Bill edited The Eighty Minute Challenge

Teachers should use tangible evidence -- observations, the experience and expertise of a team's teachers, data from team-based common assessments, data from end of grade exams or districtwide benchmarks, input and feedback collected from community stakeholders -- to identify learning targets that are truly essential. What's more, teams must be ready to leave content from the required curricula OFF of their list of essential learning targets. The simple truth is that teachers are already abandoning content during the course of the school year by stressing some objectives over others. This step in the eighty minute challenge is about making decisions about what to teach together.
Useful Resources:
The Identifying Essential Learning Targets handout is designed to help teachers identify truly essential outcomes for an upcoming unit.
The Deconstructing Learning Targets handout is designed to help teachers identify the critical elements required in order to master complex standards.
This Deconstructing Learning Targets document is being used by the teachers in the Fremont Unified School district of California.
The Essential Standard Chart is designed to help learning teams think through how essential standards will be taught and tested.
Step 2: Writing I Can Statements
(Estimated time commitment: 10 minutes)
Once learning teams have identified a set of 5-8 essential learning targets for an upcoming unit, the next step is to rewrite those learning targets in student-friendly language. By rewriting learning targets in student friendly language, teachers can easily communicate learning expectations to the students in their classrooms on a daily basis. Similarly, by rewriting learning targets in student friendly language, teachers can easily communicate learning expectations to other interested stakeholders -- think parents, practitioners in other subject areas, special educators.
The Converting Learning Targets into I Can Statements handout is designed to help teachers turn complex objectives into language that students can understand.
Step 3: Developing Student Unit Overview Sheets
(Estimated time commitment: 30 minutes)
Once teachers have identified essential outcomes and rewritten those outcomes in student-friendly language, they need to develop a handout that can be used by students to track progress towards mastering those outcomes over the course of a unit. When used regularly, these handouts can become a valuable communication tool that keep parents tuned in to the progress that their students are making, keep teachers focused on the objectives that matter the most for each unit, and remind students that THEY should be assessing their own learning during the course of a unit as well.
School in Burlington, Vermont and the Fremont Unified School Districtfor sharing their unit
Ecosystems Unit Overview Sheet
Revised Ecosystems Unit Overview Sheet
Atoms Unit Overview Sheet
Fourth Grade - Place Value, Addition, Subtraction
Samples of Elementary Unit Overview Sheets
Kindergarten Learning Cards
Sample of Completed Unit Overview Sheet

from Digitally Speaking
http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/The%20Eighty%20Minute%20Challenge