teachers.  

Story of Your Course 

Once we have created a logical flow to our course by placing units into an intentional sequence where they build from one another, we can frame this flow in terms of a story or narrative. This helps us communicate the big picture of the course to students in a way that is accessible and meaningful. 

The story of our course allows us to show students that learning is not linear; it occurs through a complex set of experiences that require us to question what we understand, persevere as we experience confusion or cognitive dissonance, and ultimately gain new understandings. The story of our course can take a narrative or visual format, for templates and ideas go to www.learningthattransfers.com. The questions below might help you consider how to create a visual representation or articulate the ‘moral’ of your story? 

Brainstorming Ways to Share the Story of Your Course With Students

 

Along with a visual depiction of your course, distilling your story into a single line, or perhaps two can serve as a powerful compass for the course. The story requires us to take a big picture approach to planning rather than starting at the unit level. Suppose we never stop to question why specific topics or standards are bundled together or to reconsider the order in which we teach them. In that case, we may be missing key opportunities to improve the structure of our courses. With transfer in mind, we can create a meaningful journey for students and teachers alike. And encapsulating this journey in stories, visuals, and “morals” can help us convey the journey simply and powerfully to a wide range of stakeholders. 

For more strategies that will help you teach for transfer, check out Learning That Transfers by Julie Stern, Krista Ferraro, Kayla Duncan, and Trevor Aleo. 

Written by

Julie Stern is the best-selling author of Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Elementary and Secondary, Visible Learning for Social Studies, and Learning That Transfers. She is the thought leader behind the global workshop series Making Sense of Learning Transfer, and is a certified trainer in Visible Learning Plus. Her passion is synthesizing the best of education research into practical tools that support educators in breaking free of the industrial model of schooling and moving toward teaching and learning that promotes sustainability, equity, and well-being. She is a James Madison Constitutional Fellow and taught social studies for many years in Washington, DC and her native Louisiana. Julie moves internationally every few years with her husband, a US diplomat, and her two young sons. Her website is www.edtosavetheworld.com.   Krista Ferraro is a history teacher and department head at Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts. Her passions include civic education, social justice, and preparing students for effective global citizenship. Previously, she served as Deputy Director of Public Policy and Curriculum Innovation at Chavez Schools in Washington, DC, where she also taught history and public policy courses. Her published works include the bestselling Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Elementary and Secondary. Krista holds bachelor’s degrees in American Studies and Spanish from Cornell University and a Master of Arts in Teaching from American University. She is also an alumna of Teach for America.   Kayla Duncan is a personalized instruction coach for Forsyth County Schools in Cumming, Georgia. Her passion centers around empowering student voice through meaningful, authentic experiences and increased ownership. Kayla currently supports personalized learning schools in creating their new vision for education through the design thinking process. She believes the voices of students and the community should drive what happens in the school building. Before her coaching role, Kayla taught elementary physical education and middle grades mathematics. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from the University of Georgia, a Master of Arts in Mathematics Education from Western Governors University, and an Educational Specialist in Learning, Design, and Technology from the University of Georgia. Kayla is pursuing a Doctor of Education in School Improvement from the University of West Georgia and hopes to use this new knowledge to propel schools toward innovative visions for education. Kayla resides in Georgia with her husband, a fellow educator, and their fourteen-year-old dog Georgie   Trevor Aleo is a middle school English teacher in Wilton, Connecticut where he designs meaningful learning experiences while reading and writing alongside his students. Prior to his current position, he taught high school and was a grade level lead in Prince William County, Virginia. In addition to leading teams at his own school, he’s drafted curriculum at the district level, created instructional resources for the Virginia Department of Education, and presented at local, state, and national conferences. He believes education should help people become better sense makers and story tellers and is a passionate believer in pedagogies that align with those values. Growing up in a house of teachers, he developed a love of learning that continues to serve as the driving force behind all his work. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Arts in Teaching from James Madison University and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Learning Design and Leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Trevor currently resides in Fairfield, Connecticut with his amazing wife Lindsey and will be welcoming a son into the world somewhere around the release of this book.

Latest comments

  • This enhanced oxygenation promotes endurance and stamina, enabling people to coach tougher and longer.
    Additionally, Trenbolone additionally enhances nutrient efficiency by growing the body’s capability to extract
    and utilize vitamins from the food regimen, optimizing the gas out
    there for muscle growth and performance. There’s no set safe number of epidural steroid injections you could have over your lifetime.

    Your doctor likely will limit the number to 2 to a few per 12 months to lower your danger of
    significant unwanted side effects, such as weakening the bones
    in your backbone as nicely as the muscular tissues near it.
    Depending on your case, your doctor could provide you with steroid injections together with ache medications, anti-inflammatory
    drugs, physical remedy, occupational remedy, or
    gadgets similar to canes and braces.
    Additionally, we now have found Anavar’s unwanted facet
    effects to be much less toxic than these of other
    steroids, with females commonly reporting no main unwanted facet effects in therapeutic
    doses. Our feminine patients commonly choose Anavar’s oral nature somewhat than having to inject.

