Answering Prompts 1a & 1b of the Planning Commentary
Rubric One is scored with Prompt 1 of the Planning Commentary. Most handbooks have 3 parts to Prompt 1. The prompt asks you to do these things:
Prompt 1a: This prompt asks you to describe your Central Focus. To learn about Central Focus read this. If you're Elementary Literacy, read this.
Prompt 1b: This prompt asks you to describe how your standards and objectives are going to address the SSE (subject specific emphasis). (1b)
Prompt 1c: Explain how your lessons build on each other to make connections between your SSE.
Rubric One: Planning for [content] Learning evaluates, "how a candidate's plans build a learning segment of three to five lessons around a central focus." (Understanding Rubric Level Progressions). Rubric One is used to evaluate your alignment of standards, objectives, tasks, and materials as well as how well your learning segment is logically sequenced and organized.
If you'd like a product that will help you plan your learning segment, you should check out my Learning Progression Organizers that you can find in my TPT store. CLICK HERE.
Prompts 1a and 1b are important in setting the stage and demonstrating that you understand alignment. You need to make sure that your answers to Prompt 1a and 1b show these things:
Your standards, objectives, and lessons must be aligned. This means that everything is going to be addressing the same or similar learning outcomes.
You must make clear connections between your objectives/lesson and your Subject Specific Emphasis (SSE) In this video I talk in detail about how to plan with your SSE in mind.
The video below explains to you how to address Prompts 1a and 1b. It is beneficial for any Elementary, Middle, K-12, or Secondary handbook.
Secondary Ed and Middle Grades English handbooks have another question in prompt 1 (1b) where they ask you to describe the text that you will be using for your learning segment.
Early Childhood has an additional prompt (1d) which addresses the physical environment of the children's classroom.
Answering Prompt 1c - the Key to Rubric 1
The key to performing well on Rubric 1 is to do a thorough job of answering Prompt 1c. The bulk of what you write for Prompt 1 should be in 1c. Don't be afraid to write an entire page for just prompt 1c.
To perform at a level 3 on Rubric 1, you must describe
how your plans for instruction build on each other to support student learning of your subject specific emphasis. Think about how your plans are sequenced to build on the learning from the previous day.
You need to make explicit connections to your SSE in your commentary response. Scorers are trained NOT to assume anything. You must say it or point it out, even if it seems obvious.
To perform at a level 4 on Rubric 1, you must first reach a level 3 and then your connections need to be clear and consistent. That means that the scorer will base their scoring decision on the how thoroughly you explain the connections for each day of the lesson. Remember: you are explaining to types of connections. First, how the lessons connect. Second, you need to be connecting your activities with your SSE.
To perform at a level 5 on Rubric 1, you must explain how you will use learning tasks and materials to lead students to make clear and consistent connections. This means that you'll want to describe how your lesson plans follow a gradual release of responsibility model with an end goal of students working and thinking at the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy.
This video will work for all handbooks. Although it was originally made for Elementary, I use examples that help Secondary and Middle grades also.
Looking for more support on Task One? Check out my oodles of Task One Support on TPT!
Once you've completed Prompt 1, check your work. I show you how here:
Don't let edTPA Stand in Your Way!
Mamaw Yates
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