“Timeless Essentials” Together in ONE Integrated System!

Transform The Way You Design Learning with Larry Ainsworth's Integrated Teaching and Learning System© -- A Step-by-Step Blueprint for Educational Excellence

I always think it’s essential when introducing any new professional learning practice to busy educators and leaders to first clarify the “why” of the topic in focus, not just the “what” and the “how”. Without a compelling or convincing “why”, the “what” and “how” are usually looked upon as “just one more thing to do” on top of everything else they are already doing.

Here’s the “why” behind my Integrated Teaching and Learning System© (ITLS)—a powerful, step-by-step process I created that unites curriculum, instruction, and assessment into one coherent design to ensure that every standard, lesson, and assessment is aligned and purposeful. Think of this system as a blueprint for building or remodeling your classroom, school, or district curriculum—with each stage purposefully connected to the next. This systematic approach helps educators ensure that all students acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. When teaching and learning are fully integrated, students gain not just knowledge—but lasting understanding.

THE 12 “TIMELESS ESSENTIALS”

My 2024 book series, Integrated Teaching and Learning, presents the “why, what, and how” of twelve “timeless essentials”— indispensable components that make up quality units of study—and the ways they intentionally all fit together within one integrated system. The step-by-step process fully describes and illustrates—with numerous educator-created and A.I.-generated examples across elementary and secondary grades and content areas—how to create new units of study and/or enrich and strengthen the effectiveness of program units by “retrofitting” them with any of these twelve essential elements that may be missing.

CLARITY

Clarity of what educators need to teach and what students need to learn, in each grade from PK-12, begins with a sharp focus on (1) Essential Standards that are collaboratively identified and aligned across the grades by school and/or district educators. (2) “Unwrapping” Essential Standards within each unit of study provides educators with the “gift” of clarity. (3) Student Learning Targets—simply worded essence statements derived from the “unwrapped” Essential Standards provide students with the clarity of what they need to learn—and (4) Success Criteria—performance descriptors that state precisely how students can show that they have "hit" the learning targets. (5) Big Ideas are the “lightbulb moments” of clarity that students experience when they discover for themselves why what they are learning is important.  

ASSESSMENT

Assessment Literacy sets the stage for designing a truly quality assessment that includes all the “timeless essentials”. (6) Essential Questions—a key component of effective assessment design—are open-ended, thought-provoking questions that educators present to students at the beginning of a unit to engage their interest in what they will be learning, as represented in the Student Learning Targets. On the end-of-unit assessment, students respond to the Essential Questions with their corresponding Big Ideas.

Following the “backwards-planning” approach, educators create a blend of (7) Selected-Response and Constructed-Response Questions—intentionally aligned to the rigor of the unit’s “unwrapped” Essential Standards—all for the purpose of gaining accurate, credible evidence of student learning of the Essential Standards. Quality control checks enable educators to critique their end-of-unit assessment before they administer it to their students so they can make any minor revisions to the questions. (8) Scoring Guides--objectively worded success criteria with no vague wording--expedite the scoring or grading of student responses to the constructed-response questions. 

INSTRUCTION

(9) Learning Progressions—the “building blocks” of daily instruction—provide the instructional scaffold from lower-level, but foundational, supporting standards to the more complex “unwrapped” Essential Standards. (10) Quick Progress Checks of student understanding are matched to each day’s lesson-specific Learning Progression. (11) Feedback from students’ responses provide educators with immediate evidence of student learning so they can adjust follow-up instruction during the next class session. When educators also share this same feedback with students, students can see where they need to adjust their learning approaches and what instructional support they need to close the identified learning gaps.  

(12) Standard-Aligned Learning Tasks are interdisciplinary learning experiences in the form of classroom projects (think "project-based learning") that progressively develop and reveal students’ understanding of the “unwrapped” concepts and skills, Student Learning Targets, and Big Ideas that are all derived from the unit’s Essential Standards and supporting standards. These challenging, “hands-on, minds-on”, highly engaging student tasks exercise students’ critical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration, problem-solving skills, and the other attributes that are so necessary for all students to use daily in the real world. They become the “delivery vehicle” for students being actively immersed in their learning of the standards in focus.

WHAT MAKES THIS SYSTEM UNIQUE?

Because these “timeless” essentials have been the mainstay of quality curricula for years, you most likely are already including several of them in your own instruction and assessment practices. What makes this system unique is that it intentionally connects all these essentials together into one cohesive whole. It’s not a complicated task—simply identify any of these elements currently missing from your units of study and then add in those "timeless essentials" so that they complete the fundamentals of a truly integrated teaching and learning system.

KEY BENEFITS OF THE INTEGRATED TEACHING AND LEARNING SYSTEM©:

• A complementary framework applicable to any school or district-adopted curricular program
• Comprehensive system intentionally aligned to state tests for greater student success
• Perfect for educators new to the profession and those in new leadership positions
• Strategic use of A.I. to expedite the creation of “timeless essentials” (see related blog post: https://www.larryainsworth.com/blog/linking-ai-to-timeless-essentials)
• In-person and virtual workshops are available for all “timeless essentials”: https://www.larryainsworth.com/workshops
• “A la carte” option to attend all workshops or only those specific to your needs

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT ITLS:

Click on the link below to read what district leaders, content area coordinators, and educators from school systems across the U.S. are saying about the value and impact the Integrated Teaching and Learning System© is having on their instruction and students’ learning!

https://www.larryainsworth.com/endorsements 

CLARITY PATHWAY RESOURCES

To receive continuing information about all the “timeless essentials” for creating integrated units of study, watch for announcements of our upcoming online ITLS courses here: www.larryainsworth-claritypathway.com/courses  

Also, we create weekly social media posts about the “timeless essentials”. If you’re not already doing so, I hope you’ll consider following me on Facebook, Linked In, and Instagram.

My team and I are always happy to answer any questions you may have about any of the “timeless essentials” presented in the Integrating Teaching and Learning book series and workshops. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Thank you for all you do for the students you serve!