80 Hour Practicum - Standards and Benchmarks

Week 3: Standards and Benchmarks. How do they affect instruction?  How do students become aware of them?

      Standards and benchmarks affect almost everything about instruction because they tell the teachers, students, parents, and administrators what to teach and what it being taught in the classrooms.  It does not, however, dictate how the teacher teaches the information.  The purpose of standards and benchmarks are to make education consistent across the United States, with the same knowledge expectations.
      Student become aware of these standards and benchmarks through "I can..." statements.  These statements take the technical language of the standards and benchmarks and turns it into student friendly language.  Teachers are often the ones who turn the standards and benchmarks into "I can..."statements.  This is beneficial because the teacher often know their students better than anyone else in the school and therefore will have a good idea of student's vocabulary, prior knowledge, and learning method preferences.  This allows one teacher to write the "I can..." statement one way while another might write it a different way, based on their individual students.  Teacher can then take standards and benchmarks, that are consistent across the board, and still be able to individualize and adapt the standards in order to be an effective teacher.