    Compared with by no means customers, men who once used
    steroids had a lot decrease concentrations of INSL3. The longer the lads had used steroids, the lower the levels,
    the study found. “During the mid-’90s, I went on the DL seven instances and missed 228 video games over 5 years,”
    McGwire mentioned.
    Additionally, it could aid the development of
    the general physique composition of customers for a defined,
    leaner, and fuller-looking physique. No surprises here as we begin the record with testosterone, which is often utilized by
    bodybuilders throughout their first steroid cycle
    with different steroids or dietary supplements. Anabolic steroids are very effective for building muscle mass; nonetheless, it is very important perceive the function that genetics, vitamin, and exercises additionally contribute to a person’s transformation. McGwire stated he also used human development hormone, and he did not know if his use of
    performance-enhancing medicine contributed to a variety of the injuries that led to his retirement, at age
    38, in 2001.
    Moreover, Trenbolone stimulates lipolysis, the breakdown of stored fat cells,
    releasing fatty acids into the bloodstream to be used as
    a source of energy. This process specifically targets cussed
    fat deposits, such as these found in the abdomen, hips, and thighs, resulting in a extra toned and sculpted appearance.
    Anabolic steroids you’re taking by mouth can be found in pill or capsule kind.
    Once your breast tissue expands, it’ll never return to its original size, Dr.
    Zwibel says. Getting sufficient sleep, minimizing stress, and generally living a wholesome way of life will also
    help a user’s outcomes on trenbolone. Genetics, diet, way of life, exercises, and cycle protocol will all
    influence a person’s trenbolone results. Before signing off, we’d strongly suggest consulting a health care provider before utilizing any kind of steroid to make sure you don’t harm your health.

    It stimulates protein synthesis, which is the method by which cells
    build proteins and restore muscle tissue. With enhanced protein synthesis, the physique is ready to create
    new muscle fibers and repair any harm caused by intense workouts, leading to accelerated muscle growth.
    Browse four,267 anabolic steroids photos and images
    out there, or start a model new search to discover extra
    photos and images. The formation of male breast tissues, or
    “man boobs,” as they’re commonly known, is brought on because of gynecomastia.
    This process occurs when the testosterone from anabolic steroids enters your body and converts into estrogen via a chemical response known as aromatization. You might notice some of your hair thinning inside weeks or months after starting steroids.

    Oral steroids must be taken with food and different medicines that additionally
    irritate the stomach, corresponding to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine (NSAIDs), prevented.
    Thus, depending on what steroid is used, individuals might expertise
    a easy and bloated look or an excessively dry and ripped one.
    Thus, steroid vs hormone abuse (albeit related
    to bodily fitness) is similar to different drug use in the
    sense that it triggers reward neurotransmitters within the brain.
    Browse 154 inhaled steroids pictures and images available, or start a
    new search to discover more photos and images. Browse
    665 steroid hormones photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more
    photos and pictures. Female steroid customers could
    expertise the opposite side effects, as their breast tissue will shrink
    in size. There definitely will be a threshold in regard
    to the utmost amount of lean muscle a human can carry with out using anabolic steroids.

    Thus, such a stack can be considered unsuitable and unnecessary for health-conscious bodybuilders.
    Clenbuterol, albeit not a steroid per se, is a really effective sympathomimetic drug or
    stimulant compound that assists rapid weight loss when combined with androgenic steroids through the slicing phase.

    Such is its efficiency that many customers have been efficiently able to burn stubborn belly and arm fat by utilizing this compound for a brief cycle of only 2 to four weeks.
    Moreover, you will need to consider the potential unfavorable well being impacts of anabolic steroids.
    Regardless Of enhancements in physique composition, there can be underlying cardiac or hepatic harm occurring that we
    often detect.

  • It’s important to analysis the authorized status of steroid use in your nation and to
    acquire steroids solely by way of legal means.
    The natty has to put in way more work, which is why I respect individuals who stay natural for the rest of their entire lives, nonetheless
    grinding away at that one pound of muscle
    for that year. I recommend no one truly to ever touch PEDs personally, as a bodybuilder.
    I realized that there is a lot more to life than just my body — well being, my mental health, non secular
    health, my family that I by no means thought-about.
    It Is why I’m not Michael Jordan playing basketball or your high pro bodybuilders.

