USER Stage 1: Understand

Learning Blog #7:  What aspects of the Understand phase do you feel most and least confident about? Describe an "aha" moment you had this week, if any. 

First of all, I love the way Char Booth sets up the chapter on her USER instructional design model.  As I mentioned in my last post, I, too, have seem my fair share of "instructional acronyms" and will admit, like Booth, to rolling my eyes at mention of another one.  When she states, "it is with only a small amount of irony that I present the USER method," I was at least willing to read on. I also really like her analogy of the ID model as a road map.  A good ID model should point you in the right direction, tell you where you will end up, but leave the specific route up to you.  The routes can and should vary depending on a myriad of factors: the schedule, the materials available, the students' abilities and needs, the physical space, even the teacher's mood, and the list goes on.  I think this is the part of teaching that comes with experience: the intuitiveness to know which route is best in any given situation, and the willingness (and ability) to change routes--even while in the middle of the journey.

The first step in Booth's USER map is to Understand.  She says we need to "investigate the learning scenario" by first, identifying the problem: what is the challenge the learners face, and how can we help them meet it; then, analyze the scenario in order to facilitate a positive experience.  The first task seems fairly simple at first glance--but boy, can it get complicated! In a high school at least, there are many, many standards educators have to help students meet.  At the recent MLA conference, I went to a session addressing Minnesota's Common Core ELA standards and how school library media specialists might incorporate these into their lessons.  Cory Stai from the MDE provided the history and philosophy behind these new standards and explained their vertical alignment, then Sara Swenson, the media specialist from Edina High School, shared some best practices.

Stai stated that one of the goals when creating the Common Core was to reduce the number of standards for students.  He also admitted they may have failed in meeting that goal.  There are over 43 standards students must meet.  And that's not all.  In addition to the CC standards, Minnesota has added several of its own, and on top of that, each school district adds more. When Swenson admitted that her school focuses on only a handful of these--what they call "power standards," Stai emphatically replied that this is not, in fact, best practice: the MDE expects us to teach ALL of the standards.  Well, I have to side with Swenson on this one.  Like students who freeze up when they encounter "information overload," teachers do too.  They have to do a bit of triage with all of the standards.  Determining what is most important for students to learn, and the best way to teach it: that's the real challenge for those of us working on the front lines every day.