What is a Power Standard?

All ADM teachers are in the process of identifying power standards for each content area.  PLC leaders refer to Power Standard work as the “most significant item for PLCs to consider.”  It is essential in providing students with a “guaranteed and viable” curriculum.  We teach all standards, however some are more important than others and need more time to ensure learning has occurred.  We call these specific outcomes power standards.  Power standards are selected because they prepare students for the next grade level’s learning and are concepts students need to retain as knowledge beyond the current course.

Our teams are committed to implementing interventions when students haven’t grasped the power standards.  Interventions typically look like small group re-teaching time.  Even when the class has moved on from a particular unit/skill of learning, if a student hasn’t grasped a power standard we will continue to use extra minutes to work on those specific standards.   Our goal is learning each power standard by the end of the year and our interventions allow time to continue with this power standard learning.

As we move toward Standards Based Reporting, the power standards will be the key elements that are shared.  Our reporting goal is to share an understanding of how each student is doing with each standard rather than an overall grade.   We are excited about this work and feel confident it is the right direction for the students at ADM.

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