    This is because of a stimulating effect on hepatic lipase in the
    liver, inflicting substantial alterations in cholesterol levels.
    In many places, anabolic steroids symptoms; health.bg, steroids
    are categorised as managed substances, making their
    purchase and use without a prescription illegal.
    Users ought to be aware of local legal guidelines and rules surrounding steroid use to keep away from
    authorized repercussions. Anabolic steroids could be administered in various types, together with
    oral pills, injectable solutions, and topical gels.
    For athletes, increasing muscle mass may promote strength, which
    might improve strength-based sports efficiency.
    There’s so much that goes behind the scenes with using steroids
    for building muscle that individuals do not realize.
    AASs travel by way of the bloodstream to the muscle tissue,
    the place they bind to an androgen receptor.
    HGH stimulates your cell metabolism and liver-insulin-protein manufacturing.

    I always encourage my shoppers who are available
    with low testosterone to strive meals like ginger, oysters,
    pomegranates, green leafy greens, fish oil, onions, and extra-virgin olive oil.
    I’ve seen them do wonders on their overall well being and in regards to
    boosting natural testosterone manufacturing [14]. However the positive aspects aren’t worth the danger on account of the
    various side effects of steroids. Anabolic steroids are designed
    to increase your testosterone ranges by giving your body an external
    supply of testosterone (known as exogenous testosterone).

    Before we get into the science of how steroids help grow muscle mass, we need to
    perceive how testosterone plays a job within the course of.

    Average positive aspects can vary from 10 to twenty pounds of lean muscle over an 8-week cycle,
    although this can range broadly primarily based on particular person components corresponding
    to genetics, food regimen, and train. Before diving into the results of Anavar 50 mg, it’s
    crucial to understand what Anavar is and how it works.
    Anavar is a synthetic anabolic steroid that was initially
    developed to treat situations like Turner syndrome in females and to assist in restoration from burns, amongst
    other medical makes use of. Its anabolic properties, which promote tissue development and repair, have made
    it in style amongst athletes and bodybuilders trying to improve
    their performance and physique. A bulking stack combines the most effective steroids to maximize muscle development, strength,
    and restoration. Whereas individual steroids like
    Dbol, Trenbolone, Deca Durabolin, and Testosterone deliver nice results on their very
    own, stacking them creates a synergistic effect that takes your gains to the next
    level.
    These can embody pimples, hair loss, mood swings, and extra critical well being points
    such as liver injury and heart illness. It’s essential to make use of steroids under the steerage of a medical
    skilled and to observe beneficial dosages and cycles to attenuate these risks.
    Steroids work by binding to androgen receptors in the body, which are responsible for regulating the body’s hormonal response.
    This results in a rise in protein synthesis, in addition to
    an increased manufacturing of progress hormone and insulin-like development issue.
    Additionally, steroids cut back the quantity of cortisol in the physique, which
    is a hormone that breaks down muscle tissue.

    The distinctive mix of potent elements also accelerates the fat-burning course of in the body,
    reduces bodily pain, and enhances the quicker restoration course of after intense training periods.
    Steroids are synthetic substances that mimic the consequences of hormones naturally produced
    within the body. The commonest kind used for
    muscle constructing is anabolic steroids, which are derivatives of testosterone.

    When endeavor intensive bodybuilding and other exercise,
    your skeletal system comes under plenty of stress.
    Enhancing and maintaining bone power helps your body
    assist the load you raise and the elevated muscle you
    will achieve. Many people use steroids in excessive doses, far more than the physique
    would naturally.
    The main causes of Dianabol’s cardiotoxicity are water retention and the stimulation of the hepatic lipase enzyme within the liver.
    We have discovered Anavar’s hepatic results to be less poisonous compared to other oral steroids.
    Novices frequently employ the aforementioned cycle to enhance their energy and muscle hypertrophy.
    Newbies commonly inject testosterone cypionate and enanthate due
    to their prolonged esters, which eliminate the necessity for frequent administrations.

    Deca enhances joint well being while selling lean muscle gains, and Dbol jumpstarts the cycle with fast results.

    Steroids like Clenbuterol, Anavar, and Winstrol are particularly efficient for chopping as a
    result of they target fat loss with out sacrificing hard-earned muscle.
    They also increase metabolic price, serving to your body burn more energy all through the day—even at rest.
    Additionally, steroids promote vascularity and a dry, aesthetic appearance by reducing water retention and
    emphasizing muscle definition. Anavar, like Winstrol, is one of the few oral steroids that can produce lean muscle
    positive aspects whereas simultaneously stripping fats. The odds of injury occurring on Superdrol are excessive compared to
    different anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS), as a outcome of strength levels
    typically growing drastically in a short space of time.
    Thus, bodybuilders ought to be cautious concerning lifting as heavy as potential on Superdrol, with
    a few of our patients experiencing ruptured hernias and requiring emergency medical surgical procedure.

leave a comment