Week 3 – Assignment

Standards Alignment 

[WLO: 5] [CLOs: 2, 4]

Standards are what hold likeminded industries (education, military, corporate, or other) to the same level of accountability. Once a standard is selected, it must then be aligned to the lesson or instruction. All successful instructional settings will align instruction and assessment to the standards. For this assignment, you will discuss the purpose of standards and a learning objectives/outcomes alignment with assessments and lesson plans. You will also summarize the importance of alignment between standards, objectives, assessments within instructional plans.

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as cited in Lopez, 2013)

Prepare

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Chapter 7: Crafting Lessons by Design from Teaching and Learning (Newman, 2019) and Chapter 7: Standards Alignment from No Excuses University (Lopez, 2013).

Reflect 

From your current or desired educational career, reflect on the following as you consider standards alignment:

• The role of lesson planning in standards alignment.
• The daily commitment of aligning standards.
• Pacing versus alignment.
• The NEU four group system of keeping it practical.
• Great standard alignment plus exceptional collaboration will equal great results
• The importance of instructional objectives (learning outcomes) and their key characteristics.
• Lesson plan types.
• Multiple intelligences.

Content Instructions

Compose your paper using APA Style and third-person language. For assistance, you may review the resource

First vs. Third Person. (Links to an external site.)

Your paper should include the following:

Introduction

• Present a thesis statement that focuses on the role of aligning standards to your instruction.
   

  You may review the Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.) resource for additional help.

Body of the Paper

• Summarize how you will ensure that alignment exists within your instruction. 
• Describe the steps you can follow to maintain alignment in your instruction. Summarize why it is important that alignment exists between standards, objectives, assessments and instructional plans.
   

  Describe how you can use NEU’s group system of keeping it practical to maintain alignment.

• Explain how a system of exceptional collaboration as described by NEU promotes quality standards alignment.  
   

  Consider how collaborating with your colleagues can help to ensure your instruction aligns with your standards. 

• Explain the concept of pacing versus alignment. 

  Describe the difference between the two. Why might it be important to know this difference? 

Conclusion

• Summarize how standards alignment might be used in your future work and educational endeavors.

Be sure to support your position with one scholarly and/or credible source, in addition to the No Excuses University (Lopez, 2013), and the Teaching and Learning (Newman, 2019) textbooks (for a total of at least three cited references).

Writing and Formatting Expectations

The Standards Alignment paper

• Must use the attached Week 3 template: The Standards Alignment paper 
• Must be two to three double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Ashford University Writing Center’s APA Style  (Links to an external site.)resource 
• Must include a separate title page with the following: 

  Title of paper
  Student’s name
  Course name and number
  Instructor’s name
  Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to

APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.)

.

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper. 

  For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford University Writing Center resources.

• Must use at least one scholarly and/or credible source in addition to the Teaching and Learning (Newman, 2019) and No Excuses University (Lopez, 2013) textbooks (for a total of at least three cited references). You will use scholarly sources to support your view, your position. Doing this assists in supporting your point of view. 

  The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for his assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.

• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Ashford University Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) 
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Ashford University Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford University Writing Center for specifications.