Small World Consulting

The content (DCIs) in our science standards is dense. There are very often multiple ideas packed into a single sentence in a DCI – even in kindergarten. When working on assessment development with educators, the first thing we do is to make sense of the many discrete ideas packed into the DCIs in our performance expectations (PEs). In my opinion, this step is not optional. It makes sure we are on the right track with our learning and assessment targets and – perhaps more importantly – it makes lesson, storyline and assessment development and rubric development so very much easier. 

It is a pretty straightforward process. As a team (if you have one : ), tease apart the sentences in the DCI and identify “assessable” learning targets. I also refer to these as “discrete ideas” or “manageable chunks.” Ideally, this work already happened during the unpacking and unit development / planning process (but in my experience . . . : ). 

Above is a snip from my work with a grade 1 unit (Patterns in the Sky) and below is a snip from some DCI unpacking work I did with an amazing grade 5 team at IS Bangkok in the service of assessment development. The left hand column contains the DCIs from the units. On the right are discrete and assessable concepts from those DCIs.  Once we finished this work we were much better prepared to develop the assessments, track the learning formatively and develop rubrics for students to self assess and educators to use as well. Without this work, we would have been lost.  I think the example is pretty self-explanatory, but certainly feel free to get in touch with any questions.