LEARNING-FOCUSED and the Performance-Based Classroom

Carol Gardner
Dec 01, 2008

LEARNING-FOCUSED recently received the following e-mail: "We had a discussion in our Fine Arts Department meeting this morning about how much of this model we can adopt. Some felt that the hands-on and performance-based subjects that we teach don't fit this model as well as it fits the content areas. Can you offer any light on this model and its relevance to our subject areas?"

The irony of this letter is that performance-based subjects by their very nature use a framework for learning that moves students through the levels of acquisition, extending thinking and authentic use.  In addition, performance-based teachers are masters at being goal-oriented and in designing instruction for distributed practice. Graphic organizers that show the steps in a process have long been included in texts and manuals that teach performance skills. It is often helpful though to see examples specific to content areas to help understand how the model "looks" in that particular area. Notice in the following lesson how the art teacher incorporates and connects exemplary instructional practices using an essential question, a motivational activating strategy, vocabulary development, collaborative pairs, a graphic organizer to guide a process, distributed guided practice, and a summarizing strategy where students answer the essential question.

LEQ: How do artists use overlapping to create an illusion of depth?

Activating:  Introduce vocabulary: background, foreground, middle ground using a word picture. Show illustrations from the book Harriet and the Promised Land by Jacob Lawrence and have collaborative pairs identify the items that are in the background, middle ground and foreground.
 Teaching: Display flow chart of steps in creating a collage. Model and think aloud about each step. As each step is modeled have students complete that component.

Summarizing: Students attach a sticky note to explain the techniques that were used to create depth and use in sharing their artwork in a small group.

We have witnessed hundreds of vocational, arts, technology, and other performance-based subject area teachers adapt the LEARNING-FOCUSED Model in their classes and experience great success. We often find that teachers of performance-based courses are the first to recognize the connected strategies of Learning-Focused as really good teaching that matches what they are instructing perfectly.

Thanks to Linda Blake of Pasco County, FL for collaborating and providing feedback in the development of this article.